- In America’s endless debate about gun rights versus public safety, there should be no disputing the hard facts in a new report on gunshot fatalities showing that at least 722 nonself-defense deaths since 2007 were attributable to individuals with legal permits to carry concealed weapons.
I'm not sure what to make of these numbers. It comes out to less than 100 per year. There were 26 lightning deaths in the US in 2011, a record low. I understand it's only a partial survey, but I have no concept of what fraction of deaths are included, and the lower bound they present doesn't impress me. It also seems disingenuous to include suicides in the top-level figure. Even if you believe gun control is a good way to improve quality of life for the suicidal, concealed carry is completely extraneous. edit: I previously wrote "less than 10 per year". 100 per year is a little more impressive.
Some alarming statistics. As a resident of the UK I'm intrinsically a little ignorant on the general social mindset of North Americans on guns. How conscious is the average person of the fact that the person right next to them could potentially be harboring a firearm? Does it cause any anxiety to you in your day to day lives? Is it something you kind of just ignore because that's how it is? I only have a scattering of mainstream media reports to build my opinion upon, so I'd appreciate some views from my fellow Hubskiens from across the pond.
Everyone I know who CC's trains at the range several times a year and are the kind of people I think of as steady and sober minded. I don't consider them a threat and if they needed to pull their gun it'd be for the right reasons. I'm sure there are a lot of Yahoo's but I don't know those people and don't keep them in mind.
It might be useful to consider that you are self-selecting the pool of CC people you know, so your sample of the behaviour of CC people is 'tainted' (for want of a better word) by the choices you make in who you want to know long-term, or even well enough to be aware if they are likely to CC.
I'll be honest the thought doesn't ever cross my mind. However, this may vary region to region as I believe gun use and carrying may be more popular in certain states - not to make an unbacked iudgment call, but I believe it's more common in the South.