Gun Hysteria from Maryland

I recently sent an article entitled 'Gun Control Claims More Victims' to my distribution list, which elicited the following response from a big-government statist in Maryland:

Oh right... so the next time some one pulls a gun out and starts shooting we should all pull out our guns and start shooting back, of course no one can aim like sh*t so by the time the smoke clears everyone would be dead from all the missed shots... that would just be great! Just like an old John Wayne movie.

These are not rational people who are going to be deterred by fatal consequences.

I got a better idea... all the gun people move to Texas, secede from the states and leave us in peace.

Guns Kill People! Remove me from your list!

Which got me thinking ... then researching...

It's noteworthy that Maryland does not have a policy of granting concealed carry permits to law-abiding citizens except for rare cases approved by the state police.

Texas, on the other hand, is one of 39 states that issue such permits, provided the applicant passes a rigorous background check and undergoes training in safety and the law, which some 289,000 Texans have done.

So taking into account that law-abiding Marylanders are disarmed by their government (supposedly making Marylanders 'safer'), a quick look at The Washington Post's take on gun ownership by state and the FBI's crime stats by state reveals that Texas gun ownership is roughly twice that of Maryland, yet Maryland's violent crime rate nevertheless stands at roughly 30% higher than that of Texas, and the murder rate in Maryland is roughly 60% higher than in Texas.

So Texas has more guns, but less crime, than Maryland.

No wonder the guy resorted to an outburst of irrational hyperbole — that's all he's got, since neither sound logic nor empirical data lend any support to his prejudiced dogma.

Go figure.

(Not that seceding isn't still in Texans' best interest.)