Liberals will tell you that more guns and easier availability to them will increase the death toll. Reality always proves them wrong and reality went to some provin’ once again, this time in Puerto Rico.
Before going on, I’ll define what “May Issue” and “Shall Issue” means, in case you are unaware.
In a state where law enforcement has a “May Issue” policy, that means the sheriff or police department, or whoever is in charge of concealed carry permit issue only “might” issue you a permit if you apply for one. In other words, the officials reserve the right to deny your request whether their reasons are valid or not. So, citizens only “may” be allowed to get a concealed carry license (CCL).
This means the government is claiming for itself the role of all powerful authority.
On the other hand, in a “Shall Issue” state, the citizen is the one with the initial power. With shall issue, the government’s initial reply to a CCL request is an automatic “yes,” and only becomes a “no” if authorities have strict legal reasons to deny the request.
A big difference between the two is that with “Shall Issue,” far more people are awarded their CCL than with “May Issue” because in the latter, government has the incentive to say “no” far more often than “yes.”
So, what happened in Puerto Rico when the Commonwealth changed its law from “may” to “shall”? Did gun crime soar? Did murders triple? Were people gunning each other down with abandon.
Yeeeah… no.
In fact, as gun ownership and CCL issues rose, gun crime dropped.
Per Ammoland:
In the four years before 2020, the homicide rate averaged 19.95 homicides per 100,000 population in Puerto Rico. In the four years since the law went into effect, the homicide rate averaged 17.60 per 100,000 population. It is not an extreme drop, but it is a drop. The homicide rate did not increase. The sample is quite small, only eight years old. In the 30 years from 1990 to 2019, the Puerto Rico homicide rate dipped below 18 four times (1990, 1998, 1999, and 2015) out of 30 years. Since 2019, it has dropped below 18 in three of four years (2020, 2022, and 2023).
The total numbers of firearms registered in Puerto Rico are not readily available. 225,000 were reported as registered in 2016. Since then, we have National Instant Background Check System numbers for Puerto Rico. If we add those to 225,000 from 2026, we have 302,000 at the end of 2019. From 2020 through 2023, another 249,000 have been done. It appears the number of legal firearms in Puerto Rico has increased by roughly 83%. This is significant, as the permits to purchase from 2020 on are also concealed carry permits.
As Ammoland noted, “The number of guns that could be legally carried in public increased by over 80%. The rate of homicides decreased by over 13%.”
The left-wing “blood on the streets” narrative is once again defeated by reality. Like it always is.
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