You could eliminate every single gun from the streets of the city, and DC would STILL have a murder & crime problem. If, however, you take the criminals off the street, you will NOT have a gun problem. Liberals just can’t seem to grasp such fundamental truths. Guns are just things. Only people can be evil – and THAT is a truth that liberals don’t WANT to believe.

Prior to 1968 you could buy guns in Gas Stations and Hardware Stores, and by Mail with no background check at all – and crime was low. Guns don’t cause crime. Ineffective and failed liberal social policy that treats criminals as ‘victims of society’ is why we have much higher crime now.

In short: It’s the criminals stupid!

I similarly am sorry that you find it objectionable that I think there’s reasonable tradeoffs in weapony carrying. I lived in Florida when the carry laws changed in a similar way to allow people to strap their six-shooter visibly to their hip and go where they want, and without fail where they went were places where the only people who felt threatened were the ones there already when those wanna-be Wyatt Earps walked in with their hand cannons. I will go so far as to say I think you’re being disingenuous if you claim you really feel the need to be publicly strapped when you head out for your double soy latte.

Personally I don’t take issue with concealed carry laws as they’re currently implemented, except so far as I think the standard for them – training on lawful use of deadly force, some actual hand-on firearm instruction – really should just be the standard for basic gun ownership.

Oh – and your definition of a “reasonable use” is exactly the kind of idiocy that leads to parsing the time, place, and manner of personal defense. If it’s such a marvelously barbaric idea that offends sensibilities – why don’t I hear of the wave of…gee, I don’t know – problems as a result?

Just meaningless statistics that can’t stand up to the weight of irrefutable emotion, I suppose.

Then again, that’s always been the problem with the anti-control crowd – they’re more than willing to embrace statistics about concealed carry with no concern that correlation does not necessarily equal causation and they’re madly in love with anecdotal examples of unusual cases, such as the poor, poor woman who stayed with an abusive husband for a dozen years and was then unable to get herself a gun in under 72 hours right after she left him.

The prohibitionists are similarly deluded in thinking they can keep guns off the street when there’s already three ‘in the wild’ for every man, woman and child in the US, but at least they don’t serenade you with meaningless statistics and nonsensical anecdotes.

These debates tend to be silly because gun laws tend to follow how much crime there is in an area and not the other way around. Areas with low crime rates don’t bother with the inconvienence of strictly regulating gun ownership. Areas with high crime rates, like DC, do bother. That’s often futile, especially in the case when the area is surrounded by more gun-friendly areas, but anyway it doesn’t prove anything to then point at them still having a high rate of crime.

Do me a favor, Wayan – go dig deep and find me the crime rate of concealed carry permit holders. Then find some instances where same universe of people were involved in a police shooting.

THEN, go find some data regarding that same group of folks actually assisted police.

And Tom – you forgot the best part of VA gun ownership laws – open carry. That’s right. With no permit at all, you may legally carry a gun openly – on that hip Tiff mentioned. Granted, you still can’t carry it in certain places (namely, places with alcohol) – but you can damn well go to Starbucks strapped if you want.

No complaints about the Wild West in Virginia…

Right, no guns are made in DC, either on a grand scale or in backyard forges. Yet there are many gun-related homicides in the city. Unless guns are falling from the sky, they are imported into DC.

But is VA or MD to blame alone? Not quite. Guns are probably imported along the same lines as drugs, and supply comes from NYC and Miami as much as anywhere else.

Is MD or VA safer because of its gun laws? Nope. Look at your & and Mark’s stats. Its not gun laws that make safe areas. Its high employment, wealth, and relative social equality that creates safe areas.

If we had that in DC, it would be a safe city no matter the gun laws. Gun laws mainly keep idiots (vs. criminals) from owning guns. Idiots who don’t child proof guns and whip them out in the wrong places for the wrong reasons, or allow others to do so.

This fact is lost on leftists however who somehow think all gun violence will stop by making guns illegal. As if the criminals are going to say “I’m gonna go shoot someone. Oh never mind, that’s illegal. I guess I’ll just go watch TV instead.”