Stochastic Carry Deterrence

Concealed and open carry change offender calculus not only when a specific victim is armed but by creating ambient uncertainty that any target or nearby bystander could intervene. This second‑ and third‑order effect deters opportunistic attacks even if some incidents remain unstoppable. The right metric is aggregate crime shifts, not single outliers. — It reframes gun policy arguments away from anecdotal counterexamples toward population‑level deterrence effects, potentially reshaping legislation and media framing.