Keeping Track of Killings by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders--85 Dead So Far

[GreenStormCloud]

That is the title of an article in The Huffington Post by Josh Sugarman Executive director of the Violence Policy Center in Washington, DC.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-sugarmann/keeping-track-of-killings_b_360572.html

The article goes on to try to scare the reader into thinking the concealed carry by ordinary people is dangerous. But lets look closer at the statistic. The time period for those murders covers May 2007 to October 2009 - 2.5 years.

First, how many people in the US have CCWs. Some states don't publish the data. Texas, Florida, and North Carolina combined have over one million people with CCWs. There are 39 shall-issue states, 1 universal CCW state,(Alaska is universal carry, but does also have a state issued CCW for reciprocity. I count it here as a shall-issue state.) and eight states that have may-issue CCW. I searched but couldn't find a good solid estimate for the number of CCWs in the US. It seems reasonable that since three states can total over a million, then for the entire US an estimate of five million CCW holders seems reasonable.

From this site: http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm I get the crime statistics for the entire US. Since the year 2009 is not complete, I will use 2007, 2008 and half of 2006 to get 2.5 years. Total murders is 40,666. Population is about 300 million. (40,000+ murders and Sugarman is in a flap over 85?) That yields a murder rate of 13.88/100,000 for a 2.5 year period. Annual rate is 5.4 according to the FBI, for the general population.

Now lets look at those 85 murders. 85/5,000,000 = .000,017. .000,017 X 100,000 = 1.7 per 100,000 for a 2.5 year period.

13.88/1.7 = 8.16

CCW holders are 8.16 times safer than the general populace.

The VPC deceives again - no surprise.

[wizstars]

1. ...and 12.6 times as full of shit

[eqfan592]

8. That's all you got?

You can't refute the argument, so you just act insulting again? yeah, that's REAL progressive there.

[rd_kent]

How informative of you. Your reply to a post that was full of facts and data shows your ignorance.

But thanks for playing.

[Name removed]

41. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[TheWraith]

4. What the hell is that supposed to mean? nt

[eqfan592]

7. wow, that was stupid

It does make sense if the argument that your side is trying to make is that CCW holders are more likely to commit violent crimes (or at least just as likely). How on earth can you possibly make the comparison between the two samples of people without looking at the homicide rate for the population at large?

[eqfan592]

3. Good find.

And I'm glad to see that most of the people over at Huffpost are slamming this moron for his idiocy. The funny thing is that by posting the numbers as he did, he may actually change the minds of a few people who were AGAINST CCW for the reasons he's trying to promote, because any rational person will look at those numbers, collected over a 2.5 year period, and realize that CCW holders must be some of the most law abiding people in the nation as a whole, or at the very least are significantly less likely to commit a homicide.

[TheWraith]

5. Something like 2% of the US population has a concealed carry license, I believe.

That amounts to about 6.2 million people.

[rrneck]

6. Geez.

85 people in two years. In a country of over three hundred million people.

Safer than wearing a hat with a lightning rod on it.

[GreenStormCloud]

15. 225 people on average killed by lightning in 2.5 years.

Definately CCW holders are safer.

[RaleighNCDUer]

9. A great exercise in comparing apples to lug nuts.

For one thing, people with criminal records can't get (or at least are not supposed to get) CCW permits. That automatically skews the sampling because, OF COURSE, people with CCW permits are less likely to be involved in shootings than the general populace.

Then, you are comparing this select group with everybody else - including the hundred million americans who do not own guns. So you actually have three groups - those with CCW permits, those who carry without CCW permits (by definition, criminals), and those who do not carry at all, who do not own guns.

CCW permitees are far less likely to commit gun crimes than criminals. Duh.
OTOH, CCW permittee are far likelier to be involved in a shooting than people who never carry guns.

By all means, lets play with statistics.

[eqfan592]

12. well that was pointless

Given that the story the OP is talking about was trying to somehow paint CCW holders as somehow being MORE likely to commit a crime, it makes perfect sense to compare the numbers from CCW holders to the rest of the general population. This is what the person in that article was trying to do, and the OP simply used those same numbers to extrapolate that the person writing that article was full of shit. It was THAT person that tried to make the claim that CCW holders are either more or at least as likely to commit a crime as the general population, NOT the OP. So your "of course" statements should be directed at the person over at Huffpost who wrote the dumb-ass article in the first place.

[eqfan592]

13. Also, another point.

You keep mentioning firearm ownership as a key factor to your counter point. Given that both the original article and the OP never mentioned homicides only committed using a firearm, but the homicide rate in general, your point becomes even more...well, pointless.

"OTOH, CCW permittee are far likelier to be involved in a shooting than people who never carry guns."

