5/09/2007

Another convert on ending gun free zones

Here is a columnist from Texas:

It’s not often that I agree with Rick Perry or Ann Coulter. In fact, this is the first time.

Commenting on the slaughter at Virginia Tech, Nasty Ann said:

“Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder — concealed-carry laws. A comprehensive study of all public, multiple shootings in America between 1977 and 1999 . . . found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect . . . reducing multiple-shooting attacks by nearly 60 percent.

“How did that deranged loner get a gun into a Gun-Free Zone? By the way, the other major Gun-Free Zone in America is the post office.”

Conservative columnist Michael Reagan bolstered Coulter in a recent column when he said the death toll at VT “could have been substantially lower if it were not for an absurd law that kept the students and faculty from exercising their Constitutional right to protect themselves and others by bearing arms on campus.”

According to John Terry — a defense attorney and former prosecutor who hosts a popular morning call-in talkshow on KGNC-AM in Amarillo — random shooting deaths are down significantly in Texas, following enactment of the state’s concealed-carry statute in October 1991. . . . .


Michael Reagan's piece is here.

Labels:

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Here is the complete text from Ann Coulter's website:

Only one policy has ever been shown to deter mass murder: concealed-carry laws. In a comprehensive study of all public, multiple-shooting incidents in America between 1977 and 1999, the inestimable economists John Lott and Bill Landes found that concealed-carry laws were the only laws that had any beneficial effect.

And the effect was not insignificant. States that allowed citizens to carry concealed handguns reduced multiple-shooting attacks by 60 percent and reduced the death and injury from these attacks by nearly 80 percent.

Can you tell us which study this was, and perhaps a link to it online?

5/09/2007 10:29 AM  
Blogger toyfj40 said...

I hope I'm not "out of context", but the Texas CHL was enacted in early 1996.

here is one reference:
http://www.txchia.org/sturdevant2000.htm

5/09/2007 10:55 AM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Dear Nimrod45:

The paper can be found here:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=272929

Thanks for asking.

5/10/2007 3:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks, John - I'm always on the lookout for new material to clobber the anti's over the head with.

5/10/2007 10:26 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home