Georgia's so called
"guns everywhere law" went into effect Tuesday, allowing Georgians who legally own guns to take their firearms into churches, schools and bars, and Yih-Chau Chang of Responsible Citizens of California says crime decreases when law-abiding citizens own guns.
"When we're talking about guns and guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, if you take a look at the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, they've been published year after year showing a drop in violent crime rate, not just gun crime, but rather violent crime," Chang told Ed Berliner on "MidPoint" on
Newsmax TV on Tuesday.
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"The FBI UCR reports, Uniform Crime Reports, clearly demonstrate that we have a drop year after year as gun rights expand all across the entire United States," he explained.
"If you take a look at those types of big-picture statistics, you'll realize that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens actually do serve to decrease violent crime," Chang added.
However, Allison Anderman, a staff attorney for the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, told Newsmax that Georgia's new gun law only makes it easier for criminals to take advantage of the law.
"This new Georgia law puts guns into the hands or allows criminals to utilize this law like never before," Anderman said.
"One very troubling aspect of this law is the fact that felons now can shoot and kill a person and claim stand-your-ground defense and be immune from prosecution, and so this law is actually making criminals more likely to or more able to get away with gun violence," she explained.
"Another thing that's important about this law is that . . . there are going to be more guns in public places where Georgia does not require background checks for purchases between private sellers, and that means prohibited people are more likely to get guns and there is no way to know whether or not they are carrying guns into public places where our children are," Anderman added.
Chang contends, however, that "criminals are already carrying guns," but that with this new law in the Peach State, "law-abiding citizens have the ability to basically defend themselves when encountering these types of violent criminals for carrying guns outside the law."
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