That's like saying a person driving is more likely to get into a car accident. A totally useless assertion to make, given that we are talking about the likelihood of a group of people to commit a homicide in general, not just one using a firearm.

The entire anti-gun argument isn't "Fewer guns will mean fewer gun related crimes." This is a stupid and obvious assertion. No, the anti-gun argument is "Fewer guns will mean FEWER CRIMES, PERIOD." The numbers simply don't support this claim in the least, and because of this, all you ever hear the VPC and Brady Campaign talk about are gun control legislation affect on "gun violence" not "violent crime." They know these numbers don't support their original claim, but they use them anyway because they think the general public is damned ignorant and can't tell the difference between the two data sets anyway.

[GreenStormCloud]

14. Thank you for agreeing that CCW holders are far safer with guns than the general populace.

BTW - You are not separating out murders from jutifiable homicides when you say that a CCW holder is more likely to be involved in a shooting. Some shootings that CCW holders do is a good thing. I wasn't able to find specific data on how many time CCW shooting were ruled justified, but certainly many of them are.

[Euromutt]

26. Like eqfan592 says, this isn't just about firearm homicides

In fact, there's a few more groups than just three. You've got:
- CCW permit holders
- legal firearms owners without CCW permits
- illegal firearms owners
- those who engage with some regularity in criminal behavior, but don't possess firearms
- generally law-abiding non-gun owners.

Now, given that according to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports, 32% of homicides in 2007 and 33.2% of homicides in 2008 were committed using means other than a firearm, there's plenty of room for homicides to have been committed by non-firearm possessors (whether generally law-abiding or not). (According to the CDC's WISQARS, from 2000 to 2006, 34.7% of homicides were committed by means other than a firearm.)

So reasonable questions to ask are:
a) "How likely are CCW permit holders to commit a homicide, compared to non-gun owners?" and
b) "How likely are CCW permit holders to commit a homicide, compared to generally law-abiding citizens (both gun owning and non-gun owning)?"

I'm taking as read that we're not arbitrarily restricting ourselves to homicides committed using a firearm in making this comparison, though there is actually an argument to be made for excluding all homicides committed by CCW permit holders by means other than a firearm, and using firearms in locations where they would not have needed a CCW permit to have the firearm in their possession. After all, Sugarmann's claim is "that state concealed handgun systems are arming cop-killers, mass shooters, and other murderers." Sugarmann counts one instance of a private citizen being murdered by a CCW holder not using a firearm; how could this have been avoided by denying the killer a CCW permit? How would a murder-suicide in the permit holder's own home have been forestalled by denying him a CCW permit, or a homicide committed using a non-concealable long gun? How many of the LEO killings were committed using the officer's own weapon?

Admittedly, these are not relevant considerations if the question being asked is whether CCW permit holders are as law-abiding as they're made out to be. But with that quoted line, Sugarmann changes the question to "how likely is it that being issued a CCW permit enabled the killer to commit a crime he would otherwise (probably) have been unable to commit?" and that's a question to which the limited data he cites provides no answer.

[unlegendary]

34. Figures don't lie

As my dad often said, "Figures don't lie, but liars often figure." which means you can skew statistics any way you want, but it doesn't make them true.. Kind of like saying, "See? The by-bull says god's real so it must be true."
Well since it was written in a book a few thousand years ago it MUST be true...as if people were incapable of lying "back then"..

[GreenStormCloud]

36. Yes, the VPC is using figure to deceive. What does The Bible have to do with any of this? N/T

[SteveM]

43. "CCW permits are less likely to be involved in shootings." (nt)

[virginia mountainman]

10. Here is some more results

Findings from Texas...





The FBI’s Uniformed Crime Report of 2007 show that states with right-to-carry laws have a 30% lower homicide rate, 46% lower robbery, and 12% lower aggravated assault rate and a 22% lower overall violent crime rate than do states without such laws.

Anyone that comes to this thread, without numbers backing their cries of "bullshit' up, are nothing more than Republican Trolls.

[Hoopla Phil]

21. Wow. Good graph!

[spin]

11. Florida publishes a report each month on concealed weapons permit holders...

located at:

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html

The report covers a time frame from October 1, 1987 - October 31, 2009, a 22 year period.

During that time 1,647,823 licenses were issued and 664,056 are currently valid.

4,420 licenses were revoked for a crime committed after the license was issued. Of that total 167 license were revoked for a crime that involved a firearm.

edited for spelling mistake

[chibajoe]

16. I noticed the article neglected to mention that

Michael McLendon was a former police officer, or that his shooting spree was done with a rifle and not a concealed weapon.

[eqfan592]

17. I don't think the article was restricting itself...

...to only homicides committed with a firearm, but the number of homicides committed by a CCW holder in general (at least for the total numbers. Obviously the "mass shooting" statistic was only dealing with firearms).

