Reviewing Michigan's Concealed Handgun Law After 10 years

As I have often written, after a right-to-carry law has been passed people often wonder what all the fuss was all about. Here is an interesting front page article in the Detroit Free Press by Dawson Bell and Gina Damron. People should read the entire article, but here is a portion of it. The quotes on people who thought that there were going to be big problems and then they turned out not be reads as if it could have been part of More Guns, Less Crime.

Ten years after Michigan made it much easier for its citizens to get a license to carry a concealed gun, predictions of widespread lawless behavior and bloodshed have failed to materialize.

Today, nearly 276,000 -- or about four out of every 100 eligible adult Michiganders -- are licensed.

That's more than twice the number predicted when the debate raged over whether Michigan should join the growing ranks of so-called "shall issue" states. . .

Michigan's prosecuting attorneys association led the push against changing the law in 2001. Today, Ionia County Prosecutor Ronald Schafer, president of the group, says it's hard to remember what the fuss was about. . . .

"There haven't been as many incidents as we feared," said Tom Hendrickson, executive director of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police, which vigorously opposed the reforms.

"It really hasn't been an issue ... because so many superseding issues came along," he said. "In the total scheme of things, it just faded away." . . .

Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon said he had been opposed to the law and was concerned about flooding the streets with guns. But, he said, "it has turned out not as bad as I suspected that it would." . . .

An interactive version of the map shown below can be obtained here. Wayne county has issued permits to about 4.2 percent of adults. Livingston county is at 5.1 percent. Schoolcraft county in the Northern Peninsula is at 6.3 percent. Montmorency is at 6.94 percent.