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Private Citizens Carrying Guns Commit Fewer Crimes Than Cops

by Douglas Ankney

According to a study by the Crime Prevention and Research Center (“CPRC”), citizens with a permit to carry a concealed weapon “are convicted of misdemeanors and felonies at less than a sixth of the rate for police officers.” John R. Lott, Jr., president of CPRC, said.

“With about 685,464 full-time police officers in the U.S. from 2005 to 2007, we find that there were about 103 crimes per hundred thousand officers.” He added, “For the U.S. population as a whole, the crime rate was 37 times higher—3,813 per hundred thousand people.” 

Lott noted that the statistics for police were admittedly low due to under-reporting and the fact that police officers do not arrest each other for many crimes for which average citizens are arrested. 

But, “between October 1, 1987, and June 30, 2017, Florida revoked 11,189 concealed-handgun permits for misdemeanors and felonies,” according to the report. “This is an annual revocation rate of about 10.4 permits per 100,000.” 

In Texas in 2016, there were “148 permit holders … convicted of a felony or misdemeanor—a conviction rate of 12.3 per 100,000,” Lott noted. “Among police, firearms violations occur at a rate of 16.5 per 100,000 officers. Among permit holders in Florida and Texas, the rate is only 2.4 per 100,000.”

The study also revealed that “between 2012 and 2018, the percent of women with permits grew 111% faster than for men, and the percent of blacks with permits grew 20% faster than for whites.” 

Unfortunately, blacks who lawfully carry guns are often shot and killed by police. Notably, Jemel Roberson and EJ Bradford—two black men who stopped mass shootings with their legal firearms—were gunned down by police arriving on the scene. 

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Source: thefreethoughtproject.com

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