I was intrigued by something Scott Feldstein wrote regarding concealed carry today:

I seem to have no friends, conservative or liberal, on this issue. My position is this: I don’t really care if you have a gun or not, just as long as you are made to register it, get training for it and comply with a minimal set of safety guidelines; but I do not believe for one second that concealed carry is a substitute for what really reduces crime: jobs, education and the economy.
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One last jab at the pro-gun folks. Let us have a competition. I will take one large American city, you take another. You may have the gun laws of your wettest, wildest dreams. Fire away, pal. Meanwhile, I’ll invest in economic development and education. In a decade we’ll see what’s what. It is my rock-solid belief that not only will I have done far more to reduce crime in my city, I will also have reduced poverty and unemployment. You will have done none of these things.

To which I had one simple reply.  Why choose between the two?  Well OK, I said more than just that (as if I'm capable of such succinct thoughts), but that was the gist of it.  After all, these are not mutually exclusive options.  But somehow the debate is often times framed as if they are.  It's as if there is a competition to reduce crime, and only one solution is allowed to win out.  But why is the debate framed this way?  More specifically, why is the idea of "concealed carry" often times argued against simply because people believe it won't reduce crime?  I'm not saying this is true, but the fact of the matter is that the evidence supporting either case is pretty shaky, and realistically we'll probably never know for sure.

But back to the question.  My belief is that "classic liberals" and "classic conservatives" (which I lump myself into for the sake of this particular argument) view crime in two completely different ways.  Classic liberals view "crime" as the nebulous cloud that affects "people" somewhere out in the community.  This is not surprising, as liberals tend to view most things through the prism of "the community".  This is why when you talk to them about concealed carry, they scoff, since the idea of one person potentially carrying a gun around doesn't seem like a great solution to stop thousands of criminals from feeling as if they need to steal in order to eat.

Classic conservatives on the other hand view crime as something that affects themselves, and their family.  What if someone breaks into my house, or someone mugs my wife while she's walking to her car?  These are very real concerns, based on the simple fact that police can't be everywhere at once.  They're also based on the fact that you have a right... a right to protect yourself and your family from harm.  When viewed in this way, its no shock that the idea of a jobs program somehow stopping a bullet from tearing into your loved one's body seems downright preposterous.

But when viewed from these two completely different perspectives, it's easy how both ideas can live in harmony.  Trying to improve economic conditions somehow (not that I'm convinced that classic liberal ideas are equipped to do this) would definitely reduce the number of criminals out there.  And for the few criminals that remain (and will always exist in society), classic conservatives will shoot them.

Problem solved.