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Shall IssueNovember 1997 With more than 800,000 hunters stalking the Michigan woods this month we will be fielding a larger armed force than can be mustered by all but two nations on earth. Most will be carrying high-power, semi-automatic rifles functionally indistinguishable from the recently banned, so-called "assault weapons." A good many will be more hung over than a Russian private after a weekend pass. To Sarah Brady and her gun-controlling compatriots the stage is set for chaos, the scene inevitable: On a crisp, clear, autumn morning in the middle of 'a beautiful peninsula' with nary so much as a four-pointer in sight, the crack of a dry twig alerts all within earshot. "Michigan," comes a call from out of the wild. "Michigan State," someone shouts back across the open field. "Go Blue!" persists the orange-clad partisan. "Spartans!" cries the arch-rival fan -- punctuated by a couple of gun shots just for emphasis. According to organizations like Handgun Control, Inc., hunting season in Michigan provides all of the conditions to turn our state into a free-fire zone. This scenario and ones like it ought to be inevitable. It is the primary rationale for their opposition to the idea that law-abiding people be permitted to carry the means to defend themselves in their daily lives. Unfortunately for the gun control crowd, the whole notion is not only intuitively silly, there are growing volumes of hard research to prove it. In 1987 Florida became the first of a string of states to radically change the procedure for obtaining a permit to carry a concealed weapon to what has come to be called a "Shall Issue" system. Essentially, the burden of proof was put back on the state to show why an application ought to be denied rather than requiring an honest, sane, adult citizen to come to the government on his knees begging for permission like a teenager trying to get dad's car keys. There were the inevitable predictions of carnage in the streets. The Dade County Sheriff appeared on network newscasts invoking "Wild West" metaphors and prophesying shootouts over traffic accidents. Lucky for the sheriff we no longer follow the biblical injunction to put false prophets to death. In the decade since then Florida has issued 300,000 carry permits under the new system. They have revoked 24 -- less than one tenth of one percent -- and half of those revocations were for nothing more than carrying a weapon into places, such as airports, where it is still prohibited. No licensee has either killed or been killed in a shootout with another ordinary citizen. Over a traffic accident or anything else. Nor has any of the other predicted mayhem among the otherwise law-abiding ever materialized as a result of their having a gun handy. The story of the armed citizen shooting a hapless family member mistaken for an intruder may be popular with the press, but the fact is that such incidents account for only 2% of accidental shootings. By way of comparison, police have an error rate roughly 11 times higher. And, lurid TV ads notwithstanding, neither are young children dying every day after finding a parent's handgun. 1991 National Safety Council figures show that handgun accidents killed 10 to 15 children under the age of 6 -- roughly the same number poisoned by finding and ingesting iron supplements. The fact is that anti-gun advocacy groups have engaged in a systematic disinformation campaign, claiming, for example, that "most murders are committed by previously law-abiding people." Study after study has shown that this is simply not true. In fact 90% of murderers have prior adult criminal records with an average criminal career of six or more years that includes four major felony arrests. Contrary to a couple of other popular myths, handguns are taken from armed citizens and used against them less 1% of the time, and victims who meekly submit are injured twice as often as those who resist with a firearm. All of this is not to suggest that the change to a "Shall Issue" system has not had any effect. In an exhaustive study released earlier this year out of the University of Chicago law professor John Lott and economist David Mustard studied the affect on crime right down to the county level in states that have liberalized their concealed carry laws. The correlation between allowing honest people to carry the means to defend themselves and a noticeable drop in violent crime is undeniable. The murder rate dropped 8%, assaults 7%, forcible rape 5%, and robbery 2%. The Dade County Sheriff is no doubt chagrined by the fact that the affect on robbery in his jurisdiction would probably have been greater except that the crooks, not being complete fools, have taken to picking on tourists. After a century of strictly rationing concealed carry permits, a total of 30 states have now switched to the "Shall Issue" system. (One state, Vermont, never did require a permit to carry a concealed weapon; strange that all these years we never heard Burlington compared with Dodge City.) Michigan is one of the 19 holdout states, though three county prosecutors, including Macomb's Carl Marlinga, have now instructed their representatives on county gun boards to adopt a de facto "Shall Issue" position. Legislation to bring Michigan into the mainstream, bottled up in committee last year by a supposedly pro-gun Republican who, courtesy of the BrassRoots lobbying group, found himself looking for other opportunities after the fall election, should come up again this session. Barring some high profile incident the Brady Bunch could use to forestall it, chances for passage are fairly good. And, if the results in other states are any indication, Michigan should realize a significant drop in violent crime as a result. But I suppose there is always the possibility that some hunter, trudging through the backwoods somewhere across our state may shout out "Notre Dame!" and get caught in a cross-fire. Tim O'Brien is the Executive Director of the Libertarian Party of Michigan.
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