CCW State Law Comparisons - Conclusion (table of contents, next page)

 

Conclusion

By comparing the body of law for the 30 states that already have right-to-carry with the provisions proposed for Missouri with Proposition B, it can be accurately concluded that Missouri will have one of the most strict concealed firearm laws in the nation. This comparison brings into doubt the claims of opponents to Proposition B who state that it will be "the fifth lax law" in the nation. With the information contained in this comparison, one is left to wonder the methodology used by opponents to create and support their claim.

While doing this comparison, some other interesting facts regarding Proposition B was uncovered.

Missouri has debated passage of a Right-to-Carry law for seven years at publication time. In the time frame that Missouri has debated this law, fourteen states have debated and passed this law. Opponents to personal defense laws have used the same arguments in the fourteen states in which these laws have been debated. The actual experiences of states that have passed personal defense laws has unanimously been the exact opposite of the results predicted by opponents of these laws.

It is perplexing to the author how the speculations of opponents of personal defense laws are treated as fact when they have been resoundingly proven to be wrong in so many other states.

This is especially interesting since the provisions of the laws passed in these fourteen states are generally strict when compared to other states that have had right-to-carry laws in effect for some time. However, they too vary in some significant respects from each other and Proposition B.

There appears to be no tie to success of a personal defense law based on how strict that law is rated. For instance, personal defense laws that have been in effect the longest generally have the least requirements for issuance, the lowest fees, the least numbers of restricted places of carry and little or no training requirement. Yet the available information from these "lax" states does not indicate that more lenient requirements results in more misadventures with permit holders. In fact, there appears to be no evidence to suggest that the strictness level of a personal defense laws has any impact on the behavior of permit holders. However, more strict laws do appear to decrease the number of citizens that are allowed to defend themselves while outside the home.

For each state with a personal defense concealed firearm law in force today, whether it is high on the strictness scale or low, there is no evidence to indicate that issuing permits to citizens to carry concealed firearms has resulted in any overall negative impact. To the contrary, the evidence seems to suggest that permit holders are safe and responsible while they carry their firearms. There is also evidence that demonstrates that permit holders do save lives.

Proposition B, as this study shows, can demonstrably be proven by its construction to be a very strict personal defense, concealed firearm law.

 

[COVER] [CONTENTS] [TITLE] [DEDICATION] [ABSTRACT] [INTRO] [METHOD] [HOW TO USE]
[BASICS123Chart] [CHECKChart] [PERMITTED WEAPONSChart] [PERMIT FORM12, Chart] [TRAINING12Chart] [QUALIFICATIONSChart] [PROHIBITED PLACES123Chart] [FL, TX and VA123]
[CONCLUSION]

copyright Greg Jeffery, 1999, all rights reserved


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