Florida enjoys high levels of gun ownership, and nearly 8.2% of that state’s population of 19.89 million have some form of concealed carry license.
The Sunshine State simultaneously enjoys that state’s lowest recorded level of firearm violent crime. Ever.
Florida firearm violence hits record low; concealed gun permits up
(Naples Daily News) – In the so-called Gunshine State, home to the most gun permits in the country, firearm violence has fallen to the lowest point on record.
As state and national legislators consider gun control laws in the wake of last month’s Connecticut school shooting, Florida finds itself in a gun violence depression. The Firearm-involved violent crime rate has dropped 33 percent between 2007 and 2011, while the number of issued concealed weapons permits rose nearly 90 percent during that time, state records show.
“We’re happy to have facts and statistics put into these debates, because every time they do, we win,” said Sean Caranna, executive director of Florida Carry Inc., a pro-gun-rights advocacy group.
What else does Florida have besides great beaches, lots of sunshine, and lots of good guys carrying guns?
It has a 10-20-Life law when it comes to using a firearm in the commission of a crime. In a nutshell, this law imposes additional time in prison for those who use a firearm in commission of a crime.
- If you produce a firearm in the commission of a felony crime, you get an extra 10-years in prison, minimum.
- If you fire your firearm, you get 20-years in prison, minimum, on top of the sentence for whatever felony you were committing.
- If you wound or kill someone with a firearm, the minimum sentence is 25-years in prison and the judge may impose Life in prison.
- It also has a lesser known provision that felons merely possessing a firearm get an automatic three years in prison, no ifs, ands or buts.
Contrast all that with Chicagoland.
There’s a paucity of good guys with guns, thanks to decades of anti-gun laws that made gun ownership difficult bordering on impossible for the average person.
And the criminal justice system?
Homicide cases (and shooting cases) simply aren’t being solved. Chicago Magazine featured a major story on this sad fact not long ago:
Chicago’s Criminals Are Getting Away With Murder: Only 132 of Chicago’s 507 murders were solved last year. Why is the Chicago Police Department struggling to bring so many killers to justice?
And when there are arrests?
From Second City Cop, a Chicago police blog:
2 people shot 3000blk of Lexington, car chase with offending vehicle 2 guns tossed out of car (great job of pursuing vehicle to see it and call it out, both recovered), 1 M4 (Editor: That’s a type of AR-15 rifle) still in vehicle after it crashes near ogden and California, 3 offenders bail and are taken into custody inside the park. Great response by police from 010 and 011 (Editor: Those are police districts in Chicago). 3 weapons recovered from a vehicle and offenders who had just tried to add plenty of extra holes in some not so upstanding citizen (over 20 shots fired from all three weapons). Great case right? Attempted murder? Agg discharge? Multiple AGG UUW (Editor: That’s Aggravated Unlawful Use of Weapons) charges for all involved? Not here in crook county! Each of the passengers only got 1 charge of AGG UUW, and the driver of the shit show only got a charge for AGG Fleeing and eluding. Funny thing is the driver will probably the only found guilty and do any time. Just as the media is calling for more action to stop the violence the beautiful people at Anita’s office (Editor: That’s Anita Alvarez, the Cook Co. State’s Attorney) are afraid to do their part in putting the bad guys in prison…..
In Florida, each of those individuals in the car would be looking at going away for twenty years on top of the sentences imposed for attempted murder, aggravated discharge of a firearm and the other charges. Not in Cook County. In Cook County, they are probably out on bail already.
Does Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel rail against his fellow soft-on-crime Democrat State’s Attorney for failing to charge and prosecute violent criminal predators?
Nope.
In the Chicago Tribune:
After 14 shot in 15 hours in Chicago, mayor says gun laws must ‘reflect the values of the people’
Hey Mayor: We know you weren’t the smartest ballerina when you were younger, but don’t assume the average American is as stupid as those in your circle of friends, okay?
And didn’t Chicago’s dumbass police chief say he’d train his officers to shoot licensed concealed carriers at one point a couple of years ago?
These Democrat machine political hacks think that law-abiding people are the problem.
That’s why they are imbeciles.
Put violent thugs in prison and throw away the key.
That’ll make Chicago safer, not failed Democrat talking points.
The dirty secret is that it costs 85 bucks a day to house these idiots. COOK COUNTY IS BROKE. There is no money, the jail population has averaged around 14-16 thousand people PER DAY. County President Preckwinkle, to her credit, is trying to keep the county afloat. Her means of saving millions is to cut the jail population to about 7500, saving half its budget. The reality is there are an extra 7500 jerks wandering the streets knowing that the odds of them being locked up are between slim and none.
Public safety is being traded for budget reasons.
People who would have been locked up in past years are now put on pretrial monitoring, electronic monitoring, house arrest, etc, as a cost saving measure.
No one asks the question, when the shooters are caught, where they SHOULD have been at the time of the shootings.
I work in the system. For the most part, its dirtbag-on-dirtbag gang violence, but then innocents end up catching a bullet sometimes.
That is the cost of saving a buck.
And they advertise for people to vacation in that city…
Maybe they should house these perps in tents to save money. It seems to work in AZ.
Can’t afford not to incarcerate these monsters. God, I can’t believe I didn’t find this website before now.
Great job, gents!
Chicago & Crook County show what happens when you run out of other peoples money. No money for jails, but lots of money for political hires.
I know a bunch of people in who work in the cook county system. I can say that there are slackers, there are also lots of very focused and decent employees who pull their hair out with the crazy results of court. People with case after case who are put back on the street, and others with one stupid case for weed who end up in custody when it’s not really warranted. These employees, Chicago cops too, who bust their ass only to see their hard work wasted by some leftist judge who throws out a solid case…
If these jerks were smacked hard enough the first time they got arrested, maybe there wouldnt be so many repeat offenders.
It’s not my job to defend government employees, but I can say I have seen first hand that a good deal of hard work is wasted in the system.
We recently had a case in New Jersey of a nurse, single mom, working two jobs to support her kids, get charged with unlawful possession of a handgun.
Shaneen Allen had a permit from her Pennsylvania state of residence, but as far as New Jersey was concerned, she turned from an honest, responsible, hard-working professional woman into a drooling, bloodthirsty criminal by crossing the Delaware river.
Once the story got out, public outrage led to the prosecutor showing “leniency” by offering a deal in which Shaneen could get “only” 3 years instead of 10 in prison with a felony conviction, disqualifying her to work as a nurse.
This “compassion” shown by the same prosecutor, Jim McClain, who gave Ray Rice “pre-trial intervention” for punching his fiancee unconscious in an Atlantic City elevator.
Eventually, all charges were dropped.