One of the foundational ideas of the pro-gun extremists is the the simple idea that more guns means less crime. Recent analyses by The Violence Policy Center showed that the states with the most firearms have the most firearm violence (and vice versa). But, that research dealt with all firearms.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
What about concealed handguns? The effect of concealed handgun legislation on crime has been debated for years. The National Academy of Sciences last answer to this question was basically—“Maybe, yes. Maybe, no. Okay, we have no idea. Somebody needs to figure out some other way of looking at this.”
Well, a group of researchers at Texas A&M University’s School of Public Health recently published a peer-reviewed paper in the Journal of Criminology that tried a new approach to this issue. Using this new approach, their answer to the question of the relationship between concealed handguns and crime was pretty clear-- No such relationship existed in the data they analyzed.
Go to the additional material below for more detail.
Previous research in the issue of concealed carry has focused on the passage of concealed carry legislation and the effect of that passage on crime. Given the overwhelming number of states that now allow concealed carry, that issue is no longer meaningful. But, what about policies that make it easier to carry concealed? The issue now is how the number on licenses being issued affect crime. Also, does more crime make more people get concealed carry licenses (CHLs)?
The group in Texas found all the states where they could get county level data on the number of CHLs issued for a decade (the magic number was 4-Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Texas)) as well as arrest data (our best measure of crime that is widely available). They then looked at what factors in three of those four states (ATF data was only available on those three of the four states when the database was built) generated higher or lower rates of issuing CHLs. The crime rate in the county had no effect on CHL rates. But, a major determinant of the rates at which CHLs were issued was the density of people and organizations in a county who were licensed to sell firearms. It wasn't fear of crime that drove CHL rates; it was more likely to be marketing or the culture in the state.
As for more CHL licensing affecting crime in the first or second year after those additional gun went on the street, no statistically significant effect was observed. Analyses were done separately for each FBI serious crime (murder, rape, assault, robbery, auto theft and larceny). Data from each state was analyzed separately. No significant negative relationships were observed. A couple of positive effects (more guns meant more crime) were observed, but the researchers classified these as more likely to be errors than real effects.
Every study has its limitations. The major one for this study were the availability of county data in only four states. Nonetheless, this was solid work that addressed a basic issue in the gun policy debate.
This is a summary of the article. The link below will lead you to the full article. It is an open access journal, so you can download a PDF of the full article, if you so desire.
http://www.hindawi.com/...