Reply #22: amazingly [View All]

[iverglas]

In Illinois, you can not carry a firearm or knife over 3" in public.
It's been this way since 1968.
It just dosen't work here. It may work in Canada, and many other places, but not here.

Among the host of other factors undoubtedly at work, there is a border between Canada and the rest of the world ... and there is no border between Illinois and anywhere else.

I wonder whether this could possibly have anything to do with why "it" doesn't work in Illinois.

Of course, one of those other factors is the fact that Canada does make it difficult to obtain the firearm that is generally involved when we're talking about "carrying" firearms -- handguns. It is difficult for people who are likely to use them to cause harm or to facilitate crimes to obtain them, precisely because it is difficult for anyone at all to get them, and because anyone who does have them is subject to strict rules about how they are to be stored and when and to whom and how they may be transferred, so that as few people who should not have them as possible will get them.

Of course, all of that could be done in Illinois, and there still wouldn't be a border between Illinois and the places where it isn't done, so it would all be relatively pointless.

So why add CCW if it might not reduce the crime stastics? Because it matters at the individual level. Especially if you are a cab driver or deliver pizza. Both of which are far more dangerous than being a police officer. If crime stastics are not affected by CCW, why restrict individuals from defening themselves with effective tools?

That's a mighty big "if" you got there -- and it isn't the only one I would consider, of course.

Nonetheless, you assume a position that I do not take: that it should be easy to acquire and possess the things we're talking about, whether or not it is permissible to cart them around in one's pants.

As far as I'm concerned, the only effective way to prevent people from carting them around in their pants and using them to cause harm or facilitate crimes is to keep as many of them (handguns) out of the hands of as many of them (people who are likely to use them unpleasantly) in the first place.

So your question is entirely moot, as I look at it. It seems to me that there is very little point indeed in having laws prohibiting the carting around of handguns in pants if anybody and its mother-in-law can acquire one at the drop of a hat.

Horses and barn doors, it seems to me.