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"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything." - Gregg Easterbrook
I have always felt that the Violence Policy Center (VPC) was very aptly named. After all, they do advocate for public policy positions that would certainly result in violence against law abiding citizens if implemented.
Thankfully, their increasingly shrill cries for American citizens to abandon freedom for the nurturing bosom of a totalitarian regime have been generally ignored by one and all.
However, I must give them credit for dogged determination in the face of overwhelming reality. You have to remember that, when they were formed in 1988, there were 15 states where obtaining a concealed carry permit was legally impossible and 25 “may-issue” states where obtaining a permit was uncertain at best.
But now, after 21 years of diligent hand-wringing by the VPC and their ilk, there are only 2 states remaining which do not allow concealed carry and 39 states have passed “shall-issue” laws which require that all citizens who meet the statutory requirements be issued a permit without the nepotism, elitism and cronyism that are the hallmarks of the “may-issue” process.
Talk about a stark image of failure …
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But the VPC soldiers on, not allowing two decades of abysmal, abject failure to discourage them from their insidious mission. Their latest attack on the fundamental right of self-defense comes as Senators Thune and Vitter have introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (S. 1390) which would allow an individual who has met the requirements for a carry permit in his home state, or who is otherwise allowed by his home state's law to carry a firearm, to carry a firearm for protection in any other state that issues such permits so long as the laws of the state in which the firearm is carried are observed.
As states such as Maryland, New York, and New Jersey panic over the idea of losing the ability to provide disarmed herds of victims for their criminals, the VPC has sprung to the rescue like a well paid mob lawyer and has released the results of a poorly concocted “study” claiming to illustrate the evils of concealed carry permits.
I use the word “study” loosely in order to not offend the sensibilities of any true statistician who might be reading this article. Their methodology appears to have been to assign a slightly inebriated intern to do a Google news search for “permit holder” and “charged with”.
These results were apparently then pasted into notepad and ultimately compiled into a state by state list by the VPC’s crack technical staff. The resulting PDF file (the creation of which I imagine was a matter of some pride) was dubbed Law Enforcement and Private Citizens Killed by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders: An Analysis of News Reports, May 2007 to April 2009.
On a more serious note
The “study” purports to show that during the strangely arbitrary period from May 2007 until April 2009, permit holders were responsible for the deaths of 7 police officers and 44 citizens.
Now … the loss of a single innocent life is a tragedy that cannot be taken too seriously. And as an ardent supporter of our nation’s law enforcement officers, who are overwhelmingly our brothers and sisters in our struggle to protect and enhance our rights as gun owners, I mourn the loss of these 7 brave officers deeply.
But does this “study” hold water as it attempts to capitalize on these deaths politically? Ted Deeds, Chief Operating Officer of the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA) doesn’t think so.
“I've only just started looking at it and, no surprise, I think there will be lots of holes in it. As always, one cop injured or killed, one good guy injured or killed is too many. But I suspect that there are A LOT more significant mechanisms of injury/death than what this so-called 'report' hopes to conclude.”
Let’s examine the many, many flaws that render their data virtually meaningless and reduces their “study” to nothing more than the ideological propaganda that is the normal grist of the VPC mill.
Flaw #1: How did they identify permit holders?
The report makes it clear that they have no idea whether or not they are accurately identifying these parties as permit holders. In the study, they admit as much, “Because of the secretive nature of concealed handgun permit laws, the VPC relied primarily on news accounts.”
Wait … what? The very premise upon which the “study” is based is the fact that these shooters are permit holders. And this key, threshold issue was determined by relying upon news reports? I cannot remember the last time that I read a news report involving a firearm that did not contain a serious mistake of fact that was glaringly evident to anyone with even a modicum of firearms knowledge.
But wait … surely this lack of verifiable facts can be remedied. After all, the presence or absence of a carry permit would be entered into evidence in the trial and thus available to the VPC for verification.
Except … this leads us to flaw #2.
Flaw #2: Charged with a crime does not equal conviction
Many of the alleged permit holders noted in this report are described as having been charged with a crime but no further information is provided as to the disposition of the charge. This is an important and glaring attempt to cloud the issue.
In many states and jurisdictions, a citizen who properly and legally defends themselves from an attack may well expect to be initially charged with a crime. The charges may later be dropped or may be no-true-billed at the grand jury level. A charge does NOT equal a conviction and yet the VPC, an organization that promotes itself as a public policy think-tank on legal and constitutional issues, treats them as synonymous.
