Concealed Carry Prophets of Doom Guessed Wrong

Those who favor stricter gun control in Illinois have operated on the premise -- I believe in good faith -- that allowing the concealed carry of firearms will result in greater gun violence because those with "concealed carry permits" (CCPs) will misuse their weapons.

On July 9, 2013, Illinois became the last state to permit concealed carry -- only after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit declared unconstitutional Illinois law prohibiting concealed carry as violation of the Second Amendment. The court gave the legislature 180 days to craft a bill permitting individuals to carry firearms outside the home for self-defense.

Three years have now passed since concealed carry became Illinois law. Because I could recall no news accounts of Illinois CCPs being convicted of firearm violence, I went to the internet to see if there were accounts I might have missed.


The first article I found was a Chicago Tribune piece captioned "In Illinois, concealed carry of guns has quiet first year; expansion sought." To my surprise, the article did not list a single incident of criminal misuse of a firearm by a CCP. The worst "problem" cited involved an incident wherein a CCP lawfully tried to foil an armed robbery by shooting at the fleeing robber in Crestwood, forcing a responding police officer to duck for cover.

As of May 31, 2016, IllinoisCarry states that about 178,000 CCPs are in effect in Illinois. ( illinoiscarry.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=61841) So how many of those 178,000 CCPs have been convicted of gun violence or murder?

In checking the internet, I can find only one episode of gun violence by an Illinois CCP -- a murder/suicide. Given the lockstep predisposition of the liberal press to lobby for "stricter gun control," it is inconceivable that if CCPs were using their weapons for murder and violent crimes, that the internet would not be awash with such reports.

Corroborating my research, Chuck Goudie of the ABC-7 Chicago I-Team wrote on Aug. 14, 2015,

"There are now more than 120,000 CCPs in Illinois and it is extremely rare to hear about a permit holder being involved in any violent crime, much less a murder. Friday's (murder/suicide) was the first of 2015 according to police officials, if not the first at all here since Illinois passed concealed carry."

That translates to 1 violent crime per 120,000 CCPs. This is consistent with a July 16, 2015 Report from the Crime Prevention Research Center, entitled "Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States," which concludes, "Permit Holders are Extremely Law-abiding."

"Permit holders on rare occasion violate the law. But in order to truly appreciate how incredibly rare those problems are, one needs to remember that there are over 12.8 million CCPs in the US. Indeed, it is impossible to think of any other group in the US who is anywhere near as law-abiding ...

"Firearms violations among police occur at a rate of 16.5 per 100,000 officers. Combining the data for CCPs, in Florida and Texas, it is only 2.4 per 100,000. That is only 1/7th the rate for police officers. The data are similar in other states." (crimeresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Report-from-the-Crime-Prevention-Research-Center-Final.pdf)

In Illinois the standards for CCP are rigorous. The applicant, among other things, must have no felony or misdemeanor convictions for crimes of violence, no pending warrants, a full background check, 16 hours of firearms training by a state police-approved instructor, and local law enforcement officers must have no objection.

Additionally, the new law clarifies and expands the reporting requirements relating to individuals who have severe mental health problems. Physicians, clinical psychologists, and qualified examiners must report when they determine that someone poses a clear and present danger, is developmentally disabled, or may be otherwise disqualified from possessing a FOID Card. (For a good summary of the requirements, see: chicagotribune.com/news/ct-obama-gun-control-illinois-impact-met-20160105-9-story.html)


Posted: Wednesday, July 9, 2016 - QCOline.com


Copyright 2016, John Donald O'Shea

Right to Keep, Bear Arms Pre-existed Constitution

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary for the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." -- Second Amendment

I recently found myself verbally mugged in a parking lot by a liberal friend, incensed by the U.S. Supreme Court's holding in D.C. v Heller. He insisted five of the conservative members ignored "the normal rules of statutory construction," and in effect overruled the court's own prior precedents construing the Second Amendment.

He specifically objected to the Heller court's holding that "the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed," was an individual right.

He argued the court utterly and erroneously ignored the first clause of the amendment which states "A well regulated Militia, [is] necessary for the security of a free State."

I tried to argue Heller was the most thorough and carefully written opinion the court had ever handed down construing the amendment, and that the case had its underpinnings not in "the normal rules of statutory construction" (a legal device of last resort), but rather the "historical experience" of the English people, including the American colonists, in 1789 and before.

