180-degrees wrong.

In today's Treasure Coast newspapers, Ms. Martin, of the Heartland Institute, makes the following statements:

There is literally living proof in Florida that its concealed carry and other pro-gun laws save lives.

From 1987, when the concealed carry law was passed, until 2006, murder and non-negligent manslaughter rates in Florida plunged 45 percent, to 6.2 per 100,000 persons from 11.4, according to crime rate statistics compiled annually by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

More people are alive today in Florida thanks to those laws, which kicked off a nationwide trend toward adoption of conceal-carry provisions. Today almost 40 states have followed Florida's lead.

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There is much mythology woven into her column, which on the surface appears to be supported by the numbers.

It is not.

Ms. Martin made the error of omitting violent crime rate comparisons among states, from the recitation of data about one state.

Knowing this, her thesis collapses when we learn that Florida was either the first or second most violent state in America for the 18 years - eighteen years - after enactment of concealed carry in 1987.

In 2006, Florida fell all the way down to the fourth most violent, preceded by three other concealed carry states of South Carolina, Tennessee and Nevada.

The point is that, while violent crime fell across the country in the 1990's for a wide variety of reasons, Florida has never been out of the top 5 most violent states in America since concealed carry became law.

As Prof. Steven Levitt concluded in 2004, "Ultimately, there appears to be little basis for believing that concealed weapons laws have had an appreciable impact on crime."

If that isn't enough, Florida's concealed carry permitting system has come under scrutiny in recent months.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel reported last year that there were 10 times as many criminal concealed carry permit-holders than previously admitted by the state, including those “responsible for assaults, burglaries, sexual battery, drug possession, child molestation — even homicide.�

These recent examples in the news further illustrate how concealed carry permit-holders - in Florida and elsewhere - are often not the "law-abiding gun owners" that the gun lobby, or Maureen Martin, would lead us to believe.