The Examiner
State Police began mailing the first 5,000 concealed carry licenses today, marking the beginning of a new era in the Prairie State.
SAF’s Moore v. Madigan, and a similar case filed by the National Rifle Association known as Shepard v. Madigan, forced the Illinois Legislature, over the objections of anti-gun Gov. Pat Quinn, to adopt a carry statute. Illinois was the last state in the nation to deny its citizens the right to bear arms in self-defense outside the home and had to be compelled by the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
“While politicians had to be dragged kicking and screaming into compliance with the Second Amendment,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said in a statement just released to the press, “the good citizens are rushing to enjoy their newly-restored firearms freedom. State officials said today they have received more than 50,000 permit applications.”
TheChicago Sun-Timesreported that about 400 applications are coming in daily, which is down from the initial surge of 1,000 daily applications. Still, this is a strong indication that “the die-hard anti-gun politicians who opposed this new law are horribly out of touch with their constituents,” Gottlieb said.
What will be interesting to watch are the violent crime rates. Many concealed carry advocates contend that states with higher concentrations of legally armed citizens have lower violent crime rates, while anti-gunners say the opposite is true. More important, however, is whether they rise. Many gun prohibitionists have insisted for years that more guns in the hands of private citizens leads to more violent crime, but FBI crime data tends to belie that claim. Murder rates have declined over the past few years as gun sales have climbed dramatically along with the number of concealed carry permits and licenses across the country.
I don't know if what's happening in Illinois indicates that the gun-control politicians had been "horribly out of touch with their constituents." Do the numbers really show that?