“the instructor of an FBI National Academy course on the use of force asked his students (police executives from across the country) about cases where they could have legally shot someone but did not. Over a 3-year period, 90 percent of these students responded that they had refrained from using deadly force when they had the legal right to shoot. That is not to say that these officers would not have used deadly force. The discussions that always followed this question generally ended with the officers agreeing that they would wait until the last possible moment before using deadly force.

A newspaper study in Portland, Oregon, reported similar findings. For a 2-year period, 28 percent of the officers said that they refrained from using deadly force, even though they had the legal right to employ it, once; another 28 percent did so twice; and 8 percent acted in this manner on three occasions. In another study, 36 of the 50 officers assaulted reported that they had previous encounters where they could have legally used deadly force but did not because they felt that they did not have to. The average number of times the officers could have used deadly force and chose not to do so was four.

(for article and footnotes see:)
http://www.fbi.gov/publications/leb/2008/march2008/march2008leb.htm#page7

I haven’t seen anything to show that folks who lawfully carry concealed are, in general, any less cautious than police about when to use force. They may be more so — the public can retreat from danger. And it doesn’t have to close with dangerous folks to arrest them.

For the most part, accidental discharges in public places are rare — they are most likely to happen in places where the gun owner is loading or unloading the firearm (generally at home), practicing dry-firing what he/she thinks is an unloaded weapon (again, usually at home), or the trigger gets caught on something while the weapon is being holstered. There’ve been a number of states studied who have enacted shall-issue laws and other statutes increasing concealed carry — anyone have any cites showing a significant increase in accidental discharges in public?

If the firearm is being used for lawful self-defense, then, yes, there is a risk of one or more shots missing or overpenetrating (going thru the aggressor). Most of those shots end up harmlessly striking hard surfaces. A few do, tragically, hit bystanders. Happens to police now and then, likely happens to citizens as well — tho I haven’t found any data yet on this point.

Every time a state expands its concealed carry laws, there’s some doomsayers who trot out the usual lines about Wild West, armed vigilantes, etc. — and usually, a year or so later, there’s a short press story that, nope, didn’t happen … again. I expect the same will be true of Heller.

Sorry, long day at work…forgot to re-read my paragraph

But that is not the case and when guns are allowed in more and more places, and in the hands of more and more people, more easily, the numbers of accidental shootings, and the amount of firearms-related crime will increase…even if the statistics and percentages remain the same.

Heller drove home the point that handguns are viewed by us as the weapon of choice for self defense – in one’s home – and we have an absolute right to possession there. We have the castle doctrine and now we have Heller.

All the courts will do is go back, review the current laws, and balance one’s personal right to firearm possession with the needs of public safety. They will be hesitant, in my opinion, to invalidate much of the laws that are already in place limiting possession.

To think that Heller will drastically alter the landscape, and that we will be seeing armed vigilantes riding city buses and roaming the streets in hunt for whatever… that’s not going to happen (excepting Texas of course)…

You seem to assume that gun owners are yahoos who view their firearm as a substitute for their reproductive organs. Substitute that for, say, a domestic violence victim who carries for her self-defense and is picking up a relative at the airport and is concerned that her ex might coonfront her in the parking lot, or when she gets home. (Yes, in many states one can leave an unattended firearm secured in a car when going into a prohibited area like a court or school, but I consider it a darned bad idea to leave unattended guns around, even if locked up.) Or someone meeting someone at the airport who has to travel their by public transit at a little-traveled hour and is realistically concerned about crime enroute.

As a defense attorney, I’ve had several clients who’ve been arrested, prosecuted, and jailed for innocent violations of firearms licensing laws — I would very much like to have fewer of those clients by making the licensing laws relatively simple and common-sense.

It’s not much of a right-to-carry if every other place is off-limits. The airport is public property, like just like the bus stations, streets, and sidewalks.