Yesterday evening I was on AC360 to discuss the Arizona Tragedy with David Gergen and Roland Martin. While I personally like Gergen, his knowledge of Arizona’s gun laws and invalid premises on conceal carry were a disservice to our discussion. He presupposes that Jared Lee Loughner was a CCW permit holder, and thus, right to carry failed, which, to all knowledge Loughner did not possess a permit, a violation of AZ law.

More on the role of conceal carry in a bit. I’ve seen many are making the case that just “anyone” with mental illness can buy a gun and that Arizona’s “relaxed” gun laws contributed to the Arizona tragedy because a mentally ill individual was allowed to legally purchase a firearm and we can’t just have mentally ill people buying guns. No, we can’t, which is why Arizona has a law about this. AZ law expressly states that due to their prohibited possessor stipulation, anyone proving a danger to themselves or others pursuant to court order is not allowed to purchase a firearm.

Under Arizona law, prohibited possessor are defined in ARS 13-3101 which states:

7. “Prohibited possessor” means any person:

(a) Who has been found to constitute a danger to himself or to others or to be persistently or acutely disabled or gravely disabled pursuant to court order under section 36-540, and whose right to possess a firearm has not been restored pursuant to section 13-925.

Had campus security and his parents followed up with proper treatment and reported his actions, he, from what it sounds, would have been an easy PP and unable to buy a weapon. Had the Sheriff’s office acted upon what is suggested as their advanced knowledge of Loughner’s troubled history, they may have obtained a warrant and confiscated his firearm – or apprehended him before he bought it. Of course, this simply assumes that Loughner was only motivated to cause harm because he was in possession of a firearm and presupposes that the firearm was an accessory motivator and rules out for certain that Loughner would never have attacked anyone with, say, a knife, bat, or any other weapon.

The problem isn’t the fallacy that Arizona’s law failed – Arizona’s law, like every law, can only work if followed. Prohibited possession can only work if if troubled individuals are reported to authorities so that the existing laws can be applied to them and, in this case, prevent them from purchasing firearms.

Many are also targeting Arizona as a right to carry state, saying that concealed carry is a “loosening” of the laws and that it contributed to the AZ tragedy. I’m not sure if concealed carry records are public in Arizona, but considering that Loughner broke the law by killing people, I’m going to make a logical deduction here again and say that he likely didn’t obtain a CCW permit, either. Open carry is legal in Arizona and he could have openly carried his weapon just as easily as illegally concealing it.

As far as arguing against conceal carry, something else as well: statistically, states which adopt CCW laws see a dramatic crime reduction.

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The Ohio Free Press, an independent online news source run by liberty-minded citizens, has its sights fixed on setting the record straight and is taking aim squarely at one newspaper’s editor.

Two and a half years ago, when readers of the Sandusky Register in Ohio opened the paper on June 25, 2007, many were shocked to find their name, age and county of residence published alongside those of nearly 2,700 other law-abiding private citizens.  At the top of the page read only the title, “Sandusky County Concealed Carry List“, accompanied by a menacing graphic with the words “Conceal Carry: Who Needs to Know?” cunningly framed around a gun’s scope.  While the page offered no other content or context whatsoever, the lack of such more than set the tone.  It may as well have been headlined, “Hey – Fear These Scary Gun-Toting People.” (more…)