I'm relatively neutral on concealed-carry. I didn't feel unsafe before, and I don't feel unsafe after. My main gripe with the Minnesota law is that every office, restaurant, church and other semi-public place, including my child's elementary school, has to put up a "no guns allowed" sign if they don't want guns on the premises. I also prefer to see fairly clear and strict rules about when someone can shoot and when they can't. If you recall, my concern with the recent Florida law expanding the right to shoot was that it contained few if any restrictions -- unlike, say, Texas law.

But as regards the "crime went down", crime generally went down across the board in recent years, even in states with strict gun-control laws. I've seen studies that show crime went down FASTER in non-conceal states.

Crime is so bound up in other problems -- the economy, education, parenting -- that it's really hard to lay much cause and effect at the feet of conceal carry.

I think what really irritates me about conceal carry discussions is not so much whether people should be able to carry weapons, but the "crime is rampant" argument that underlies many pushes for conceal-carry -- despite stats showing that per capita crime is at record or near-record lows.

Edit: Regarding the TSRA study: since one of the requirements to get a permit is no criminal record, of course crime among permit holders is going to be lower than the general population. A more telling statistic would be to compare permit holders with Texans who could legally get a permit but do not.

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Scarred survivor of the April 2008 Mod War.