Pro & Con Quotes: Should Adults Have the Right to Carry a Concealed Handgun?

“Carrying guns in public is a tremendous responsibility. States should set strong minimum standards for carrying concealed guns in public to ensure that people who are too dangerous or irresponsible to carry guns in our communities are blocked from doing so. This can include requiring that a person pass a background check, get a concealed carry permit, and undergo safety training that includes live-fire experience. States can also allow law enforcement to block people who pose a danger to the public from carrying concealed handguns in public. States also decide which out-of-staters may carry concealed handguns within their borders—and they should not allow the carry of guns by people with permits from states with standards weaker than their own.” 

“[V]iolent crime tends to drop in states that enact concealed-carry laws. I imagine that’s because even thugs prefer breathing to being blown away. I hold concealed-carry permits issued by Iowa and Utah, and nearly always carry a loaded handgun — usually, a .380 pocket pistol. I’ve not been victimized since I began carrying. Before that, though, I was hospitalized for two weeks in Washington, D.C., after being brutally mugged. A loaded gun aimed at violent perpetrators facilitates an instant attitude adjustment, and law-abiding, innocent U.S. citizens should be able to protect — with deadly force, if necessary — their lives, property, and the lives of others. With 50-state concealed-carry, some carjackers, muggers, rapists, would-be killers, home invaders and other violence-prone perps, will likely be snuffed out by their intended victims. But where’s the downside? Not all violence is bad, and permanently retiring such vicious reprobates would be good riddance… After all, when attacked by depraved miscreants who threaten innocent lives and personal property, law-abiding Americans should be allowed to take out the trash.”

“The Supreme Court has elucidated that the scope of the Second Amendment is defined by the founding-era understanding of the right, as informed by American history and tradition. A historical analysis shows that both concealed and open carry are protected by the right, and that a government may only restrict one if the other remains available for law-abiding citizens to exercise.”

“Our personal protection is ultimately up to us. That’s why I’m a gun owner, that’s why I have a concealed carry permit, and that’s why tens of millions of Americans have concealed carry permits as well. It’s just common sense… The right of self-defense doesn’t stop at the end of your driveway. That permit should be valid in all 50 states. A driver’s license works in every state, so it’s common sense that a concealed carry permit should work in every state. If we can do that for driving – which is a privilege, not a right – then surely we can do that for concealed carry, which is a right, not a privilege.”

“[A]nyone who wants to obtain a license to carry a concealed weapon should be given one. All states allow for concealed carry, but many states – like California, New Jersey and Maryland – have what are called ‘may issue’ statutes, meaning people who qualify for a license might not be allowed to receive one. In some states, it’s up to county officials to decide who gets to carry a gun inside his or her coat. Here’s reality: A criminal or disturbed person will carry a concealed weapon, licensed or not. Under the universal background check system, anyone walking into a state office seeking a concealed carry permit has already been screened; there’s no reason to deny that person a license if he or she meets the additional requirements.”

“When Right-to-Carry [a concealed handgun] is proposed anywhere, our opponents whip up fear and hysteria about ‘blood in the streets.’ Of course, the mayhem never materializes. When Right-to-Carry passes, only a small percentage of the population applies for a permit. By definition, these people are law-abiding. But that small percentage of the public is enough to change the odds against predatory criminals…

Facts can dispel the fears of legislators, but not those that afflict opponents of self-defense. As I’ve said before, our opponents suffer from a fear of change, a fear of the unknown, and – strangest of all – a fear of their fellow citizens and neighbors…

As we advance the right of self-defense through Right-to-Carry, the only people who should retreat into fear are violent criminals.”

“The new policy in Orange County is worthy of praise, and one the other counties should follow, as the sheriff joins with a majority of state and local law enforcement agencies that allow ‘concealed carry’ under similar provisions.

Thirty-six states, and a number of inland and rural California counties that traditionally have been more permissive in defining a good cause for carrying a concealed gun, are largely not hotbeds of gun crime. In fact, the state with the lowest level of gun murders per capita, according to a 2010 FBI study, was Vermont, whose high court banned requirements on permits for carrying weapons in 1903…

It is reassuring to see the O.C. Sheriff placing the law before political considerations. We hope to see police agencies in neighboring counties soon follow suit.”

