Concealed-carry doesn’t increase crime

Your editorial on the Maryland Handgun Permit Review Board (“The handgun board that couldn’t shoot straight,” Feb. 7) was filled with almost nonsensical arguments.

You state that there are good data linking open-carry and increased crime rates. You should publish where these statistics come from and how many of the violent gun crimes were committed by those with the opencarry permits. You may be making a valid political point when you criticize the review board for overturning state police decisions in secrecy, but you do not state that the individuals who have benefited from these board decisions have been subsequent perpetrators of significant gun crimes. Because of these incomplete connections, your arguments become very weak.

And I should not need to remind you this extensive government intrusion into individual decisions is not consistent with basic principles of our country’s founding.

David Griggs, Columbia