Michigan sees fewer gun deaths — with more permits

Six years after new rules made it much easier to get a license to carry concealed weapons, the number of Michiganders legally packing heat has increased more than six-fold.

But dire predictions about increased violence and bloodshed have largely gone unfulfilled, according to law enforcement officials and, to the extent they can be measured, crime statistics.

The incidence of violent crime in Michigan in the six years since the law went into effect has been, on average, below the rate of the previous six years. The overall incidence of death from firearms, including suicide and accidents, also has declined.

While I don't attribute increased gun ownership with lower suicides (the tool has nothing to do with it), the accidents statistic makes sense. Most people who go through the trouble to get a CCW learn about their firearm and learn firearm safety.

However, let's skip to the PSH, shall we?

Kenneth Levin, a West Bloomfield physician, was one of those critics. In a letter to the Free Press in July 2001, he referred to the "inevitable first victim of road or workplace rage as a result of this law."

Last month, Levin said he suspected "it probably hasn't turned out as bad as I thought. I don't think I was wrong, but my worst fears weren't realized."

"It didn't turn out as bad as I thought, but I wasn't wrong". Sorry Dr. Levin, you are wrong. You see it with your own eyes and yet you continue to not believe. Do you see cancerous tumors in your patients but still say "It's nothing"?

Other opponents remain convinced that it has contributed to an ongoing epidemic of firearms-related death and destruction.

Of course they do. Like the good doctor, they don't base their beliefs on facts or evidence.

Shikha Hamilton of Grosse Pointe, president of the Michigan chapter of the anti-gun group Million Moms March, said she believes overall gun violence (including suicide and accidental shootings) is up in Michigan since 2001. Many incidents involving CCW permit holders have not been widely reported, she said.

The old "you don't hear about them, so they must be covered up" routine. Childish. I would suspect if you had actual proof about this, you'd have it listed somewhere. But sans proof, all you can do is (wait for it... wait for it...) lie.

The most publicized recent case came early in 2007, when a 40-year-old Macomb County woman fired from her vehicle toward the driver of a truck she claimed had cut her off on I-94. Bernadette Headd was convicted of assault and sentenced to two years in prison.

Funny that. A woman uses her firearm incorrectly and gets prison time. We could have prevented this tragedy by banning cars. Had she not been driving, none of this would have happened. Yet, it seems silly to blame it on the car, doesn't it?

Hamilton said that even if gun violence has ebbed, it remains pervasive, tragic and unnecessary. At the least, a more liberal concealed weapons law means there are more guns in homes and cars and on the street, she said, and more potential for disaster.

Think of the logic here. A change is made. Violence decreases. Even if the violence decreases because of the change we shouldn't have done it.

You can't fight illogic with logic, but damn if I can't help but trying.

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