Mississippi may soon run out of new places to carry guns.
During its current session, the Mississippi Legislature is considering bills that would allow guns courthouses and churches.
The state had previously sanctioned concealed carry and enhanced concealed carry, which makes it legal to carry a gun pretty much anywhere except in prisons, jails, police stations and courtrooms. Today, it is not at all unusual to encounter guns on the hips of people in restaurants, stores, parks — pretty much anywhere people congregate.
In politically-conservative Mississippi, the wholesale dismantlement of restrictions on guns follows the NRA’s “the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun” mantra. The moves are also broadly viewed as a means of protecting the Second Amendment against those who would “take our guns.”
No matter the motives, Mississippians are buying guns at an unprecedented rate. In 2015, the FBI ran more than 252,000 background checks for gun purchases in the state — about 37,500 more than in 2014. Concealed carry permits in the state has almost doubled since in the last four years to more than 78,000. But what those who favor such legislation cannot say, based on any credible data, is that we are any safer as a result.
Data from the Center for Disease Control, in fact, show just the opposite. In Massachusetts and New Jersey, two states with the most restrictive gun laws, the gun homicide rate per 100,000 people is 3.4 and 4.9, respectively. Compare that to Mississippi, which has the fifth highest gun ownership rate (51 percent of Mississippians own firearms) and some of the least-restrictive gun laws in the nation. The gun homicide rate per 100,000 people in our state is 18.27, almost five times higher than Massachusetts.
If you want to ensure your chances against being a gun-violence victim, owning a gun does little, statistically-speaking, to improve your odds. Data shows the best way to avoid being a victim of gun violence is to not be black, poor or live in an urban area.
Black citizens are five times more likely to be a victim of gun homicides than whites. Meanwhile, whites are far more likely to die by gun suicide than blacks. Statistics show gun violence is also disproportionately higher in poor neighborhoods and in large cities.
Interestingly, black communities, which are statistically the most vulnerable to gun violence, are twice as likely to support stricter gun control than white communities, the studies show.
In a state where opinions on gun laws are passionately defended, the data seems to matter little.
For many, owning and carrying a gun creates an illusion of safety and dispels fears, not only of being a victim, but of having their rights taken away.
Yet for others, the ubiquitous presence of guns can be unnerving. How do we distinguish between a law-abiding citizen and a homicidal maniac? In an instant the former can become the latter, after all. In the old Westerns, it was easy to determine: The good guys wore white hats and the bad guys wore black hats.
We don’t have that sort of reassurance out here in the real world, of course.
The best we can hope for is that the guy with the gun on his hip at Walmart is a friend, not a foe.
Do we really want a society where everyone is armed?
Is this really a step forward in human relations? When you see a stranger with a gun, do you feel protected or vulnerable? Which sentiment is really the most rational?
It is, at least, a question we all should ponder. Is this really the direction we want to go?
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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