Somehow I missed this, but Michigan’s concealed carry weapons law went into effect on Sunday, July 1. The law was passed months ago but a group had collected enough signatures to put it on the ballot in the Fall which would have suspended the bill from going into effect.
But on Friday the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the law was exempt from the referendum process (with reasoning which frankly made little sense) and so the law went into effect. People can begin apply for CCW permits today.
Before the new law, people could apply for a concealed weapons permit, but in all but one county you had to demonstrate a “need” for the permit. This effectively meant that unless you had political connections or were somebody important, you could forget about obtaining a permit.
The exception was Macomb county which four years ago began issuing CCW permits to almost all applicants who hadn’t been convicted of felonies and who didn’t have a history of mental illness. Macomb did occasionally weed out people its gun board thought weren’t mature enough to have a concealed weapon permit, but very rarely.
The bottom line results were amazing. Crime has been dropping quickly in Michigan just as it has around the country, but the crime rate in Macomb county dropped three times as fast as the rest of the state. This is very much in line with what John Lott outlines in his study of concealed carry laws, More Guns, Less Crime — crime has been dropping nationwide, buy it has dropped much further and faster in counties where concealed carry laws were liberalized.