Data Shows Concealed Gun Permit Holders Kill Cops, Others
WASHINGTON -- Concealed handgun permit holders killed eight law enforcement officers and 77 private citizens (including 10 shooters who killed themselves after an attack) during the period May 2007 through October 2009 according to a new Violence Policy Center (VPC) on-line resource that tallies news reports of such killings.
The web site, CCW Killers, is located at
http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm and is updated monthly to include new
fatal shootings and changes in the legal status of concealed handgun
permit holders facing criminal charges. (Any concealed handgun permit
holders who are eventually acquitted of their alleged crimes are not
included in the tallies maintained on the site although the facts
surrounding the shooting are detailed).
The new VPC web site offers detailed descriptions of the 46 incidents,
which occurred in 18 states. Of these incidents, 10 were
murder-suicides involving firearms and eight were mass shootings (three
or more victims) that claimed as many as 11 lives at a time. Law
enforcement officers were killed in Florida (two incidents), Idaho,
Ohio, and Pennsylvania (two incidents). All of the law enforcement
killings were committed with guns.
Private citizens were killed in Alabama, California, Colorado, Florida (nine incidents), Idaho (two incidents), Kentucky, Michigan (three incidents), New York, North Carolina (two incidents), Ohio (three incidents), Oklahoma (two incidents), Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina (two incidents), Tennessee (five incidents), Texas, Utah (two incidents), and Virginia (three incidents). All but one of the killings were committed with guns.
Kristen Rand, legislative director for the Violence Policy Center, states, “This new web site makes clear that contrary to the false promises of the gun lobby the simple and deadly fact is that state concealed handgun systems are arming cop-killers, mass shooters, and other murderers.”
Because most state systems that allow the carrying of concealed handguns in public by private citizens release little data about crimes committed by permit holders, the VPC reviews and tallies concealed handgun permit holder killings as reported by news outlets. It is likely that the actual number of fatal criminal incidents involving concealed handgun permit holders is far higher.
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If you look at any type of data you can find something to support your own particular beliefs, no matter what the topic. It is very sad that statasticions have to report this bullshit. Yes I am sure there have been CC permit holders that have commited violent crimes.... I wonder how many violent crimes have been stopped or how many have been not even commited based opion the fact that the prospective criminial thought there may be a chance that their target could fight back in a lethal manner. I am not trying to say that the people mentioned in this blog were right, and I respect and believe that police officers and military personal do an unbelievable job based upon the amount of resonablilty they are given in their job. I think that it is a joke that people think that you should take guns away from the majority of responsible and law abiding citizens while most criminals carry weither legal or not. It also begs to ask how many people have had violent crime crime commited to them when no member of police squad was there. How many times could a violent crime that was commited be stopped if that person had exercised their right to carry a firearm and defended themselves. I know If my wife, child, or brother or sister had a run-in with someone hell bent on doing them harm, I would wish they would have the opertunity to defend themselves. Police officer are not always around, espacially in larger cities... it could be many minites before they can respond to a situation. Do you trust that the criminal will wait till they think a cop will show up before commiting a crime. I doubt it... they will find the easiest target and exploit them. I will not let myself or family fall into this category... as most people think. Take the guns away from the criminals.. not the law abiding citizens!
Are we saying permits don't work? Or what?
I mean, why would a criminal go get a permit for a weapon if they intended to commit a crime with it?
Still, I worry that this topic, amongst so many, seems to get the most people agitated.
Guns are for killing people, yall. That's what we do with them. Why do all the 2nd-Amendment=Only-Amendment people freak out whenever someone points this out?
Because that is certainly what is implied by your statement. It also implies it's not possible to stop an attack simply by non-fatally wounding the attacker. That too is false.
The reason tripe like this gets people so agitated is because it's the same type of garbage perpetrated on a daily basis by the media . Overexposure to the negative side of guns is the reason there are as many anti-gun people as there are.
Take the example of the shooting at Appalachian Law School in 2002. There were 218 unique stories covering the event and out of those 3 mentioned that the attacker was stopped by students with...wait for it...a gun! [dramatic music] [/dramatic music]
So when those of us that are among the vast majority of permit holders - i.e. law -abiding citizens from whom you have nothing to fear - are made to look like a bunch of gang bangin' thugs, perhaps you'll forgive us if we get our feathers slightly tussled.
What would you think if every time someone who works for the government shot somebody the Brady Bunch, VPC, and FSA ran a story about how dangerous government workers are. It's absurd. It's false. But after hearing it over and over and over again, some people who are unable to think for themselves will start to believe it. And eventually they start looking at you as the problem, ignoring the tens of thousands of non government employees out there committing crimes on a daily basis.
The threat of killing people also works as a deterrent.
The implication that most shooters can effectively and consistently disable a target without killing them is at least as absurd and false as this article.
First, you should not be shooting someone accept to apply deadly force. They are not marketing tools, and if that was the intent, then why conceal it?
Second, it's beyond the capabilities of the vast majority of shooters to only disable, unless they are using salt-rock in shot gun, and I don't think concealed carry applies here.
