Murder Rates by Minnesota Gun Permit Holders Expose Remarkable Safety of Firearms Owners

By Dean Weingarten

Arizona - -(Ammoland.com)- Minnesota is one of a few states that track crimes committed by Concealed Carry permit holders.

When the Minnesota law was passed, an annual report of crimes committed by permit holders was required. The Minnesota permit is simply a permit to carry, the law does not discriminate between carrying concealed and carrying openly.

Reports for the law are available for 2003, and 2005-2012 in pdf files.

The number of people with Minnesota permits that commit murder or manslaughter is remarkably low. Only three instances are recorded in the Minnesota Carry Permit annual reports for the nine years reported.

From the reports, the numbers of valid permits for each year are as follows:

• 2003 – 15,677
• 2005 – 32,885
• 2006 – 42,189
• 2007 – 51,347
• 2008 – 56,919
• 2009 – 69,313
• 2010 – 79,180
• 2011 – 91,221
• 2012 – 114,793
• Total for the years listed – 553,524

Rate of carry permit holders committing murder and manslaughter/100,000 per year, .542.

Rate of murder in the general population in Minnesota, per 100,000 averaged for the years 2003, 2005 – 2012, is 1.78.

c2013 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.

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About Dean Weingarten;
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973.  He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.