Glenn Reynolds
Instapundit
8/14/2011
HEY, WAIT, THE ANTI-GUN PEOPLE WERE PREDICTING A BLOODBATH: Gun Crime Drops At Virginia Bars And Restaurants After Liberalized Carry Rules:
Virginia’s bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.
The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper’s request.
And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law’s first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.
In other words, exactly what carry advocates predicted, and exactly the opposite of what anti-gun folks predicted. Again.
Related: Concealed-Carry Laws Make Virginia Gay Bars Safer, at Gay Patriot:
Back in 2006, a teenager thug “armed with a hatchet and handgun opened fire inside a New Bedford, Mass., gay bar“. Perhaps, the carnage would have been less had patrons been able to arm themselves…
