The Success of Concealed Carry

When the Founding Fathers included the Second Amendment in the Constitution, their purpose was to secure a fundamental, God-given right. They explicitly stated that the government had no authority to take it away: “The right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

This month, we’ll mark the 250th anniversary of “the shot heard ‘round the world” at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. The colonists took up arms against the British because the British came to confiscate their arms. The Founders recognized that no people is free without the ability to defend themselves — primarily against tyrannical government.
It’s also true that people are endowed by their Creator with the right of self-defense against criminal assault. It’s not exactly surprising that people with concealed carry permits or who carry firearms in constitutional carry states are more successful at self-defense than unarmed citizens. More on that in a minute.
According to a recent study from the University of Colorado Boulder, “1 in 15 US adults have been on the scene of a mass shooting.” The study defined a “mass shooting” as “a gun-related crime where four or more people were shot in a public space.” (That’s not necessarily deaths.) And “physically present” was defined as “in the immediate vicinity of where the shooting occurred at the time it occurred, such that bullets were fired in your direction, you could see the shooter, or you could hear the gunfire.”