I would like to point out that correlation does not imply causation.
This is a great thing to think about when discussing statistics or studies. I normally don't jump in gun threads because I want pro-gun people to have their free space, and anti-gun people to have their space as well. This thread has gone down hill considerably from the first post so I thought I would jump in and have my say.
My say is this:
Both sides have studies which directly imply that the other side is wrong. Those who haven't made up their minds can take that for what it is. To verify, I just spent the last 30 minutes reading some briefs of different peer reviewed studies and I could find an even amount saying CC lowers crime, and the same amount saying that CC had no effect. Arguably there were very few studies that said CC had increased crime at all.
Violent crime has been dropping drastically since 1990 and every day going forward violent crime is less likely than the day before. One statistic that is a hard fact is that the US is becoming safer.
Crime in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
All the links, charts, studies you could want on that topic are out there for you to read, and they definitively point to the US trending towards a safer society year after year. Any counter point to this is a very fringe argument. In almost ever circle this is no longer a debate.
My opinion is that many of the CC studies try to create a link between CC and the reduction in crime, and while this might be a very small effect it is by no means the overwhelming reason for the drop in crime. It is possibly one small factor along with other factors (prison rate increase, abortion rate increase, Clintons anti-crime bill in the early 90's, etc) but even at that the studies are split.
CC seems to cause no harm, but it likely doesn't help to much either. Are their anecdotal stories that can be told about that one time it saved your cousin's friends life? Sure. But no debate should ever come down to being won by anecdotal evidence.
As an ex-9mm owner (range gun I didn't shoot enough), a current Rem 700 owner, and a lover of all mechanical things I would note that I like guns and the power that they allow someone to wield. It's a rather -awesome- power. But I LOVE research, debate, and discussions more and sometimes it's frustrating to watch two sides try to bash their opinion over the heads of someone who has no intention of listening. Do some research, don't take the word of any poster, on any forum, ever, and come to your own conclusions.