At permit renewal time for many private citizens in Missouri who carry weapons, the effect of the controversial concealed-carry law remains what it’s been from the start: nil, says the St. Louis Post-Dispatch says. Police say it hasn’t increased crime, nor reduced it. People don’t seem to be shooting others, or themselves, by accident in any greater numbers. The St. Louis County Police Department has no record of ever responding to a call that someone carried a gun into one of the many restricted locations. “When they were debating this, one side was saying it was going to reduce crime and another was saying it was going to cause gunfights in the streets,” Franklin County Sheriff Gary Toelke said. “I really haven’t seen either. It’s really a nonissue right now. You’re not having fights in the streets, but it’s not saving the world either.”
Jefferson County Sheriff Oliver “Glenn” Boyer said permits were issued to a wide array of people – young and old, men and women, doctors and real estate agents. He said women are heavily represented among renewals. Boyer suggested that his initial qualms about ordinary people with guns had settled. “I feel a lot more comfortable now that we haven’t seen the ‘John Wayne syndrome’ in effect.” In March, a visitor from Florida with a permit from that state was lauded by police after he wounded a would-be robber who approached him with what turned out to be a pellet gun outside a motel. Illinois and Wisconsin are the only states that do not allow some form of concealed carry for ordinary people.
Link: http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/stlouiscitycounty/story/310367797F8FBB0D86