"I think you can look back and say, 'It was a big nothing.' "

[mvccd1000]

Quote from Ionia County Prosecutor Ronald Schafer, president of Michigan's prosecuting attorneys association, regarding the 10-year anniversary of Michigan becoming a shall-issue state.

From The Detroit Free Press (which is usually very anti-gun, pro-control).
http://www.freep.com/article/20110731/NEWS06/107310482/10-years-after-concealed-weapons-law-unclear-why-many-state-were-gun-shy

Schafer said the raging debate that preceded enactment of the new CCW law appears, in retrospect, to have been a little overwrought.

"We were all a little too caught up imagining what might happen," he said.

Sounds like some people here; "A little too caught up in imagining what might happen." :)


Great article at the link, reporting on what DID happen, instead of what the brady group predicted WOULD happen.





Edited to correct quote.

[baldguy]

1. Detroit

http://detroiturbex.com/

http://www.businessinsider.com/abandoned-houses-detroit-2011-2

http://www.100abandonedhouses.com/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703950804575242433435338728.html

And don't even try to pretend that gun violence had nothing to do with it.

[mvccd1000]

3. ???

Had nothing to do with the Detroit being the world center of manufacturing after WWII, and rapidly losing that position as the rest of the world rebuilt from being bombed into the stone ages, nor was the loss of FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND JOBS PER DECADE in Michigan in any part to blame for the sad condition in which we see Detroit today.

I'm sure you're right, though - guns did that.

How fortunate that we have you here; surely you're in a better position to educate us than the Michigan prosecutors and police chiefs quoted in the article about Michigan. :)

[baldguy]

4. There you go pretending.

Detroit has had one of the highest murder rates in the country for just about ten years, and MI has been a "shall issue" state for ten years. That's not a coincidence.

I guess for rural, white, Teabagger-Republican Ionia County, watching the the urban, minority, alien city in their midst implode from economic disaster & violent crime fueled by gun violence is just "a big nothing".

[Name removed]

5. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Euromutt]

7. What do you mean "just about ten years"?

Detroit has been one of the most high-crime cities in the country for decades, well before Michigan adopted "shall issue" and got rid of the "safety inspection" for handguns (which was really about inspecting the skin color of the owner).

[mvccd1000]

8. Quote to refute your point

How well does your argument work when I post a quote by the current Wayne County Sheriff, who is also the former Detroit Police Chief? Perhaps he has more credibility for you than a presumably non-minority prosecutor does?

Wayne County Sheriff Benny Napoleon said he had been opposed to the law and was concerned about flooding the streets with guns. But, he said, "it has turned out not as bad as I suspected that it would."

[PavePusher]

12. Contrast with Chicago/Illinois.

What conclusion do you draw now?

[Union Scribe]

13. You aren't here. You have no idea what the hell you're talking about.

It's funny to see you criticize an outsider for commenting on Detroit while...doing the same, from even further away. Black Detroiters are only recently beginning to arm themselves--now that they legally can--against those elements of their communities which have been armed all along: the criminals.

[one-eyed fat man]

15. You sure have swallowed hard haven't you?

Kilpatrick refused to step down even after he'd been criminally charged. 14,000 text messages revealed that he didn't just have an affair--he paid his friends overtime as bodyguards to help him cover up said affair, and when whistleblowers tried to stop the madness, he had them demoted/fired and lied about it and they sued for $9 million... WHICH THE TAXPAYERS OF DETROIT HAD TO BANKROLL!

Of the people that built Detroit into an economic powerhouse with their sweat, the only ones that are left in the city are retirees living in the homes they bought after WW2. There they sit, prisoners, preyed upon by the young thugs who run the place now.

[gejohnston]

16. That is not even the best part

In a courtroom this morning, Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to two felony counts of obstructing justice by committing perjury. He will spend four months in jail, pay up to $1 million in restitution, and serve five years' probation. He also agreed not to run for office during that five-year span.

In addition, the mayor agreed to a no-contest plea to one count of felonious assault for shoving a sheriff's deputy in July who had tried to serve a subpoena on Kilpatrick's friend. He agreed to serve four months on that charge, too, but it will be served at the same time as his other sentence.

And he is no longer a member of MAIG.


http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080904/NEWS01/309050001
http://www.stopillegalmayors.com/

[AtheistCrusader]

17. Washington State has been shall-issue for 30 years. Explain.

[Euromutt]

18. Fifty years (since 1961)

Typo on your part, I suspect.

[AtheistCrusader]

19. Error, actually.

I thought it was much more recent than that.

[SteveM]

11. You know how it is, "liberals" used to point to the root causes of crime...

and the cycle of poverty: bad education, broken families, poverty, lack of jobs, etc.

Now, it's just guns as the "most concrete" cause.

[Atypical Liberal]

10. What does this have to do with concealed carry holders?

And don't even try to pretend that gun violence had nothing to do with it.

I have no doubt that there is a lot of gun violence in Detroit.

But it isn't caused by many lawful CCW permit holders, which is what the article is about.

What the article points out is the fact, born out by other states' experiences also, that people with CCW permits are hardly ever involved in any kind of crime.

So whether there are lots of hoodlums loose in Detroit is completely beside the point. Unless you are a law-abiding person who wants to visit Detroit, I guess.

[Ready4Change]

14. Detroit had problems LONG before this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ny4a-oxOndo

(A clip from 'Kentucky Fried Movie,' produced in 1977.)

[ileus]

2. It's the same tried and failed scare tactics the antis us anywhere freedoms are expanded.

[Atypical Liberal]

9. More interesting quotes from the article...

"Ten years after Michigan made it much easier for its citizens to get a license to carry a concealed gun, predictions of widespread lawless behavior and bloodshed have failed to materialize.

Today, nearly 276,000 -- or about four out of every 100 eligible adult Michiganders -- are licensed.

...

But violent crimes have been rare among carrying a concealed weapon license holders. Only 2% of license holders have been sanctioned for any kind of misbehavior, State Police records show.

But here is the clincher:

"Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said he has always been a proponent of people being able to protect themselves. The troublemakers, generally, aren't the people who go through the process to legally own and carry a gun -- it's the people who carry illegally who cause problems, he said.

"My position was, and still is, is that the people we have a problem with with guns aren't the people who are willing to follow the law and go through the hoops and training," Bouchard said."]/i]

Which is what I've said all along.

People who are going to the trouble to get CCW permits are hyper-law abiding people. They are willing to jump through many bureaucratic hoops and out-of-pocket expenses to engage in the completely voluntary activity of carrying a gun. They know what is at stake if they break laws, but more than this, they tend to believe in law and order in the first place, which is why they follow the gun laws so meticulously themselves.