Crunching some numbers

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Just out of curiosity I did some numbers crunching to get an idea of the ratio of HCP holders to county population.

I started with my home county Perry. And then did Davidson and Shelby Counties just to compare.

Perry County - Pop est 7,800 as of 2008
Approx. 5850 over 21
As of July 1, 09 - 435 valid HCP holders
1 in 14 Perry Countians over 21 YoA are HCP holders

Davidson County (Nashville area)- Pop est. 626,000 as of 2008
Approx. 469,500 over 21
As of July 1,09 - 14,672 valid HCP holders
1 in 32 Davidson County residents over 21 YoA are HCP holders

Shelby County (Memphis area) - Pop est. 907,000 as of 2008
Approx. 634,900 ovr 21
As of July 1, 09 - 33,331 valid HCP holders
1 in 19 Shelby County residents over 21 YoA are HCP holders

There's probably a bit of error in the numbers, since I had to guesstimate the precentage of the populations of each county that was under 21 and subtract it from the total pop. The stats that I was using only gave the % of pop under 18 YoA, so I had to guess at the compensating %.

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Did you factor in that Davidson County has quite a number of colleges? That alone would increase the number of uner 21 crowd.

It would be nice if the census numbers would give us a 21+ breakdown, instead of the 18+.

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WCrawford wrote:

Did you factor in that Davidson County has quite a number of colleges? That alone would increase the number of uner 21 crowd.

It would be nice if the census numbers would give us a 21+ breakdown, instead of the 18+.

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NO, I didn't think about that. I suspect Shelby has a few Universities as well, not to mention the Naval Base at Millington. Like I said, the accuracy of my figures are going to be iffy at best.

Perry County only has one branch of the University of Hard Knox, which everyone is enrolled.

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I'm sure politics plays a role in Perry County having more HCP holders than Shelby or Davidson County. The two urban counties have more law enforcement. Those residents are likely to be of the mindset of depending on those agencies. TaskForce, you know Perry County is a very rural county. I know from first hand experience that only a few deputies are on duty at a given time, and the response time is increased. I suspect that Perry Countians are aware of this, and would rather not take a chance on waiting for a deputy who may be on the other side of the county.

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ProguninTN wrote:

I'm sure politics plays a role in Perry County having more HCP holders than Shelby or Davidson County. The two urban counties have more law enforcement. Those residents are likely to be of the mindset of depending on those agencies. TaskForce, you know Perry County is a very rural county. I know from first hand experience that only a few deputies are on duty at a given time, and the response time is increased. I suspect that Perry Countians are aware of this, and would rather not take a chance on waiting for a deputy who may be on the other side of the county.

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Yes, you're right. Perry county only has the Sheriff's Dept for LEA. I think there may be one or 2 THP's asigned to the area, but I don't see them all that often. The deputy's know they are stretched thin here and that may be why they don't hassle anyone for OC. I'm not sure but some of them may consider us armed citizens to be their backup, in a pinch.

Perry County is pretty peaceful when it comes to violant crimes, burglaries, or home invasions. I was chatting with a few others one day when a deputy was present about the near absence of burgleries here. The deputy snickered and said "Breaking into someones home in this county is a damned good way to get your butt blown off." He cited the fact that so many folks had firearms in the home. Even the Mennonites have long guns for hunting.