[Euromutt]

29. It kind of was, actually

When in his last sentence, Sugarmann asserted that "the simple and deadly fact is that state concealed handgun systems are arming cop-killers, mass shooters, and other murderers," he in effect made the claim that the issuance of CCW permits facilitated homicides that could/would not have happened absent the permit. To make that case, you have to discard all homicides by permit holders that were not committed with a concealable firearm that the permit holder himself brought into a location where a permit would be required to carry concealed (or at all); i.e. no murders committed with a weapon other than a firearm or with long gun, no cop killings committed using the cop's own gun, and no killings in the permit holder's residence, fixed place of business (if state law does not require a permit to carry in such a location) or places where possession of firearms was prohibited by law.

I wonder how many cases that leaves?

[eqfan592]

31. Yeah, I hadn't thought about it from that angle.

He's basically trying to make an assertion that none of his evidence is geared towards providing if I'm understanding you correctly. He would need to narrow down the numbers significantly in order to make that claim.

But even if we were to assume that the numbers he presents did meet all the qualifications you laid out (which they don't), it's still a stunningly low number compared to the entire CCW holding population, so even then the numbers still don't support his assertion.

[GreenStormCloud]

18. Certainly there were more than 85 genuine DGU saves in that same period.

Even under the tightest measures, there are thousands (Personally I go with the millions figure.)of defensive gun uses per year. The number of lives saved by CCW uses of guns would easily be greater than the 85 killed.

[eqfan592]

19. Even if you narrowed it down to just DGU by CCW holders...

...that number would undoubtedly be well above the 85 mark over a 2.5 year period.

[spin]

20. I think we post more than 85 incidences where concealed weapons saved lives...

or averts crimes here on DU in a 2.5 year period.

[rrneck]

22. LOL! nt

[krispos42]

23. Killings... or murders? n/t

[slackmaster]

24. According to the article, the measure used was "killings as reported by news outlets"

If that is an accurate description, it would include justified killings. He switches gears freely and frequently between "crimes" and "killings", but does add "The web site will be updated monthly to include new fatal shootings and changes in the legal status of concealed handgun permit holders facing criminal charges."

The body count of 85 includes 10 apparent suicides, so that reduces the number of "murders" to a maximum of 75.

So as of now the figures include justifiable homicides. Let's see if he keeps his word on the disposition of criminal charges, but given his long track record of deception I wouldn't hold my breath.

[krispos42]

25. Surprise surprise

I figured it was something like that.


Bottom line: People that CCW don't usually murder other people, they generally shoot in self-defense or kill themselves in a fit of depression... and they probably do the suicide thing at home!

[slackmaster]

28. The suicides and maybe some of the justifiable shootings have nothing to do with the CCW

I can recall seeing a media article about a justifiable shooting that happened in the shooter's home, in which the fact that the shooter has a CCW permit is mentioned. (The reporter probably didn't know that the CCW was irrelevant.) Even though the license was not being exercised, the shooting would be included in Sugarmann's figures according to how he explains them.

[GreenStormCloud]

30. Murders and accidents, but the number does exclude justifiable homicides.

Naturally, they make no reference at all to any lives saved by CCW holders using their guns.

[Euromutt]

27. Irony, thy name is Sugarmann

Part of this is the predictable result of having a vocal, engaged, orange-hatted minority ready to repeat as gospel any alleged fact or conspiracy as soon as it is imparted to them.

Jealous, much? After all, the VPC and similar organizations like the Brady Campaign excel at misrepresenting facts, and wish for nothing more than that readers will be taken in by them. This column is itself a prime example.

I had to think about what he meant by "orange-hatted." See, I'm from the Netherlands, where wearing orange is an expression of patriotism/nationalism and devotion to the royal family, the House of Orange (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Orange-Nassau), so I associate the wearing of orange headgear with the queen's birthday and international soccer championships. So it took me a minute to realize Sugarmann meant hunters. It's not entirely surprising that I was confused, since as benEzra has repeatedly pointed out on this forum, at best 20% of gun owners hunt; a sizeable component of the NRA membership are hunters either (hence the existence of a separate NRA magazine, American Hunter, aimed at the hunting members, because American Rifleman cannot cater exclusively to hunters' interests).