Excerpts from Heller illustrate my points.

The court first noted the phrase "the right of the people" appears three times in the Bill of Rights. It is found in the First, Second and Fourth Amendments, with a similar phrase in the Ninth Amendment. In the court's words, "Nowhere else in the Constitution does a 'right' attributed to 'the people' refer to anything other than an individual right."

The court then looked at history: "the "militia" in colonial America consisted of a subset of 'the people' -- those who were male, able bodied and within a certain age range."

The court pointed out, "the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty."

The point being, if they were expected to bring the weapons "they possessed at home," they must have had a right to possess the weapons they were bringing.

It then said, "Reading the Second Amendment as protecting only the right to 'keep and bear Arms' in an organized militia therefore fits poorly with the operative clause's description of the holder of that right as 'the people.' We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans."

The court moved from parsing words about the individual's right to keep and bear arms and looked at early state constitutions.

"Between 1789 and 1820, nine States adopted Second Amendment analogues. Four of them -- Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, and Missouri -- referred to the right of the people to 'bear arms in defence of themselves and the State.' Another three States -- Mississippi, Connecticut, and Alabama -- used the even more individualistic phrasing that each citizen has the 'right to bear arms in defence of himself and the State.

"It is clear from those formulations that 'bear arms' did not refer only to carrying a weapon in an organized military unit."

The court then looked to the historical background that preceded the Second Amendment, and one of its own early pronouncements.

"This meaning is strongly confirmed by the historical background of the Second Amendment. We look to this because it has always been widely understood that the Second Amendment, like the First and Fourth Amendments, codified a pre-existing right. The very text of the Second Amendment implicitly recognizes the pre-existence of the right and declares only that it 'shall not be infringed.' As we said in United States v. Cruikshank (1876), '[t]his is not a right granted by the Constitution. Neither is it in any manner dependent upon that instrument for its existence. The Second amendment declares that it shall not be infringed.'"

The Court examined what the English people -- including American colonists -- believed their rights to be before our Constitution was adopted in 1789.

"By the time of the founding, the right to have arms had become fundamental for English subjects. ... Blackstone, whose works, we have said, 'constituted the preeminent authority on English law for the founding generation,'... cited the arms provision of the [English] Bill of Rights as one of the fundamental rights of Englishmen. ..." It was, he said, 'the natural right of resistance and self-preservation,' ... and 'the right of having and using arms for self-preservation and defence,' ... Thus, the right secured in 1689 [in the English Bill of Rights] as a result of the Stuarts' abuses was by the time of the founding understood to be an individual right protecting against both public and private violence."

"And, of course, what the Stuarts had tried to do to their political enemies, George III had tried to do to the colonists. In the tumultuous decades of the 1760s and 1770s, the Crown began to disarm inhabitants of the most rebellious areas. That provoked polemical reactions by Americans invoking their rights as Englishmen to keep arms. A New York article of April 1769 said that '[i]t is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the [English] Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence.' ... They understood the right to enable individuals to defend themselves. ... Americans understood the 'right of self-preservation' as permitting a citizen to 'repe[l] force by force' when 'the intervention of society in his behalf, may be too late to prevent an injury.'"

Heller's underpinnings are primarily found in the historical experience of the English people, including their American colonists -- not in "rules of statutory construction." These people believed they had a historical right to keep and bear arms for their own defense.The Second Amendment says "right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." You can't infringe a right unless it already exists.

The bottom line, in the words of the Heller majority, is this:

"If ... the Second Amendment right is no more than the right to keep and use weapons as a member of an organized militia, [and] the organized militia is the sole institutional beneficiary of the Second Amendment's guarantee -- it does not assure the existence of a 'citizens' militia' as a safeguard against [governmental] tyranny. ...

"For Congress retains plenary authority to organize the militia, which must include the authority to say who will belong to the organized force. ... It guarantees a select militia of the sort the Stuart kings found useful, but not the people's militia that was the concern of the founding generation. "

Posted Online:  May 15, 2013, 11:00 - Quad-Cities Online
by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2013
John Donald O'Shea

Will Concealed Carry Laws Make Illinois Any Safer?

