North Carolina's 10 Year Anniversary of RTC

In a little more than a month - Dec. 1, to be exact - North Carolina's concealed handgun law will be 10 years old. Both gun control advocates and gun rights supporters say that the law, which allows law-abiding citizens to obtain a permit to carry concealed handguns under certain circumstances, has been a success.

However, they give different reasons for saying the law has worked well.

Lisa Price, executive director of North Carolinians Against Gun Violence, said that is because her organization and other gun control advocates fought to make sure that certain restrictions and training requirements were included in the law.

Paul Valone, president of Grass Roots North Carolina, a gun-rights organization, said that many of the restrictions placed in the state's concealed handgun law actually hinder its effectiveness.

"We think it's worked exactly as it was intended," he said. "We now have tens of thousands of permit holders and very few cases of demonstrated abuse." . . .

Of course, the evidence doesn't support that training lowers the crime rate even more, in fact, the opposite is true.