Poster boy for the Brady bunch

October 9, 2:56 PMDenver Gun Rights ExaminerDan Bidstrup

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Well, it has finally happened.  A legally armed citizen in Randolph, MA, Christopher Leonard, lost his temper and shot his next door neighbor during a dispute about yard leaves.  According to the logic of the Brady Campaign Against Gun Violence it is part and parcel of their argument that guns in the hands of ordinary folks lead to bloodshed.  I cannot argue that this didn't happen.  It even appears that he was a concealed carry permit holder. Does this provide credence to the position that guns should be outlawed, or locked up separate from ammunition at all times?  I think not.

This item was newsworthy precisely because it was unique. A lawfully authorized person was carrying his weapon and lost his temper with his neighbor.  However Eric Puryear as the Self Defense Examiner daily lists example after example of regular people legitimately defending themselves from harm with a gun. There are also dozens of criminal examples every day of shootings during robberies, drug buys and gang wars.  The unusual event of a concealed carry permit holder shooting his weapon in stupid anger stands out because it is exceptional.  In a large enough group, you will absolutely get some examples of egregious behavior.  There are an estimated 2-5 million people who are licensed to carry concealed weapons and about 120 million people who own guns.  That is a pretty big population to comb through for errors of judgment and criminal behavior. It is a pretty safe bet Mr. Leonard is going to have his permit revoked.  Let's look at some percentages of revocation according to research by John Lott: ("More Guns, Less Crime" page 221)

Alaska: Of the permits issued between the end of the fall of 1994 and July 31, 1999, .3% (that is three tenths of one percent) were revoked for any reason.  None involved the firing of a gun.
Arizona:  Of the permits issued between the end of the fall of 1994 and July 31, 1999, .1% (that is one tenth of one percent) were revoked, and up to half of those were administrative revocations because people requested to be removed or had died.
Florida:  Of the permits issued during October 1, 1987 to February 28th, 1999, .2% (that is two tenths of one percent) were revoked for any reason.  Of these, only a small fraction involved a violent offense.
Wyoming:  Of the permits issued between fall of 1994 to July 1999, .2% (that is two tenths of one percent) were revoked, and none of them involved the discharge of a firearm.

As I have written about before, there is no defending against the first time someone turns murderous. Try as we might, we cannot yet predict when a normal person will break the law for the first time.  Notwithstanding that fact, looking at the aggregate of people who carry guns, they are an extraordinarily lawful subset of the population. One person out of 2 million isn't even a statistical blip.