Illinois state Rep. La Shawn Ford, an African-American, third-term Democrat representing a West Chicago District, told the Chicago Sun-Times on Sept, 8 that he would support "concealed carry" legislation if it came up for a vote in the General Assembly. Rep. Ford said he "knows it sounds bad," but that his constituents desire to legally protect themselves with firearms.

"They're saying we're making criminals out of law-abiding citizens. They're saying you're only siding with the criminals because the criminals could care less about the law."

In the years that I served in the state's attorney's office and on the bench I never questioned the wisdom of outlawing the carrying of concealed weapons. I simply accepted the premise that if more people carried guns, it would translate into more gun violence. Mass killings over the past few years have caused me to begin to question my long-held beliefs.

-- On Nov. 5, 2009, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire with an automatic pistol at the Soldier Readiness Center of Fort Hood, Texas, killing 13 people and wounding 30 others. The shootings ended only when Hasan was shot and disabled by civilian police officer Sgt. Mark Todd. The soldier-victims were unarmed.

-- On Jan. 8, 2011, 19 people were shot by Jared Loughner, 22, as Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords met with her constituents. Six, including U. S. District Judge John M. Roll, and Christina Green, 9, were killed, and Rep. Giffords was shot through the head. The victims were unarmed.

-- On July 22, 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, 32, shot to death 69 people in Norway at a youth retreat. One of the first victims was an unarmed off-duty police officer hired to provide security. Police in Norway generally do not carry firearms. Breivik's victims were unarmed.

-- On Sept. 7, 2011, Edwardo Sencion of Carson City killed four and wounded eight others at an IHOP restaurant. Three of the dead were members of the Nevada National Guard. The victims were unarmed.

Our Second Amendment provides, "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."

I have previously written why I think we have a Second Amendment. "At the time the Second Amendment was adopted in 1791, no city in the United States had an organized police force. ...

"The counties had their sheriffs, but in an era before telephones, a sheriff at the county seat miles away afforded the frontiersman scant protection against marauding Indians, burglars and robbers. In the backwoods, a family's personal security rested on their ownership of guns. That was the patent reality in 1791."

In 1850, a French economist and philosopher, Frederic Bastiat, in his treatise "The Law," succinctly explained that the law's first purpose is "self defense."

"What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

"Each of us has a natural right -- from God -- to defend his person, his liberty, and his property.

"If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the ... collective right -- is based on the individual right."

With that in mind, I am now asking myself:

First, assuming all four incidents might have occurred even if the carrying of concealed weapons had been permitted, had there been people carrying concealed, would one or more of gunmen have been shot before they killed and wounded as many as they did?

Second, if a person intent on committing mass murder knows that a number of his intended victims or bystanders -- especially those standing behind him -- may be armed, might he be deterred?

Third, if citizens competently trained in firearm safety and without criminal records or mental health problems are allowed to carry concealed, is their any real likelihood that unlawful shootings will increase due to misuse of that privilege?

Fourth, are there reliable statistic in states which permit concealed carry to answer my third query?

The Chicago Redeye has written that there were 34 gun homicides in Chicago during July 2011. Would gang members be as inclined to use guns if they knew their intended victims or bystanders might also be carrying concealed?

I don't know the answer to these questions. But I do know that unarmed citizens have little or no chance against heavily armed criminals bent on committing mass murder. When somebody like Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan uses a semi-automatic pistol that can fire 20 rounds from a clip as fast as he can squeeze the trigger, the police are probably not going to arrive in time to prevent the slaughter. And as long as smaller clips can be exchanged almost instantaneously, banning 20-round clips won't solve the problems.

At the time the 2nd Amendment was adopted, pistols and long guns generally fired a single shot. Reloading gave others time to counterattack or run. Modern automatic and semiautomatic weapons deprive victims of those options. And every one of the incidents cited demonstrates that having armed police just minutes away is not enough.

I can't think of any meaningful alternative except concealed carry to stop mass murders. Can you? Washington D.C. and Chicago have a strict handgun bans. Law-abiding citizens comply, but the criminals don't. Would concealed carry cut down on murders and mass murder, or just lead to more shootings? I don't know. Do you?

I have no desire to carry a weapon, but do I have any right to tell one of Rep. Ford's constituents, living in a crime ridden part of Chicago, that they are wrong to want protection?

Posted Online: Oct. 11, 2011, 3:47 pm - Quad-Cities Online

by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2011, John Donald O'Shea