TexasCHLforum.com

jimlongley wrote:Of course VPC is going to say that Loughner was carrying legally, it would do nothing to advance their agenda if they said otherwise. That he might have been is questionable at best, but the lie has been told, the bell has been rung, and it is loud.

But they wouldn't have been able to get away with that lie if CC still required a permit.

jimlongley wrote:And of course, depending on statistics to help is a double edged blade, all of the statistics in the world fail when faced with the loud emotional bad apple that spoils the entire bushel.

I agree with that as well. However, is that apple made all the more emotional when it was also carrying a gun legally as opposed to illegally? When it is illegal, it's more ammo to show how gun laws don't work. When it's legally then emotion dictates "we fix it".

Pawpaw wrote:If half the criminals in this country spontaneously combusted, the gun-grabbers would rant & rave about how the guns killed all those kids and misguided adults.

When the other half turned in their guns and devoted their lives to Christ, they would rant & rave about how "God and guns" ruined people's lives.

The resulting drop in crime would be attributed to "common sense gun laws".

Right. We are obviously not going to convince Paul Helmke and the like. The broader question is will we be less equipped to win the PR war with the general public when the most notorious killers (think of the name recognition of Cho and Loughner) are no longer illegally carrying guns, but are instead legally carrying.

This is intended to be a thought provoking post. Please don't simply answer of the cuff, but rather take a few moments to consider the question fully. Please feel free to answer whether or not you support permit-less carry and even if you agree with the premise in theory but still support constitutional carry.

It seems that one thing that has worked well in the efforts to re-establish 2A rights within state and local statutes has been the excellent nature and record of CHL holders nationwide. One the easiest to disprove 'fears' is that CHL holders will suddenly flip out and start shooting people. Despite what the VPC publishes, CHL holders have shown themselves to be extremely responsible both with there weapons and in general.

But the two recent mass shootings in Arizona, Jared Lee Loughner and more recently Carey Hal Dyess, have gotten me wondering if premit-less carry laws will muddy the superior statistical picture.

Already, the VPC list Loughner as a "Legal Concealed Handgun Carrier" and the 6 he killed are added to their running "totals". Yet, if those shootings had happened before the recent AZ law change allowing citizens to carry concealed without a permit, that wouldn't be the case. (At least I don't think he had a carry permit.)

So, as more states adopt constitutional carry type laws, it suddenly makes it much easier to lump practically all shooting suspects into the "legally carrying" category. It won't matter then that these people could have/would have still committed the same crimes. The press will still show how they were completely legal up until the moment they pulled the trigger. Could this have a negative impact on the the concept of the armed citizen and on gun laws throughout the nation?