To: bentway who wrote (869541 ) 6/30/2015 11:58:01 PM From: d[-_-]b Respond to Would you rather be armed or not - if some whack job is chasing you?archive.freep.com Ten years after Michigan made it much easier for its citizens to get a license to carry a concealed gun, predictions of widespread lawless behavior and bloodshed have failed to materialize. Today, nearly 276,000 -- or about four out of every 100 eligible adult Michiganders -- are licensed. During the debate, opponents of the change warned of gun-toting, trigger-happy citizens loose on the streets. But violent crimes have been rare among carrying a concealed weapon license holders. Only 2% of license holders have been sanctioned for any kind of misbehavior, State Police records show.Michigan's prosecuting attorneys association led the push against changing the law in 2001. Today, Ionia County Prosecutor Ronald Schafer, president of the group, says it's hard to remember what the fuss was about. "I think you can look back and say, 'It was a big nothing.' " The troublemakers, generally, aren't the people who go through the process to legally own and carry a gun -- it's the people who carry illegally who cause problems , he said."My position was, and still is, is that the people we have a problem with with guns aren't the people who are willing to follow the law and go through the hoops and training," Bouchard said. "We were all a little too caught up imagining what might happen," he said.
