The Case for Arming Yourself

John R. Lott Jr. is the author of the recently revised third edition of “More Guns, Less Crime.”

One can only hope that Saturday’s horrible attack in Tucson encourages more citizens to carry concealed handguns. Fortunately, one shopper in the Walgreen’s near Representative Giffords’ event was Joseph Zamudio. When he heard the shots he ran toward them because his legally carried 9 mm semiautomatic offered him protection. Joe helped tackle the killer before more harm occurred. Too bad someone like him wasn’t even closer to the crime.

But Joe showed that law-abiding citizens with concealed handguns can exercise excellent judgment in when is the right time to use their guns. When it made more sense for him to tackle the attacker, he did that rather than use his gun. Everything from public school shootings to church shootings has been stopped by citizens with concealed handguns.

The police are important -- the single most important factor for reducing crime. But the police realize that they virtually always arrive on the crime scene after the crime has been committed.

Just as you can deter criminals with higher arrest or conviction rates, letting victims defend themselves also deters criminals. With concealed handguns, criminals don't know whether victim can defend themselves until they attack. More people legally carrying a concealed handgun means that someone can get to the crime scene faster.

As in other states, those legally carrying concealed handguns have been extremely responsible. There were 99,370 active permits in Arizona as of Dec. 1, 2007. During 2007, 33 permits were revoked for any reason — a 0.03% rate — cases that did not involve using the gun to harm others. Gun control groups claim that permit holders are dangerous, but they count defensive gun uses as bad killings.

With the "sunset" of the Assault Weapons Ban in 2004, gun control groups predicted murder would soar. The opposite happened. Re-instituting parts of the ban limiting clip size won’t lower crime. No research by criminologists or economists found that the ban or clip size restrictions reduced crime. Clips are easily made small metal boxes. The benefits of not exchanging the clips is true for law-abiding citizens, police and criminals. If only criminals get the larger clips, they have an advantage.