It should come as no surprise that the VPC does not support the concepts of “due process” or “innocent until proven guilty” any more than they do the right to defend one’s self or one’s family.
Perhaps I could suggest a new VPC motto. “Individual rights are like potato chips, you can’t destroy just one!”
Flaw #3: Does my permit allow me to carry a strangling cord?
Another blatant attempt to pad the data was brought to my attention by Mr. Deeds. It comes in the form of several data points involving non-handgun related killings by “permit holders” (see Flaw #1).
Carry permits allow a person to carry a handgun for personal protection. In cases where rifles or other weapons are used to commit a crime, the fact that the person may or may not have been a permit holder is a moot point and not germane to the issue at hand.
Flaw #4: Who is more dangerous?
The VPC concludes their report by stating that these examples illustrate clearly that concealed carry laws are not good public policy because permit holders are dangerous. Furthermore, there is a clear implication that they are more dangerous than the general public.
Let’s take a closer look at the statistics to refute this wild inaccuracy. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, across the general public in the United States, there are an average of .042802 murders per 1,000 citizens per year.
Now … even if we concede all 51 deaths detailed in the VPC report as wrongful deaths, averaging them across the over 6 MILLION permit holders in the United States and taking into account the two year timeframe, we get an average of .00425 per 1,000 per year.
In other words, even if they are 100% correct in their wildly flawed report, they have simply proven that permit holders commit murders at a rate that is 1/10th of the general public.
The VPC report also makes much of the fact that 7 of the victims in these news reports were police officers. They go out of their way to imply that as concealed carry has swept across the nation, law enforcement deaths have risen alarmingly. The only problem with this? It, like so much else that comes from the VPC, is blatantly untrue.
In a report released last week, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund released data that soundly refutes this claim. Chairman of the Memorial Fund, Craig Floyd said it best, "There are three-times more officers on our streets than in the 1970s, and we have half the number of fatalities."
As a matter of fact, since this is supposed to be a debate over statistics, let’s map the killing of officers with firearms against the rise in shall issue states. The data for officer deaths comes from the FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (See VPC … that is what we call citing to actual authority).
Wow … it sure seems to me that the rise in shall-issue has been accompanied by a sharp decline in officer deaths by firearms. How could the VPC have missed such a key point? Perhaps the intern had to leave early to make it to his second job?
In closing I should say that I have had great fun at the expense of the VPC while writing this article but what they hope to accomplish is no laughing matter. They are working diligently day and night to restrict and ultimately eliminate the very rights that made America the great nation that it is.
Make no mistake about it. If you and I and every other law-abiding gun owner do not make our voices heard, they will take back every inch of progress we have made and keep going until the days of armed citizens will be only a dim memory.
See the Take Action section below for how to help refute this report and support the Thune-Vitter Amendment. Spread this article far and wide and let’s make sure that pro-gun Democrats and Republicans know that this is a vote that will be remembered at the ballot box!
Let’s roll!
UPDATE: The first of the cases has been verified to be false! See the details here.
Take Action
It is vital that your Senators hear from you NOW!
Contact the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and leave a message for your senator.
In ADDITION, you may find email and other contact information by using the tools provided by the NRA.
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: You bet it's personal
- Austin: Why do children need guns?
- Boston: Sotomayor: Unfit to serve
- Charlotte: Dangers of gun registration: 'The Belgian Corporal'
- Cleveland: 'Shotgun Robber' is an equal opportunity bandit
- DC: Under Obamacare, where will Canadians go for medical services?
- Denver: What happens to you when you buy a gun?
- Los Angeles: SoCal Churches go concealed carry.
- National: Nationwide right-to-carry bill prompts anti-defense hysteria
- Seattle: Lautenberg’s legislation cloak’s anti-gun senator’s true intention
- St. Louis: The Brady Campaign to create 'gun crime'
- Wisconsin: Gun rights advocates make progress
Comments
Thanks for the references, John!
In our local paper, we have just been told that "there are fewer than 200 justifiable gun homicides each year out of a total of more than 10,000 gun homicides.
"There's absolutely no evidence that if you make [a gun] easier to carry, gun violence goes down" -- all this from the Brady campaign, of course.
-- Roy B. Scherer
Once guns were outlawed in england the knife killings shot up to record numbers, more than guns ever reached.
But do not truth and facts get in the way of the hyper drive morons...they will not be deterred by anything remotely resembling reality!
Methinks VPC uses too much PCP.
