Shall-issue policy and criminal activity among applicants for permits to carry concealed firearms

Author: Romero, M. / Wintemute, G. / Wright, M. / Parham, C.
Publication: Injury Prevention
Topics: Crime Criminology Gun Carrying Ownership State
Keywords: concealed firearm criminal activity shall-issue
Bibliographic information +

The authors examine the effects of a shall-issue policy in the Sacramento County town of Isleton for permits to carry concealed firearms in public. They compared the incidence of criminal activity of 691 persons applying for such permits through Isleton’s program in 1995 and that of a statewide sample of 965 CCW applicants from 1993 to 1994, following subjects for up to three years from their application dates and using California Department of Justice records. Arrest rates for Isleton applicants were almost three times as high as for statewide applicants (291 and 103 per 100,000 person-years, respectively), but the effect was not statistically significant (p=0.18).