For those who automatically revert to the Brady anti-gun mantra of "blood in the streets" and "wild west", or who doubt that lawfully owned guns are actually used to prevent crimes - allow me to politely deflate your bubbles.

Concealed-Carry permit holders do commit crimes. The difference between them and non-permit holders? The rate for CCW holders is between 0.017 and 0.026 percent – the rate for the general population is 5.6%. The anti-gun lobby spread the fear far and wide when Florida passed a “shall-issue” CCW law, warning of daily running gun battles and thousands of innocents dead due to private lawfully owned firearms.

The real result? According to the Florida Secretary of State, during the first fifteen years that the Florida law was in effect, alligator attacks outpaced the number of crimes committed by carry holders by a 229 to 155 margin.

In 1997 the National Institute of Justice published "Guns in America” - a study authored by criminologists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig – which showed 1.5 million cases of self-defense with a firearm every year. Other research has suggested that figure may be nearly twice as many (2.5 million times).

The reason such encounters are seldom reported is because the firearm is actually used in less than 8% of the incidents. Out of those incidents however, armed citizens typically kill twice as many criminals as the police each year (1,527 to 606 in one survey period). And Newsweek related that "only 2 percent of civilian shootings involved an innocent person mistakenly identified as a criminal. The ‘error rate’ for the police, however, was 11 percent, more than five times as high."

For those who doubt the effectiveness of such laws? Unlike the plethora of statutes intended to “do something”  that criminals routinely ignore, Concealed Carry seems to be the one law ever passed by any legislative body that has been shown to actually reduce crime wherever implemented.

In the fifteen years following the passage of Florida's concealed carry law in 1987, over 800,000 permits to carry firearms were issued to people in the state. FBI reports show that the homicide rate in Florida, which in 1987 was much higher than the national average, fell 52% during that 15-year period—thus putting the Florida rate well below the national average. Other states have shown similar results.

National studies have shown that the states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their rate of murder by at least 8.5%, rape by at least 5%, aggravated assault by at least 7% and robbery by at least 3%.

In 1976, both Georgia and Wisconsin tried two different approaches to fighting crime. Georgia enacted legislation making it easier for citizens to carry guns for self-defense, while Wisconsin passed a law requiring a 48 hour waiting period before the purchase of a handgun. What resulted during the ensuing years? Georgia's law served as a deterrent to criminals and helped drop its homicide rate by 21 percent. Wisconsin's murder rate, however, rose 33 percent during the same period.

And for those who truly believe that the Police have an obligation to protect us? I would suggest you research the dozen plus US Court cases (from South v. Maryland in 1856 to Warren v. District of Columbia in 1981 and beyond) that prove otherwise, or perhaps US DOJ studies that have shown over 150,000 crimes of violence each year that police were unable to respond to within an hour’s time.

As a sworn 9-1-1 responder myself, I can tell you that the system works, but it takes time – a factor which is not always available in a life-and-death situation. The FBI released a study that showed that the vast majority of lethal force incidents started and ended in under 3 minutes – roughly the amount of time it takes for a citizen to call 9-1-1, the dispatch center to obtain the information and convey it to the officers on the street.

By the time the police arrive on location, it’s usually over, one way or another – a fact I can relate from multiple personal experiences.

The only people in Illinois who currently carry concealed firearms are police, criminals, and politicians (although it’s getting harder each day to tell the difference between the last two). I for one would like the chance to have the same ability to defend myself and my family, instead of having to rely on luck and “feel good, do something” words on a piece of paper in Springfield.