Their researchers need to snuff the doobie 24 hours before they begin their diligent work. At this rate, they'll be tenured professors at your local college by years end!
Great article. Very well done.
June 22, 2009
Federal CCW reciprocity?
Well, that's a mouthful.
And it might even sound like a good idea.
If the Feds made every state honor the CCW licenses of every other state...
You could carry virtually everywhere, right?
Well, while we all desire the freedom to carry everywhere we go, and while
none of us likes putting up with other states that won't recognize our
permits, this amendment is simply not what it appears to be.
Hear me out. I know some of our supporters like this idea, and I can
understand that. But there's more going on here than you may realize.
First of all, once you let federal bureaucrats control CCW permits for all
50 states, the same bureaucrats will control the content of those permits.
Understand this: Once you've handed the reins over to Washington to
federalize CCWs nationwide, the gun grabbers would only need to amend this
one piece of code to strip the whole nation of its gun rights -- because
tha
I would also suspect that they have confused/conflated "possession permits" (like in NY or NJ) with "carry permits."
I just took a cursory look at the report.
Since some of the policemen were killed with rifles and another one was killed inside a home where you don't need a carry permit, you could just as well draw the conclusion that something else (like driver's licenses) facilitated the killings.
[Quote]Understand this: Once you've handed the reins over to Washington to federalize CCWs nationwide, the gun grabbers would only need to amend this one piece of code to strip the whole nation of its gun rights[/Quote]
If we were doing that, I'd be concerned. This law in no way federalizes concealed handgun permits. All it does is, per Article 4, Section 1 of the constitution, regulate the "effects" of the permit between states.
If future modifications are made, they would most likely take the form of "if a state doesn't comply with these minimum standards, their permits will not be recognized by other states under this statute"...in which case, we'd be no worse off than we are now.
Any further restrictions could just as easily be proposed and enacted even without this current legislation being passed. This is a good bill and we should support it.
Great job, John. Couldn't have done better myself.
Have you sent this artical to Mr. Shumer? I hope so. I live in Va. I would like to know which States I can Go To and Get a ccp with no problems. Mr. Shumer is on the left, and against gun rights and tells BIG lies.
Given the scant use made of the truth by America's prevaricators of the Left, we of the so-called Right have unlimited access to Truth. So far, we've used it well and to great effect. Let's just keep doin' what we're doin'.
Excellent article. I knew the VPC's statistics sounded suspicious from the start since many law enforcement agencies actually SUPPORT shall issue concealed carry laws.
It just goes to show how far the anti-gun lobbyists will go to restrict the usage and ownership of firearms and make people dependents on the state.
Well done. Facts are helpful in forming an opinion. Wish more articles had them.
Great to see some facts for a change. All the liberal news is just throwing ridiculous claims out there to scare the American people. Its great to see the comments here, but be sure to contact your senators right away...otherwise it may be all for nothing.
I agree with you John Gress, but what do you propose in its stead?
Rep. Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania needs to read this.
I've gone through the VPC study, and I have one or two observations on the killings of LEOs.
James Wonder (killed one LEO)
Charged not convicted. Appears to have been a case of road rage but it's unclear who was raging.
Jason Kenneth Hamilton (killed one LEO)
Member of the Aryan Nations, owned fully automatic firearms (which weren't used in his killing spree, according to most new accounts), convicted of domestic battery in 2006, aggravated assault in 1992, and marijuana possession in 1996. Existing gun control laws preventing him from even owning or posessing a gun, but shoddy government records didn't stop him.
Ashford Thompson (killed one LEO)
Convicted and awaiting sentencing. This is the one who appears to be a bad seed in the aftermath, but there were no convictions or other conditions to prohibit gun ownership. Like John Hinckley before he shot Reagan, Brady, Delahanty and McCarthy. Innocent until proven guilty.
Christina Korbe (killed one LEO)
Charged, not convicted. Shooting occurred in her home so a concealed carry license didn't factor in. Could have just as easily happened without the license. Husband is an alleged drug dealer and they look like bad seeds.
Richard Poplawski (killed three LEOs)
White supremacist, active protection order against him and a dishonorable discharge from the Marines. Existing gun control laws preventing him from even owning or posessing a gun, but shoddy government records didn't stop him.
John you did your home-work!
Thank You!
EXCELLENT article. Very well written, very on topic the whole way through.
So many errors and misrepresentations in your article, it's hard to know where to begin.
First, LEAA is a front group of the NRA. It has no connection to any law enforcement agency.