Whatever the intent of the article, unless you dispute the facts themselves as presented, it is not falsely portraying anything.
I think it's saying, if anything, that law abiding people also kill people with guns . The margin's are slight enough to indicate that getting the permit is not causal.
So it's not saying anything that I have not heard stated by those that are against gun control ; that is, that ID's, background checks, and permits do not necessarily stop crime .
More importantly, this discussion dances around the fact that it does not take a special person, but only a special circumstance, to make a "law-abiding citizen" a "gang bangin' thug".
"The implication that most shooters can effectively and consistently disable a target without killing them is at least as absurd and false as this article."
Actually, it's much more difficult to get a kill shot on the first shot. Especially when the target is moving, you likely are moving, your adrenaline is pumping, and you now have tunnel vision. Also, the law in most states reads something like "shoot until the threat is stopped" and not "shoot until the threat is dead." So from a legal standpoint there's issues with that as well.
"Whatever the intent of the article, unless you dispute the facts themselves as presented, it is not falsely portraying anything."
It absolutely is falsely portraying something. You can use facts to further an agenda, and that's what this is doing. But they always leave out the flip side. For every permit holder that kills someone, there are at least a million that break no laws. But since you don't ever hear about the second group you're left with the impression that permit holders are just as bad as gang members, robbers, rapists, etc. That's a false portrayal, and it's the exact impression FSA wants you to have, to further their agenda. Otherwise, they would include the other statistics in their propaganda.
"More importantly, this discussion dances around the fact that it does not take a special person, but only a special circumstance, to make a ' law -abiding citizen' a 'gang bangin' thug'."
This is pure B.S. Only by completely ignoring the glaring differences in those two groups could you possibly believe that. The latter has absolutely no respect for the law under any circumstances. They use our laws as punchlines while the majority of us try to live within the confines of the laws - even the ones we don't like. For example, I don't carry my gun into restaurants that have signs posted saying that they are not allowed, even though I think the law is B.S. Your average thug ignores the sign and keeps his gun tucked in his boxers under his big ass baggy shirt. The examples are endless, and if I need to list them all, they won't help anyway.
Application of deadly force is pretty consistently defined, and your wording does not change my point one iota. You can not expect people to reliably use a firearm to kill xor disable, and so if you shoot it is deadly force being applied. Period.
More subltely, without the highly structured society that readily offers medical attention (and seems less interested in everyone having guns ) most "disabling" gun shot wounds are fatal as well. This whole point is puerile.
As far as use of facts, this article leaves out percentages, and claims only that "Data Shows Concealed Gun Permit Holders Kill Cops, Others". Which is clearly true and should catalyze some questions, since despite your claim about what everybody but the gun-annointed believes, I was under the impression that most of the gun death caused by concealed permit weapons were accidents.
You sound as if you are worried about questions, instead of answers.
On this last point, I want to point out that I used your categories to put light on how cartoony the categories are. What the hell is an average thug? Do above average thugs leave their gun in the car at Denny's?
What I was saying is that everyone is capable of moments of rage or depression , failure in judgement, or misunderstanding people and environments. And that's not looking at the actually insane people that manage to get firearms , unless you also accept that everyone is capable of fits of mass shootings.
In any case, the gun control side wants to take firearms out of those situations, I think. Sometimes its not clear. But it's not because they are stupid and its not because they want to be slaves to the government .
"Application of deadly force is pretty consistently defined, and your wording does not change my point one iota."
No it doesn't. You did that all by yourself. First you were arguing about the accuracy of a shooter, and now you're arguing about the lethality of the weapon system. They are related, but not the same.
However, deadly force is pretty consistently defined, as you stated. The thing is, if you shoot someone and don't kill them, you still have used deadly force. You just didn't use it efficiently. In my opinion, a more accurate term would be potentially deadly force. In the real world, potentially deadly force is transformed into actual deadly force by accurately and efficiently deploying a weapon system in response to a threat.
"most "disabling" gun shot wounds are fatal as well."
Again, not true. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, there are approximately 3 times more nonfatal shootings than fatal shootings per year. For example, from 1993-1997 there were 257,200 nonfatal shootings, while there were 78,620 homicides. Of course these aren't defensive. In defensive shootings the statistic is skewed greatly in favor of nonfatal shootings. In less than 8% of defensive uses of guns is a shot even fired , and in less than one in a thousand the attacker is killed. That not only contradicts both of your points, but supports my earlier statement about it being much more difficult to kill than to wound. Or perhaps a better phrasing would be "more likely."
"I was under the impression that most of the gun death caused by concealed permit weapons were accidents."
So this is not true? If it is, I haven't seen any evidence to support it. To tell the truth, I am not even familiar with any statistics that separate negligent discharges of firearms by permit holders and non permit holders. But I would be willing to bet that the majority of negligent discharges are by non permit holders. Not because they have some magical powers, but because they tend to be much better trained and more familiar with their firearms than others.
"What the hell is an average thug? Do above average thugs leave their gun in the car at Denny's?"
