Legal Gun Owners Can Deter Crime, Says Detroit Police Chief

Detroit Police
Chief James Craig has said that legal gun owners can deter crime, a
position he adopted after becoming police chief in Portland, Maine
in 2009. According to Craig, “Maine is one of the safest places in
America. Clearly, suspects knew that good Americans were
armed.”

From
The Detroit News:

Detroit— If more citizens were armed, criminals would think
twice about attacking them, Detroit Police Chief James Craig said
Thursday.

Urban police chiefs are typically in favor of gun control or
reluctant to discuss the issue, but Craig on Thursday was candid
about how he’s changed his mind.

“When we look at the good community members who have concealed
weapons permits, the likelihood they’ll shoot is based on a lack of
confidence in this Police Department,” Craig said at a press
conference at police headquarters, adding that he thinks more
Detroit citizens feel safer, thanks in part to a 7 percent drop in
violent crime in 2013.

The Detroit News also notes that Robyn Thomas, the
director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in San
Francisco, disagrees with Craig on the relationship between gun
ownership and crime:

“I think at its core, his position is an emotional one, based on
the idea that people feel safer when they have guns. But studies
have shown more guns don’t deter crime,” Thomas said. “There’s no
research that shows guns make anyone safer, and it does show that,
the more guns in any situation, the higher the likelihood of them
harming either the owner, or people who have access to them.”

Make sure to read the
blog post by Reason’s Ron Bailey on a recent study
written by Quinnipiac University economist Mark Gius on the effects
assault weapons bans and concealed carry laws have on murder
rates. 

From the abstract of Guis’
study:

Using data for the period 1980 to 2009 and controlling for state
and year fixed effects, the results of the present study suggest
that states with restrictions on the carrying of concealed weapons
had higher gun-related murder rates than other states. It was also
found that assault weapons bans did not significantly affect murder
rates at the state level.

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H/T Chris Staley