Second, your Flaw #1 isn't a flaw at all. You claim a news account isn't sufficient evidence. By this logic, you could claim the crime never took place because it's a news account.
Third, Flaw #2 isn't a flaw. You claim a charge isn't a conviction. Fine. But the VPC isn't claiming convictions. Perhaps the title of the VPC study ("Law Enforcement and Private Citizens Killed by Concealed
Handgun Permit Holders") confused you. In point of fact, the study does not claim convictions.
Flaw #3 is also not a flaw. A person who would murder another (in this case, a man strangled his wife) is not a person who should be permitted a weapon of any kind--let alone a gun. We're constantly being told how permit holders are the most law-abiding, etc.
Flaw #4 is simply bad math and poor reading comrehension skills. As the VPC Study pointed out, the number of criminal fatalities is likely much higher because "most state systems allowing the carrying of concealed handguns in public by private citizens release little data about crimes committed by permit holders."
The math is bad because apples are being compared to oranges. Remember, CCW holders are 'supposed to be' law-abiding citizens who, because of their non-criminal backgrounds, are eligible to carry firearms. Comparing this population with a population containing people with criminal backgrounds is a flaw in both math and logic.
[Qoute]If we were doing that, I'd be concerned. This law in no way federalizes concealed handgun permits. All it does is, per Article 4, Section 1 of the constitution, regulate the "effects" of the permit between states.[Quote]
I also might think a little more about this. The Feds also just regulated the "effects" of drivers licenses between the states prior to now; but now, look at RealID.......
Look at this: www.shipleylegalfund.com You won't believe your eyes, If a FBI Agent gets busted for dealing firearms, you can be next. ATF does not know the meaning of Dealer or Collector. If your hobby is collecting guns you better read this. Thank you.
Captain Kidd is, of course spouting gibberish, but I couldn't resist this bit:
"A person who would murder another (in this case, a man strangled his wife) is not a person who should be permitted a weapon of any kind--let alone a gun. We're constantly being told how permit holders are the most law-abiding, etc."
Say Cap'n, what convinces you that someone with evil intent would apply for a weapons permit in the first instance?
"Say Cap'n, what convinces you that someone with evil intent would apply for a weapons permit in the first instance? "
Several reasons: ease and cost. In MN, it's quite easy to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. Perhaps you don't know where to find your local illegal gunrunner.
Cost is also an issue; illegal guns tend to cost more and you have to settle for what's available. Going to WalMart or Cabela's, you get a better selection at bargain prices.
Captain Kidd shows immense ignorance of the most basic facts:
"Several reasons: ease and cost. In MN, it's quite easy to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. Perhaps you don't know where to find your local illegal gunrunner."
The discussion is about concealed carry permits, not purchase. One can buy a firearm without a CC permit. There is absolutely NO REASON to apply for a CC permit if you intend to break the law.
"Cost is also an issue; illegal guns tend to cost more and you have to settle for what's available. Going to WalMart or Cabela's, you get a better selection at bargain prices."
Not true, according to the DOJ (www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/163496.pdf) not only are guns easy to buy illegally (leaving no paper trail) they can be very cheap.
This article sounds like lunatic ravings to me.
Very good article. I also noticed when reading the report it was biased and filled with half-truths.
Richard Poplawski (killed three LEOs)
White supremacist, active protection order against him and a dishonorable discharge from the Marines. Existing gun control laws preventing him from even owning or posessing a gun, but shoddy government records didn't stop him.
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So what if he is a White Supremacist? What political affiliation has to do with rights? You new-breed of Americans act and think like a SovietGulagUnio citizen... I live in Cambodia (Asia) and I can have as manya s guns I want. Currently, I have a Kalasnikov AK-47. And yes, I am White too. Am I a Supremacist now? I hope so!
The Violence Policy Center significantly understates the danger posed by concealed carry permit holders. I've surveyed news reports and identified 60 people killed by concealed carry permit holders in unjustified killings from August 2008 to August 2009. That includes nine from Tennessee alone. I checked names, ages residences of people identified as killers in news reports against the online Tennessee concealed carry permit holder database. This survey still likely understates reality by a wide margin, because virtually all permit databases are unavailable and media reports rarely say whether a killer had a concealed carry permit. Consider this: If there are 3 million concealed carry permit holders nationwide, and 222,000 of them live in Tennessee, then that suggests we would find 121 unjustified killings by concealed carry permit holders if we could do anything like a good check. Write verbalizin at yahoo dot com for details of the surve
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