You have nitpicked my wording without making an argument or disputing my point. You know it's true that criminals will ignore the law completely, while the vast majority - in excess of 99.9% - of permit holders do obey the law. This article tries in vain to portray the opposite and you seem to be supporting it.
"What I was saying is that everyone is capable of moments of rage or depression , failure in judgement, or misunderstanding people and environments."
Certainly few would argue that is not true. But to insinuate that permit holders and mass murderers are almost no different is insulting and far from accurate.
"And that's not looking at the actually insane people that manage to get firearms , unless you also accept that everyone is capable of fits of mass shootings."
Very wisely worded. Again, few would say that everyone is not "capable." Certainly I'm capable of a lot of things. You're capable of molesting children , but - hopefully - what separates you from guys like Roman Polanski is some kind sense of fairness and moral judgment that is superior to scum like that. Capable and likely are very different measures of the same group.
"But it's not because they are stupid[...]"
No, but they think you are. And they think I am. That's why they continue to publish trash like this article. If they thought we were smart enough to see through this they would do some real research and attempt to attack the real problems. But instead they concentrate on the areas that are least likely to yield the results they purport to pursue. Maybe a better characterization would be "willfully ignorant."
"Criminals" are chupacabra's.
Are you saying that there is a type of person that just acts to willfully violate the law at every turn?
Violate the law completey? Bed tags, tax evasion, serial killing and j-walking?
Seriously, no one has said all permit holders and mass murderers are the same. The permit has nothing to do with it, either way. The gun itself is not even the point, but in real life circumstances its the presence of firearms that makes the situation deadly.
You completely skipped the point that this airy idealism of rugged reliance on personal defence is on less and less relevance in the 20th and 21st centuries. Gun shot wounds were mostly fatal before modern medicine , and they were not nearly as effective then.
I don't see either side of the debate being very reasonable. You say that these groups are "willfully ignorant", but provide no motive, maintaining the unrealistic picture of villification.
It is futile to claim guns do not cause death in situations that would not be fatal lacking guns. For instance: Children Killed by Guns: In 1999, there were 3,385 firearms-related deaths for children ages 0–19 years. They break down as follows: 214 unintentional, 1,078 suicides, 1,990 homicides, 83 for which the intent could not be determined, and 20 due to legal intervention. Source: 2002 edition of Injury Facts.
The debate should not be about the statistics. How can you quantify the death of a child? "Shit happens" is not a very convincing position. The questions should be, are these tools worth it? Can they be regulated in a way that mitigates these hazards?
"Are you saying that there is a type of person that just acts to willfully violate the law at every turn?"
I wouldn't word it that way. But I would say there are plenty of people who have absolutely no respect for the law and do what they want, when they want, where they want, regardless of the law. Almost none of the 6 million + permit holders in this country fit that mold.
"but in real life circumstances its the presence of firearms that makes the situation deadly."
That is a gross generalization. If someone tries to cave in my head with a baseball bat and I shoot them, did the presence of the firearm make the situation deadly? No, the presence of the baseball bat did. The presence of the firearm simply changed for whom it was deadly.
"You completely skipped the point that this airy idealism of rugged reliance on personal defence is on less and less relevance in the 20th and 21st centuries."
When crime disappears, I will agree with that statement. In the mean time, it's just fantasy.
"I don't see either side of the debate being very reasonable. You say that these groups are "willfully ignorant", but provide no motive, maintaining the unrealistic picture of villification."
The motive is simple. Make it illegal to own firearms of any type. That's what FSA wants. That's what Brady wants. They don't want me to have any type of guns . That's why they also decry the evils of hollow point ammunition even though it is easily a better choice for self defense than full metal jacket. Unless of course you think it's less evil for a round to pass through an attacker and hit whatever - or whoever - is behind them. That's why they decry the evils of semiautomatic rifles which "have no legitimate sporting purpose." I guess target shooting and hunting are not legitimate sporting purposes. Etc. etc. etc.
"It is futile to claim guns do not cause death in situations that would not be fatal lacking guns[...]"
First, see my example of the baseball bat above. People get killed by all types of objects. Second, take out the 18-19 year olds and rerun those statistics. They fall dramatically. Third, take out gang member on gang member violence. Another sharp drop. Fourth, suicides aren't affected in any statistically significant way by the absence of firearms.
You're right about one thing, though: "Shit happens" is not an excuse for the death of a child. I would never advocate any action that would result in the death of a child. But let's be honest here. If a child is able to kill another child, commit suicide , accidentally discharge a firearm, etc. it's because of the negligent act of the owner of that firearm. Regardless, it doesn't erase the benefits of firearm ownership. It certainly is a popular method of emotionalizing the issue though. And you have certainly done a commendable job of that. Brady would be proud to be sure.
That's their obvious intention. A motive explains why they want to do that.
And why bring statistics back into this. Are you seriously telling me guns have no danger value?
And your example is not convincing. If you can't see a matter of degree's here, perhaps you can explain along with Brady's motive, why they aren't trying to rid the world of baseball bats.