Another Right-Wing Lie

Far too often in today's political climate right-wingers feel they are justified in telling an outrageous lie, as long as that lie will help them to get whatever it is that they want. Truth is sacrificed to accomplishing their agenda. And among the most egregious of these people who play fast and loose with the truth are the leaders of the National Rifle Association (NRA).

Recently, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA made a sweeping statement that seems to justify the large increase in the number of people in this country carrying concealed firearms. He made it sound like these concealed weapons carriers are responsible for a significant decrease in crime in states where there numbers are large. He said, "Right now, in the United States, 7 million law-abiding Americans legally carry a concealed firearm, 7 million in almost every state in the nation. And across the board, violent crime in jurisdictions that recognize the Right to Carry is lower than in ares that prevent it."

That is very appealing to gun-lovers who want to carry a weapon. It gives them the impression that they are a bunch of "Rambos" who are saving their fellow Americans. But is it the truth? Do these gun-toting Americans have criminals on the run or are these people just feeding their own fragile egos while putting their fellow citizens in danger?

PolitiFact decided to see if LaPierre's statement was true. What they found was that concealed carry laws don't seem to have any effect on crime. They looked at states that have strong concealed carry laws, and states that restrict the possession of firearms. It seems that states in both of these areas are all over the place when it comes to crime. Some concealed carry states have low crime and some don't. Some restrictive firearm states have high crime and some don't.

To be blunt, the facts just don't bear out LaPierre's bold lie. As the National Academies of Sciences has concluded, "No link between right-to-carry laws and changes in crime is apparent in the raw data. . .(and) with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates."

The fact is that most of these 7 million people who are carrying firearms are poorly trained and probably closer to "Barney Fife" than "Rambo". I don't feel any safer knowing they are out there carrying concealed guns, and the figures back me up on that.

This is just another right-wing lie -- one of many.