LETTER: Trolley Sq. no support for guns

To the editor:

This letter is in response to Jacob White’s defense of civilian concealed weapons (CCW) permits. I, too, feel nothing but the deepest sorrow for the victims of Monday’s shooting in Salt Lake City, but exploiting this terrible event to further the case for concealed weapons is dangerous and misleading. I agree with Mr. White that the off-duty police officer’s presence was invaluable in ending the rampage at Trolley Square, but this hardly proves that people armed with CCWs contribute to a safer society.

First, the threat was eliminated by a police officer who had, at minimum, fourteen weeks training with firearms and one year in a police academy. A study conducted by the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence found that the vast majority of people who own CCW permits receive significantly less training than even a novice police recruit. Additionally, the trend amongst state governments has been towards “shall issue” CCW laws which force police agencies to issue permits to anyone who meets requirements which rarely exclude people with even violent and/or drug-related criminal convictions. Furthermore, the Violence Policy Center released a study in 2000 which concluded that the weapon-related violence arrest rate is 66% higher amongst owners of CCW permits than the general adult populace.

The Brady Center also found three of the eleven states with the most relaxed CCW laws saw an increase in violent crime by 27% when the rest of the nation was seeing reductions by 37% in the 1990s. While the people at Trolley Square were lucky to have a fully trained police officer on hand, it fails to prove how allowing civilians to carry concealed weapons does anything other than increase and exacerbate incidents of criminal behavior.

In a perfect world, where permits are (to quote Jacob) “issued to citizens responsible enough to have one,” concealed weapons licenses might do some good. But, we don’t live in a perfect world and even the most responsible people can get drunk and lose their temper in a situation where a gun will only cause things to go from bad to worse.

Mike Smith