New anti-carry editorial in Commercial Appeal

[Seminole]

[redbarron06]

Now they are just being sore loosers.

[johnharris]

Why do they have such a vendetta against gun owners?

[piperfromtn]

I don't know why other than the Lib's are emboldened now that snObama is President.
I did, however, give Chris Peck of the Commercial Appeal the following letter:

Mr. Peck,

As regards permit holders records being made public, you need to take a look at some research that has already been done. That would be "doing it right", as you have said.

I recommend economist John R. Lott, Jr., Dave Kopel, and Dr. Stephen Halbrook among others. Read More Guns, Less Crime, which, I hope you can tell by the title, concludes that more guns reduce crime, rather than cause them. Dr. Lott, a former liberal on gun issues, reached this conclusion by independant research, not ideology. Let me be clear: he was a liberal on gun-issues prior to doing his research, as was I, prior to much study.

Lott's research shows that permit holders are usually the most law-abiding citizens within each state, usually only having a .01% revocation rate among all permit holders within a state. With over 200,000 permits in Tennessee, .01% of that would be 20 people that have, or should have, their permits revoked. With 9 felons and Mr. Somebody-Parked-too-close-to-me-Coleman , that's 10, which is half the average for revocations. The Department of Safety has done well. There are those who lie on applications, after all, even for gun permits and procuring firearms.

However, this statistic of .01% of revocations doesn't mean that the bulk of the permit holders are going to go nuts. That would be tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bath water.

But even with mistakes, statistically, permit holders are still among the most law-abiding citizens in states with CCW's in the entire nation. Here are some pdfs you can look at without having to buy the book:

http://johnrlott.tripod.com/postsbyday/RTCResearch.html.

Questions may be directly funneled to Dr. Lott at:

johnrlott@aol.com


Cordially,
piperfromtn(permit holder for 12 years)

Peck replied:

Again, thanks for the feedback and discussion.

As a newspaper editor for 30 years and as someone who grew up in a family where we had guns and hunted, I'm working hard to understand all the issues that have become tangled up in a very simple proposition of the newspaper posting a public database of permit-to-carry holders in Tennessee.

Obviously, it's really not about the list anymore. The discussion has moved on to being a litmus test for 2nd amendment rights, a flashpoint of larger concerns about identity theft, a way to express deep fears about crime, and it's all wrapped up with a distrust of the media.

My plea now would be for all the folks who are interested in this issue to dial back on the rhetoric and help the media and the public understand true concerns.

I would ask the cooler heads among gun owners to put a damper on the intimidation tactics being used against the newspaper: things like the posting photos of my kids on gun Web sites and putting up maps to my boss's house have no place in this discussion.

We live in a great country. We're part of a great tradition of balancing freedom and responsibility on both the right to bear arms and the right to free speech. Now we're learning about these rights and responsibilities in a digital world.

Let's find some common ground if we can. I appreciate you passing along the information about Dr. Lott's research.




Chris Peck, Editor
The Commercial Appeal
495 Union Ave.
Memphis, TN 38103
peck@commercialappeal.com
901-529-2390

Sorry for the long post. Just thought you might like to see the wienie response I got.

[johnharris]

Very helpful post.

[Spencer]

In reading the comments on the CA's website on this, I noticed several comments about "next they will want to carry in churches" Am I correct that there is nothing in the current law to stop that anyway?

[ProguninTN]