Chief James Craig (Deadline Detroit photo)
Detroit Police Chief James Craig has long been an advocate of law-abiding citizens bearing arms.
In his latest defense of that, Craig says violent extremists would be reluctant to target Detroit, as they had Paris last month, for fear armed citizens would shoot back, George Hunter of The Detroit News writes.
“A lot of Detroiters have CPLs (concealed pistol licenses), and the same rules apply to terrorists as they do to some gun-toting thug,” Craig said. “If you’re a terrorist, or a carjacker, you want unarmed citizens.”
Hunter reports that Oakland University criminal justice professor Daniel Kennedy agrees.
“We don’t have laboratories where we can test these theories, but there is something to the argument that terrorists want a high body count — and if they can only shoot a few people before they’re taken out themselves, it wouldn’t have the kind of impact they want.
More than 30,000 Detroit residents are legally armed, according to Michigan State Police.
