Police data: Packing heat doesn’t pack on crimes
By:Chad Halcom, Macomb Daily December 09, 2001
Fear of more crime with more gun permits appears unfounded.
One side has argued the new concealed weapons law would turn
Michigan into the Old West, where sidearms are everywhere and
disputes that normally employ insults or blows instead erupt in gunfire.
The other side championed deterrence; law-abiding citizens would be
safer, and criminals may be less inclined to strike if their victims might
return fire.
But the data for weapons permits and violent crime don’t support either
view. In fact, one may not affect the other at all.
“It’s partly a concern with the proliferation of all guns,” said
Michael
Hodge, attorney for the now-inactive People Who Care About Kids,
which opposed the new law.
“You may carry a gun in your car, which you’re allowed to do with a
concealed weapons permit, and in a moment of road rage you reach out
and plug the guy next to you. That’s an extreme, but it makes sense if
more guns are around, somehow more will get used.”
But state and local law enforcement data indicate Macomb County
falls in the middle of the pack among counties its size for armed
robberies, homicides and felony weapons offenses – despite having six
times the number of concealed weapon permits.
In other words, greater permission to carry concealed weapons
doesn’t add to the crime problem, but it doesn’t reduce it either.
“It seems to be a nullity both ways,” said Macomb County Prosecutor
Carl Marlinga. “People sometimes forget that these CCW permits have
no effect at all on the number of guns out there. It only affects where
some people can carry some of those guns.”
Between October 1997 and October 2001, guns killed 31 of the 76
reported homicide victims in Macomb County, or 40 percent. That’s well
below the state average of 67 percent, according to the Michigan State
Police criminal statistics bureau.
Of those 31 victims, four allegedly died at the hands of people
licensed to carry concealed weapons – and two of those were armed
suspects shot by police in a confrontation.
A third was a shopkeeper who killed a suspect conducting an armed
robbery at his store, and officials found no wrongdoing. Only one, an
alleged love-triangle killing from Eastpointe now pending in the courts,
qualified as a crime.
“Those statistics would reflect an indication that crime is down
among Macomb County residents, and allowing more CCW permits for
them won’t make it increase,” said state Sen. Alan Sanborn, R-
Richmond, an original co-sponsor of the new law on CCW permits. “I’ve
always been a strong advocate of the right to obtain CCW permits for
people who obtain and use them properly.”
Since July 1, a new state law validated by the Michigan Supreme
Court makes permits to carry concealed weapons widely accessible.
Under the new law, gun boards cannot deny applications to anyone over
age 21 with no criminal record and no history of mental illness, without a
compelling legal reason.
That change caused tens of thousands of people to seek permits
statewide, and with the typical 4- to 6-month processing time some of
those permits should be reaching residents now.
“It’s not usually for hunting. Nearly 100 percent of the people I teach
for CCWs want them for personal protection,” said Jim Binder, a
certified firearms instructor at Double Action Indoor Shooting Center
and Gun Shop in Madison Heights.
Binder, who teaches the state-required training course for CCW
applicants, said he had a huge surge in business after the law change.
He can name people who stopped a crime or saved their lives with
CCWs, but he agrees most people who get them never had cause to use a
gun before and probably won’t.
“I’ve had my CCW going back to the ’70s, and I’ve never once had to
pull my gun on someone,” he said. “You should always flee first. It’s not
real macho, but when your other choices will put you in a courtroom, the
hospital or the grave, running’s a good choice.”
Not everyone is so assured that people will be responsible.
“The laws on self-defense and deadly force are pretty complicated for
lawyers and judges, people who are educated and trained in them,” said
Kent County Prosecutor William Forsyth. “And I fear we will have
people who believe they were acting in self-defense when they do
something, but will find out that under the law they were not.”
Forsyth was one of at least 10 county prosecutors statewide to resign
their seats on gun boards in protest over the new law this summer.
Before the change his county was very stringent in issuing permits, he
said. They went largely to retired police officers or trained people in
high-risk security jobs.
Incidentally, Kent County also has a smaller portion of some crimes
related to firearms than Macomb County. Guns account for only six of its
18 homicides last year. But Forsyth concedes that CCW permit policies
probably aren’t the reason.
“There are many other factors that probably have more to do with it,
like employment rates, the demographics, the economy or other things,
that are very different downstate,” he said.
In sharp contrast to Kent, Macomb County has maintained a “shall
issue” permit policy, which is philosophically closest to the new state
law.
Officials said 12,000 to 13,000 people in Macomb County hold CCW
permits – less than 2 percent of the county’s population. That’s six times
more than any other county had before the law changed.
In robberies, Macomb appears below the threshold of Kent, Genesee,
Oakland and other counties of similar size.
Local police reported 383 incidents to the state in 2000, compared to
Kent’s 740, Genesee’s 737 and Oakland’s 703. But Macomb reported
385 “weapons cases,” about 100 more than each of the other three.
A state official who compiled those records said the difference
between Macomb and the others is most likely a “misreporting” by local
agencies. Some may be counting an armed robbery with a handgun as a
“weapons case” instead of robbery.
Weapons cases are supposed to be offenses like illegal sale or
transport of firearms, a felon in illegal possession of a firearm or
reckless
discharge of a firearm.
Sanborn and Marlinga agreed on one thing, however: CCW permits
probably don’t affect crime rates because lawbreakers and criminals are
two distinct groups of people, and what one group does with its guns has
little effect on the other.

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