With the rise of mass shootings and violent crimes that have been happening, gun control activists have been pushing their argument harder than ever to create a safer country. Pro-gun activists however feel that in order to create a safer country, the American people need more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens. Criminals do not follow gun laws and most of them do not use registered guns in crimes in the first place. One major focus point for gun enthusiasts is concealed carry. Guns that you can only legally keep inside your home can only do so much for you, as many situations where you might need your gun will occur away from your home. The majority of violent crimes and mass shootings happen away from the home. There needs to be more people on the streets legally practicing their concealed carry rights, provided that they have a permit and completed the classes. Statistics show us that crime rates have dropped in areas that made concealed carry legal. If concealed carry becomes a more common practice, criminals will be at a much greater risk while committing a crime. Concealed carry is important because the American people need to do a better job at protecting themselves and those around them. The people cannot simply rely on police to stop a theft or a mass shooting because the police cannot be everywhere at once. Criminals and shooters will continue to take advantage of the lack of protection the American people provides for themselves and each other.  

Criminologist Cesare Beccaria, in the 18th century, writes:

"False is the idea  ...  that would take fire from men because it burns, and water because one may drown in it  ...  The laws that forbid the carrying of arms are laws of such a nature. They disarm those only who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes. Can it be supposed that those who have the courage to violate the most sacred laws of humanity, the most important of the code, will respect the less important and arbitrary ones, which can be violated with ease and impunity, and which, if strictly obeyed, would put an end to personal liberty. Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides  ... " (Beccaria)

Even though this was written in the 18th century, this quote still fully applies to the modern world today. Although technology and societies change with time, we still live in a world in which it is necessary to be able to protect ourselves from others who do not have a problem with killing you for what you have. This has happened since the beginning of the human race. Beccaria basically says that laws that stop people from carrying weapons do not work. Since the only people that wouldn't follow such laws are the very same people that you need protect yourself against.

In 1987 Florida passed the "shall-issue" law, which requires authorities to issue permits for a concealed weapon to qualifying citizens upon their request (Adelmann). By the year 2000, 28 states in the U.S. began to liberalize their concealed carry laws, and 12 more states joined them in the next 14 years (Yamane). Before this time, it was almost impossible for a regular citizen to be licensed to legally do this. From 2007 to 2011, concealed carry permits in Florida increased by 90%. In that same time period, firearm related violent crimes in Florida dropped by one-third, while violent crime of any kind dropped 26%. (Adelmann). The initial critics of the Florida shall issue law were afraid that Florida's crime would soar and there would be constant gunfights in the streets. As it turned out, "homicide rates dropped faster than the national average and through 1997 only one permit holder of the 350,000 was convicted of homicide. (Adelmann). Proving those who doubted the Florida lawmen wrong, the "shall-issue" law actually ended up making Florida a much safer place to live.

Concealed carry is just one of the many purposes of gun ownership. When looking at all of the places where violent crimes occur, you can see why the concealed carry in public places is important. In 2003 a statistician for the U.S. Department of Justice released a report called Weapon Use and Violent Crime National Crime Victimization Survey, 1993-2001. In it, Craig Perkins reported some of the statistics of the locations of violent crimes. 

The most common locales for armed violence and gun violence were the streets: those away from the victim's home (30% of violence with a weapon and 35% of gun violence) and those at or near the victim's home (27% of armed violence and 25% of gun violence).  Most violence involving a weapon and most firearm violence occurred while the victims were engaged in leisure activities away from home (27% and 27%) and commuting to work (23% and 25%, respectively).  Weapon use varied by type of crime. Offenders had weapons in about half of robberies, a fourth of assaults, and a twelfth of rapes/sexual assaults (Perkins). 

The data collected from this time shows that a large percentage of violent crimes happens away from the victims home, proving that there is a serious need for citizens to be able to legally carry a weapon on their person and outside of their homes. 

Robert Boatman, author of Living With Glocks, has a chapter in his book that talks about why you are socially obliged to carry a gun. Boatman believes that "Only when the custom of carrying a gun once again achieves its deserved high level of social legitimacy and political priority will this country get back on the track of respect for human freedom and dignity that has set it apart from the rest of the world for two centuries" (Boatman). Boatman talks about how the media has made the image of guns and gun ownership into something that makes you a violent person. Most people don't know a lot of the statistics that involve guns and crime. 

The percentage of "Hot burglaries", or burglaries when the victims is home is 59% in England, which has gun-control laws that basically ban any civilian from owning a gun. In the U.S. the rate is 13%. Most criminals in the United States fear robbing houses when the owner is home because of the likelihood of the owner having a gun. Handgun ownership in Britain was banned in 1997. In the following decade, firearm use in crimes in Britain nearly doubled. In 2008 Britain's violent crime rate was five times that of the United States (Gun Facts). Congress released The Citizens' Self Defense Act of 2009, which stated:

Every year, more than 2,400,000 people in the United States use a gun to defend themselves against criminals - or more than 6,500 people a day. This means that, each year, firearms are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of honest citizens than to take lives. Of the 2,400,000 times citizens use their guns to defend themselves every year, 92 percent merely brandish their gun or fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than eight percent of the time does a citizen kill or wound his or her attacker (Bartlett). 

In an article from the Washington Times, it is said that since 2007, the number of concealed handgun permits increased from 4.6 million to over 12.8 million, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center. During this time, murder rates have fall by 25% in the U.S. (Howell). 1.7 million permits were issued in 2014, which was 15.4% more than the year before. In 1996, John Lott and David Mustard, both of whom work for the University of Chicago, found that:

Specifically, they estimate that if those states that did not have shall-issue licensing laws had adopted them, then there would have been 1,570 fewer murders, 4,177 fewer rapes, and over 60,000 fewer aggravated assaults in 1992.They credit shall-issue licensing laws in a state with an 8.5 percent reduction in murders, a 5 percent reduction in rapes, and a 7 percent reduction in aggravated assaults, on average (Cleary & Shapiro, 1999). 

