Right, the only place where CCW has an affect on crime is at the individual level in helping to determine the outcome of the event. This is a very critical level, of course.
Society, as a whole, doesn't not radically change because a teeny weeny percentage of folks may legally carry firearms. Run this up to 70% or 80% who actually do, and things might change.
Things are actually a little better than that. The population estimate includes all ages of people and about 30% of the US population is below the age of 21. So instead of 565/100k you are looking at 565/70k potential adult carriers and so 0.807% of the legal aged population that could carry may be armed. The only problem is, a lot of crime happens to people under the age of 21 and even in the above 21 age set, the bad guys sill have a better than 99% chance of not running into a legally armed cop or CCW person even if they all did carry. Those numbers just are not scary to bad guys, assuming they actually took the time to figure out what they meant, noticed, or cared.
In addition to this is the geographic disbursement of concealed carriers. I haven't looked up or correlated these numbers state-wide, but Tazewell county (where I live) ranks 11th on number of applications / permit holders. While it ranks 15th in population.
Meanwhile, we rank *48th* in overall crime statistics. (Just did the number crunching from the IL State Police UICR reports in Excel)
(Raw data can be obtained here:
http://www.isp.state.il.us/crime/cii2011.cfm)
Now lethal force can only be used to stop "forcible felonies" outside of the home in Illinois (or to prevent serious bodily injury or death). So assuming that we ONLY track forcible felonies... (I made a column combining forcible felony columns, multiplied by 100,000, then divided by population to create a rate; then sorted by rate descending)
Found out Tazewell ranks #41 on violent crime.
But we rank #11 on sheer NUMBER of permits.
We rank #41 on violent crime and #48 on ALL crime.
Dumping the ISRA data in to Excel, to get # of permits as rate of population. Had to add Woodford county to ISRA data since they neglected to copy it in; with one missing county I could extrapolate that they have 281 active permits by comparing the totals ISRA reported vs. the totals of the "missing data"
I also had to massage the data and fix up counties so they matched since obviously one of the lists wasn't sorted alphabetically (state UICR data lol) and I didn't notice until I'd already dumped the data in to new columns.
Aaaanywho.
We arrive at some telling numbers!
Tazewell ranks #14 in number of active concealed carry permits by population rate.
Tazewell ranks #11 in number of active concealed carry permits TOTAL.
Meanwhile we are currently ranked (using 2011 data) as #41 on violent crime and #48 on ALL crime (including drug charges and other nonviolent offenses.)
Our # of active permit holders rate is 790/100,000 (.79%)
Violent crime (forcible felonies) rate is 650/100,000 (.65%)
I used Murder, Rape, Assault, and Robbery for my forcible felony column. Which means a "victim is present at the time of the offense."
People seem to think that forcible felonies aren't THAT common, and they are right. Your chances of experiencing a violent offense in this county in a given year are 1 in 153. (And we're #41 in violent crimes)
This seems like a striking number - 1 in 153, that's not what you'd call one in a million!
But this DOES mean you could live through 2 average lifespans without being a victim of violent crime.
But consider this - it also means that for one of every 2 friends or family members you have, ONE of them will be a victim of violent crime *at some point during their life*. (And... Remember we're calm county, #41 in violent crime of 102 counties).
So during your life, assuming an average lifespan, ONE of every TWO people you know will be murdered, raped, robbed, or assaulted (felony level).
Have two kids? One will be murdered, raped, robbed, or assaulted at some point during their life if they live their entire lives in my county. (FWIW, I have 5 children and I've taught them ALL to shoot. Statistically if they carry a firearm everywhere they can during their lives,
at least two of five will use them to defend themselves at some point.)
Anyway looking at "when I walk out the door TOMORROW what are my chances of using a firearm to defend myself?" (Which, coincidentally is also the percentage of a criminal actually facing armed response if they commit a crime and making the nightly news).
Statistically speaking each day in Tazewell county, assuming a perfectly even distribution of crime over the course of the year (don't have data for seasonality to go that granular), there are going to be 882 forcible felonies a year, or 882/365 = 2.416 forcible felonies a day. On a population of 135,661 that means that there is a 0.0000178091 chance of facing a violent crime on any given day.
If .79% of the population is armed here full time, it means a chance of 0.00000014 of a violent felon meeting an armed citizen tomorrow.
So much for the "high noon showdown" and "rampant blood in the streets" the anti-gunners try to flout with concealed carry.
The statistics just don't support it.
Will YOU or a LOVED ONE face a violent felon at some point in your life? Truly, flip a coin. Heads you win, tails you live a nice peaceful life with nary a scrape.
If you don't carry every day, full time, your odds of facing them unarmed are statistically equivalent to how often you are disarmed.
E.g. if you carry a gun "once a month" then there's a 97% chance that IF YOU DO face an armed individual, you will be UNARMED at the time.
Think about that.