I was viewing the thriller, "Mercury Rising," and a question occurred to me that I have no way of answering. There is a scene where, in a crowded plaza supposed to be outside of the Wrigley Building in Chicago, a villain-assassin murders a man. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of civilians in the immediate area. As the hero, Bruce Willis, pursues the assassin, the assassin bulldozes his way through crowds of people. No one attempts to stop him. Apparently, no one has a weapon, concealed or otherwise. So the villain makes his escape.

Living in Montana, my thought was: Try that in Montana and the villain gets shot or tackled. And then I reconsidered. There are relatively few police per capita. I am unaware of anyone I know who has a concealed weapons permit (or whether Montana has such a permit system). Except at certain times in certain areas, not many vehicles have rifle visible in racks.

And then I considered that Texas might have a greater number who have quick access to a weapon.

Finally, to the question. Among the 50 states, which have significant numbers of concealed weapons permitees per capita? States with larger populations will logically have more permitees than those with small populations. Again I am anticipating permit requirements are similar for that assumption. But how many permitees per capita rationalizes the question. Since Illinois - especially Chicago where "Mercury Rising" takes place - has an extremely small number per capita of people having concealed weapons, the assassin's escape becomes reasonable. After all, who has the nerve to attempt to apprehend a large armed man who has been running over people?

So while escaping in Chicago may not be unreasonable, what states would his actions get him stopped - one way or another?

Go here: http://crimepreventionresearch...he-United-States.pdf
See page 12

quote:

Originally posted by Grenadier:
Go here: http://crimepreventionresearch...he-United-States.pdf
See page 12

Many thanks! Perfect answer.

Georgia has around 8% of the population with permits according to John Lott. His information is from 2011. It's substantially more now. Many more carry without permit in the Atlanta area. Stay safe.

Can't say which states have the most per capital, but it's a good bet that the states with the most mass murders will have the least.

Porosonik.

I remember that scene and thinking that it would never happen in Pennsylvania, you'd need a crystal ball to determine who killed the gunman, and you wouldn't bury the bad guy, you'd sell them for scrap

I'm reminded of the Richard Pryor routine where there 2 white guys talking about Pearl Harbor. "You hear what them little yeller basters did? Bombed Pearl Harbor." "Well,we're just gonna have to clean their plow." Seems that Yamamoto went to UCLA + so thought he knew Americans; "We bomb Pearl Harbor ,they never fuck with us again!" Well that was because he went to school in Cal.,if he had gone to the University of Georgia he would have known better. Hell there's white folks down there that other white folks are scared of."

We don't know each other but, I've got one. Had it about 8 yrs now..
Out here we can wear exposed anywhere. Concealed needs a permit. Hell of a deal huh?

Great post, learned a lot reading that article.

George

George:

Many thanks for your kind remarks. I know that, perhaps excluding larger cities such as Missoula, Billings, Bozeman, and Helena, Montanans carry exposed without restriction. Around the turn of the millenium when I moved from Missoula, I was at a truck stop in who-knows-where Montana. A middle-aged man pulled up and parked. When he left his truck, he was wearing three - count 'em, three - handguns. Two were inside-the-pants carries; the other was in a high ride hip holster. I refer to this as open carry because he was in work boots, jeans, flannel shirt, and some sort of ball cap.

Excluding the rare jail break (one in fifteen years here in Missoula County) and Ted Kaczynski (who lived just up the road from my home), the likelihood of a situation even remotely similar to that in "Mercury Rising" approaches zero. So how and where people "carry" outside of the few cities is irrelevant?

While there I no real database of how many in the US have CC permits or live in Constitutional carry states and actually carry- a few years back I did a paper on the topic and best guess then was about 13 million in permit states and unknown numbers in no permit required states.


Of course, I know many folks I trained that indeed DO NOT carry regularly- I guess they don't hold auto/life/health insurance regularly either.

The common reason was they did not want to be bothered too much, and carried only when they were not likely to run into restricted areas or places.

I was doing stats on MO rates of CCW but the state gave the data to the feds and the state legislature shut down the process (thankfully)- now only your county sheriff knows- and he cannot tell anyone else unless a valid LE investigation is underway or a court so orders him to release to another agency. So there went my access to state-wide numbers. Last data pull I was able to get indicted 265k active/valid in 2012. So with a population f around 6.1 million.....not so many probably toting a lawful weapon.

Now, a MO CC permit enables one to carry openly or concealed anywhere other than where federally prohibited in MO-effectively erasing the patchwork of city/county restrictions on open carry.

Being a product of NYC:

Most people would rather not get involved then face a lawyer in court.

quote:

Most people would rather not get involved then face a lawyer in court.

And THAT, is the actual truth.

It is really easy for people to THINK what they would do, it is a whole other matter when it comes to actually pulling the gun and pulling the trigger.

It is really easy to claim what an individual would do, UNTIL the situation forces one to act on that decision.