Lott and Mustard predict that if the states that did not adopt shall-issue laws had adopted them in the first place, there would have been la lot less murders, rapes, and assaults in those areas. These assumptions are based off of the observed crime reductions in all of the places that adopted the shall-issue licensing laws. The numbers that they predicted were also based off of the numbers they got from similar areas that had adopted the shall-issue law. 

Many people have come to believe that mass shootings cause an increase in gun sales. Since President Obama was first elected, there has been multiple mass shootings. After almost every one of them, Mr. Obama always calls for more gun control, but the people seem to disagree with him. Gun-control advocates always attempts to use such tragedies like Sandy Hook as an excuse for them to try and argue that gun control is a good thing and can stop this from happening again. A lot of the shooters in these situations were seemingly normal and "easily" obtained a gun because they seemed so normal. This is why gun-control advocates believe that you shouldn't be able to get an "assault rifle" or a certain amount of ammunition. Many of the American people disagree. Many Americans, out of fear or anxiety, purchase guns after these shootings and are afraid of the gun control advocates' proposals, thinking that they better get a firearm while they still can. The highest spike in gun sales was after Sandy Hook in December of 2012. In the following year, more than 21 million background checks were performed, which was more than any other year (Gun Facts). The largest amount of background checks in a year means that the most guns were attempted to be legally bought and sold. Many people find that their background checks do not come through, and are not able to purchase a gun.

The only way to stop mass shootings is by increasing the amount of citizens that legally practice concealed carry. It is a sad truth, but many mentally unstable people will find a way to get a gun. If this person walked into a school with a gun, the police will not get there fast enough to stop them, so someone has to. No one will get there faster than the people already there. If someone with one of these permits had a gun on them in any of the mass shootings in recent years, there would have most likely been a different outcome. In fact, concealed carry has stopped mass violence before; but the stories just do not get the media attention that "successful" mass shootings do. Some examples are: A citizen with a gun stopped a knife-wielding man as he began stabbing people in a Salt Lake City store. Two men retrieved firearms from their cars and stopped a mass murder at the Appalachian School of Law. A citizen took out shooter while police were pinned down in Early, Texas. A citizen stops an apartment shoot-up in Oklahoma City (Gun Facts). 

From 1980 to 2009, gun homicides were 10% higher in states with restrictive concealed carry laws. In Texas, murder rates declined 50% faster than the national average after they passed the shall-issue law. Rapes declined by 90% in the first year of the law being passed. In the second year, rapes fell by 500% and assaults by 250% (Gun Facts).  After concealed carry became legal in Illinois, Chicago saw a major decrease in crime rate. Kelly Riddell of The Washington Post wrote an article about Chicago's decrease in crime. 

Since Illinois started granting concealed carry permits this year, the number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent from last year, according to police department statistics. Reports of burglary and motor vehicle theft are down 20 percent and 26 percent, respectively. In the first quarter, the city's homicide rate was at a 56-year low (Riddell). 

During this time the police didn't change their routine for stopping criminals. By the end of July 2014, the state had issued 68,549 licenses, and the executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association guesses that there should be around 100,000 by the end of the year. In Illinois, a weapons permit costs $600 and 16 hours of classes, yet so many people immediately wanted to get a license (Riddell). 

Armed citizens kill more criminals than the police do. Citizens shoot and kill around 1,500 criminals a year while police shoot 600. Only about 2% of civilians mistakenly shoot innocent people thinking that they were a criminal. This mistake rate for police is 11% (Gun Owners of America). The victims are the ones that are there in that moment. Unless you get lucky and a squad car is down the street, the police might be able to help you. If you had a gun and a phone, which would you reach for first? Armed citizens kill so many more people than police because that is who is there in the moment that matters. This ratio would be even more unbalanced if concealed carry was more common, or even legal in the areas that need it. As of 2008, half a million citizens defend themselves with a gun away from their own home yearly. After the first 15 years that the shall-issue law in Florida was in place, it was found that alligator attacks were more likely than a concealed carry holder committing a crime (229 to 155). Even then, most of these crimes were pretty insignificant; most involved accidentally taking their concealed weapon into a restricted area (Gun Owners of America). 

Another large part of stopping criminals is psychological. When you make it very clear to the public that, for example, every house is legally required to have a gun, or that women in your city have been trained to use a gun and are carrying guns with them (even if none of this is actually true) you are letting the criminals know that the risk just got a lot worse. In 1982, Kennesaw, Georgia made it illegal to not have at least one gun in your home. Household theft fell 89%. In 1966, Orlando's local rape rates fell by nearly 90% because the local media highly publicized a firearms course for women. The Carter Justice Department in 1979 discovered that when women were armed with a gun or a knife only 3% of attempted rapes were successful, but if they weren't, 32% of attempted rapes were successful (Gun Owners of America). 

As long as more and more citizens continue to get permits, crime rates will fall. There is no other immediate solution to stop criminals from obtaining firearms illegally and coming after you. Even if a criminal is just using a knife or a baseball bat, the only way you will even out the disadvantage that the criminal brought to the table is with a gun. It is unreasonable to try and make every adult citizen in the U.S. carry a gun, but it is not unreasonable that 15%-20% of law-abiding citizens without serious offenses on their legal record would carry a gun. There are many reports of permit holders stopping crimes and mass shootings in the past few years but do not get heavily publicized because there isn't enough of a story that the national media wants to share. These events need to be publicized so people can realize that someone just like them stopped a robbery, a rape, a murder, or a school shooting, and all they did was get a license and a gun.