“[John] Lott’s work convinces me that the decrease in murder and robbery in states with shall-issue laws, even after controlling statistically for every other cause of crime reduction, is real and significant. Of the many scholars who were given Lott’s data and did their own analyses, most agree with his conclusions. States that passed these laws experienced sharp drops in murder, rape, robbery, and assault, even after allowing for the effects of poverty, unemployment, police arrest rates, and the like. States that did not pass these laws did not show comparable declines. And these declines were not trivial – he is writing about as many as 1,000 fewer murders and rapes and 10,000 few robberies. Carrying concealed guns reduces – it does not increase – the rate of serious crime, and that reduction is vastly greater than the generally trivial effect of gun-carrying on accidental shootings.”

“Ordinary, law-abiding citizens who own handguns and carry licensed, concealed weapons rarely use their guns except in matters of self-defense. Criminals and those who carry illegal and unlicensed firearms are typically those who commit violent crimes. It is a fact that in communities where citizens have been granted licenses to carry concealed weapons and are not restricted from keeping loaded guns in their homes, crime rates drop. Such conditions have proven to be a deterrent to crimes such as home invasions, burglaries, muggings and car-jackings because criminals will not risk being confronted by a victim’s firearm. Tightening laws restricting the use and possession of firearms does not protect average law-abiding citizens; it only puts them at greater risk. Enforcing licensing restrictions, trigger locks, and waiting periods makes it more difficult for law-abiding citizens to defend themselves and as a result encourages criminal activity. Only criminals benefit when ordinary citizens are deprived of their right to own a firearm and protect themselves, their homes, and their families.”

“Declaring a college campus a ‘gun free zone’ may make some people feel safer, but as the April 16, 2007, massacre at Virginia Tech and the February 14, 2008, massacre at Northern Illinois University illustrated, feeling safe is not the same as being safe. Denying licensed individuals the means to defend themselves on college campuses turns institutions of higher learning into supermarkets for would-be rapists and mass murderers.

Current state laws and school policies prohibit licensed, law-abiding citizens from carrying concealed handguns onto college campuses, while doing nothing to disarm individuals not concerned with following the rules. These laws and policies hand armed madmen, like the Virginia Tech and NIU killers, virtual cornucopias of defenseless victims. In the event of a school shooting, students and faculty are left with no recourse but to hide under their desks, hoping to survive until enough police arrive to formulate a plan and storm the building.”

“In recent years a majority of states have passed laws permitting honest citizens to carry concealed weapons, and the results tell us much about self-defense and the responsibility of the average citizen. Once it was passionately argued that such laws would turn minor altercations into bloody shoot-outs; now we know better. Over 1 million Americans have licenses to carry firearms, but firearms misuse by this group has been utterly negligible. Criminologists now debate not how much harm has been caused by concealed-carry laws, but how much good…

[A right to bear arms] says the individual is not simply a helpless bystander in the difficult and dangerous task of ensuring his or her safety. Instead, the citizen is an active participant, an equal partner with the state in ensuring not only his own safety but that of his community. This is a serious right for serious people. It takes the individual from servile dependency on the state to the status of participating citizen, capable of making intelligent choices in defense of one’s life and ultimately one’s freedom. This conception of citizenship recognizes that the ultimate civil right is the right to defend one’s own life, that without that right all other rights are meaningless, and that without the means of self-defense the right to self-defense is but an empty promise.”

“The right to bear arms is more than a Constitutional right: every human being has the natural unalienable right to self-defense… Right to carry laws respect the right to self-defense by allowing individuals to carry concealed firearms for their own protection.

So many liberal politicians and self-appointed experts want to keep honest Americans from having access to firearms, even though, since 2003, in states which allow concealed carry, violent crime rates have been lower than anytime since the mid-1970s. The reverse logic of this ‘knee jerk’ reaction is astounding and has lead to an outright assault on our basic Constitutional and natural rights. These misguided policies to keep firearms out of the hands of law-abiding citizens literally mean a death sentence for thousands of Americans…

Allowing law-abiding people to arm themselves offers more than piece of mind for those individuals – it pays off for everybody through lower crime rates… [S]ince adopting a concealed carry law Florida’s total violent crime rate has dropped 32% and its homicide rate has dropped 58%. Floridians, except for criminals, are safer due to this law.”