I'd like to see this for Massachusetts

KMaurer

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John Lott has a link to a study done in San Antonio, showing the distribution of CCW permits around the city.
Handguns-2C2-091910.jpg
I'd really like to be able to get my hands on this sort of detailed LTC information for Massachusetts. I'm not particularly interested in how it coincides with election results, but it would make a nice piece of evidence supporting the argument that the current discretionary licensing system and high license fees create system that is de facto discriminatory on the basis of race/ethnicity and income.

Ken
 
A few people who have been denied (and some should apply but not pay the fee so they are economically denied) need to file a discrimination suit against the state. Then, as part of discovery, they should get the information on numbers of LTCs/FIDs by zip code. Income may be correlated with LTC issuance (could go either way as some high income areas are also very anti-gun), but an indicator of membership in various protected classes almost certainly is negative correlated with issuance.
 
Ken, That's already been done. I can't find the thread right now but matt carrol did it 1 & 1/2 years ago. It shows what you would expect.
 
The problem is that Matt's data is too highly aggregated to get to the real meat of the issue. Some cities and towns issue a lot of license, while others issue very few. If you look at it at this level, you'll see a lot of poorer towns (usually in the western part of the state) that have a lot of licenses, while some higher income places (usually inside 495) don't issue many. What's interesting is who gets licenses within any particular jurisdiction. For example, according to Matt's data, Boston issued only 8.1 license per 1,000 people. But who has those licenses? Anybody want to guess exactly which neighborhoods tend to have high issue rates and which ones have low rates? It's probably a good bet that they're very heavily concentrated in the higher income, whiter neighborhoods. That's the sort of detail that would be really damning to the status quo.

Ken
 
I've seen this kind of data at the county level for Cali. CCW issuance rates were inversely correlated to the count's minority population. Here again the level of granularity isn't really what you need. It's interesting that 'Race' is not an attribute that tracked for FIDs / LTCs. I'd like to see the relative rates of LTC possession by that parameter. Even more I'd like to see denial rates.

Still, you're right I'd like to LTCs by zip code. It would then be easy to match that up with census data on population.
 
It's not as damning as you would think because by the time an app hits the system the PD has already determined they plan on accepting it. You need to show denials in order to prove the rates are not simply self selection. There are less than 1% of all apps denied and the reason is applications are being shunted out of the system before they can even be tracked. Call them soft denials and the PD can just tell the person, save the $100, you aren't going to get it. Who would think to follow up? This is why removing the local PD from the equation is very important. It will remove this soft denial avenue.
 
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It's also hard to get valid numbers because of soft denials.

Many people will not apply if they are told "don't bother, you'll never get" from the PD. Some additional people who want to carry for protection will apply in a green town, but not even file an application in a red or black town.
 
As the 2ndA becomes a more fully-recognized right, judicially, I'm sure we will see NRA bring suit against some state for repressing exercise based on fees. Where and when might be tricky, given that Heller and McDonald both reference states' powers to regulate gun laws. But discrimination by regulation is a valid case.
 
It's also hard to get valid numbers because of soft denials.

Many people will not apply if they are told "don't bother, you'll never get" from the PD. Some additional people who want to carry for protection will apply in a green town, but not even file an application in a red or black town.

This is totally correct.
 
Soft denials become an issue if one is focusing on discriminatory standards in issuing licenses. If the focus is on de facto discriminatory impact, it doesn't matter. If low income people or minorities are issued significantly fewer licenses than others, then the other side would have to present persuasive evidence showing that those people would have less interest in obtaining guns, even in the absence of licensing requirements. Sort of like "well, you know those people really aren't interested in voting; we don't do anything to keep them from registering or voting, but that's just the way they are."

Ken
 
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