Conceal carry permits — It’s a Downstate, collar county thing

The Chicago Sun-Times reports:

In small towns Downstate, murders may happen once every 50 to 100 years, if that frequently, and the worst crimes might be a meth lab getting busted or someone driving away from a gasoline pump without paying.

Yet, these extremely low-crime pockets of the state are precisely where people appear to be lining up the fastest to apply for state permits to carry concealed handguns, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of concealed-carry applications submitted so far to the Illinois State Police.

By contrast, in Cook County, gun owners appear to be moving the slowest to apply for the concealed-carry permits, causing the state’s most populous county to rank dead last of all 102 Illinois counties on a per capita basis, data shows.

Cook County sure is different.