Just to play devil's advocate here...
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One fact all those news services leave out of the reasons for reduced deaths..
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You KNOW the reason? I doubt it. You may think you know the reason, just as anti's think they know the reason - and would say that this is the effect of stricter gun laws both at a federal level ('89 and '94) as well as many local levels.
The problem is that it is actually impossible to establish causality in things like this. It is not possible to determine what causes trends like this - and the most likely explanations involve multiple factors. One of the most likely is in fact the healthy economy in this period. Totally irrespective of gun laws, prison sentences, etc - the fact is that crime is inversely correlated with the economy. Good economy = less crime.
How many states how made CCW possible in the same time frame?
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Problem is that crime levels (and gun deaths] have also fallen in states that DIDN'T enact CCW, so again, it becomes impossible to make a causal attribution. It is not even valid to statistically look at the differences between states that did and did not, and establish an aggregate, because there are too many confounding factors and state differences.
I would think twice if more people were armed if I were a criminal.
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Problem is many criminals (like crackheads carjacking someone) don't even think ONCE.
I'm NOT disagreeing with you, just trying to put it in perspective. Statistics like this don't necessarily help because both sides can find ways to make it consistent with their argument, and the kind of analyses that MIGHT shed a little more light on the issue are too compelex for the average person to be interested in.
BTW - Welcome to the board. Hope you stick around. [:)]