Quote Originally Posted by euphoricism
Well yeah concealed IS better, but only if its common.

Think of it like game theory. If only open carry is allowed, then a criminal can clearly see that the area he is in has no guns in it and he can do his crime. Therefore if we conceal the weapons he'll never know if there's a weapon around so he SHOULD be less inclined to commit a crime. However that ONLY works if there are a significant enough amount of weapons concealed in the populace to create a significant chance that someone has a weapon in order for there to be a deterrent effect. Since the amount of CCW permits is an incredibly small % of the populace, a criminal can certainly feel more comfortable doing his crime.

The answer is then allow open carry AND get more people with guns in their hands. However guns are quite expensive, and CCW permits themselves are another $150 or so. I guess that ensures that only the people who really want them (and would therefore hopefully act more responsible with them) will get them however it also keeps the # of guns low and therefore the deterrent effect low.
How would you explain the overriding trend then? I.e. areas that have loose ccw and castle doctrine laws almost invariably see decreases in crime, whereas a place like Washington D.C. (where handguns were outright banned until recently) have very high rates of violent crime and was once known as the 'Murder capitol of the U.S'-- all while handguns were banned.

I see two flaws with your argument. First, even somebody who has a very-small chance to be armed can be a very big deterrant. You can't weight them equally... getting shot and maimed or killed is a much bigger loss than stealing somebody's wallet with $100 in it. It's similar to pascal's wager in this regard.

Second, you are making the flawed assumption that people are necessarily going to be making game theory perfect decisions. I'd argue that people who are going to be commiting violent crimes are generally pathetic people and are terrible at life and making life decisions, making my first point null and void anyway.