[DU GrovelBot]

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[unlegendary]

33. Well I feel safer now..

I feel so much safer knowing some idiot will defend me now that he or she can carry a gun, but the moment I make a turn in traffic and perhaps inadvertently cut them off I may get my tires shot out and who knows from there?
The fact of the matter is gun owners as a lot are stuck in the fantasy of "self defense" when very few, if any ever need these guns for the stated purposes. If I were some sort of thug hell bent on robbing someone I sure wouldn't pick on the first person with a buldge on their hip, but that matters not.
Gun ownership is a fantasy pure and simple. Fantasy of some Hollywood scene blowing away the "bad guys" and watching the dead bodies fly upwards and backwards when they get hit with the super exploding round fired from a .22 concealed pistol, but forget for a second that that scenario is also pure fantasy.
The latest argument I heard for gun ownership was that guns are "sexy". Well isn't that nice to know that gun owners think their little chunk of steel is sexy so why aren't they sleeping with their guns, having sex with their guns, using them for their own personal anal exploits? Hell, maybe they are..
We're getting "protected" by gun owners.. We are? Last time I got my head kicked in by some thug no "gun owner" ran to my rescue and if I had had a gun at the time I have no doubts the same thug would have simply taken it out of my pocket or holster and shot me in the head instead of steel toe booting me in the head. You see, this was a "sucker punch" type of attack that came out of nowhere. The guy hid in the dark, as most thugs do, rushed me before i could respond, knocked me to the ground then he and his buddy proceeded to kick me in my face several times breaking several bones which required extensive surgery to fix.
I would really like to know how many thieves and robbers first take a survey.. "Excuse me potential victim, but are you carrying a concealed handgun? Oh, you are? Well I'll just move on to someone who isn't.."
Half of our population believes it's well within their rights to kill someone for trespassing in their front yard. They believe if someone enters their home without express written permission they have the right to just kill whoever it might be even if it's their own children who it often is.
I have some sad news, but if gummit (new pronunciation for government) decides to confiscate all guns they will do it and all you out there armed to the teeth with .38s and going to either hand them over or your homes will be leveled to rubble after you barricade yourselves in with the fancy furniture bought with your Chinese financed credit cards.
The US can't even pass laws to allow a good lot of us to see a doctor when needed, can't balance our national check books and can't even win wars so sooner or later when China decides to call in all these loans they'll also decide that US gun owners have got to go as well. I've grown to appreciate the Chinese system more so than our own. At least in China there is no such thing as gridlock. They don't take poll after poll after useless poll before deciding to act. They just do whatever it is that needs doing and one of those things will eventually be the disarming of the US population and all you gun owners will be to busy arguing some arcane part of our constitution before stopping anyone. You instead will be spending your days in forced labor camps or in crematories after taking a Chinese made bullet to the head.

[GreenStormCloud]

35. What a rant that was.

First, your claim of incread road rage shooting has not materialized. Forty states have either universal or shall-issue concealed and the shootouts-at-every-stop-light claims just haven't happened. In fact, gun violence has been trending downward for the last twenty years.

Self-defense with guns does happen. My wife has used hers to save her life. The would be mugger discovered that the had screwed up his victim-selection program and aborted it to activate the run-like-Hell program. She didn't have to fire a shot. She is a small, frail, senior citizen and would have been killed by the mugging.

Sexy guns? I haven't seen that argument advanced here.

Super-exploding round from a .22? They are illegal now, and didn't work when they were introduced. They exploded on hard targets, but didn't on soft ones. Reagan was shot with one.

Your safety is your own responsibility. In the mugging you experienced, you were not aware of the situation around you. One of the things that a person who carries concealed learns is that they have to maintain a high level of situational awareness. You walked by a possible ambush site without thinking. I would avoid such a site, or if I could not, then I would put my hand on the gun before I came within striking distance. Then, if I were to be attacked, I can draw and fire in 1/2 second.

BTW - Thugs DO take a kind of victim-selection-survey. They specifically look for people who aren't aware of their surroundings and look like easy targets. They tend to avoid trying to take down somebody who is looking around, and has a hand in his pocket. Typically, they would let me pass and wait for you.

Yes, I DO have the right, in my state, to defend myself in my home from someone who has entered illegally by violence. At 2AM, when someone has broken in, I don't have to ask them if they are a census taker working late. I DO have to identify my target, but since I keep several small night lights always on, then there is always enough light to see who and what I will be targeting.

It is sad to see that you think so poorly of democracy that you would want a dictatorship instead. I won't bother to comment on your praise for such a system.

[PavePusher]

37. Wow.

Drink-n-Post, much?

I suggest grammer, punctuation and paragraph structure, then we'll move on to content critique. Toodles.

[friendly_iconoclast]

38. Someone needs a reminder:

[taurus145]

39. Why wait around?

Get a visa and rush off to China as soon as you can.

I'm sure you'll be happy there.

BTW. Does official Chinese Internet censorship block DU? If so, find an open line and let us know how you're dong after you get settled in.

[Skim Diesel]

42. Oh my dang...

are YOU serious??? I am truly blown away by some moronic posts on this site. Arcane part of the Constitution??? So you are smarter than the founding fathers and think you should "update" the law of the land that makes the U.S.A "THE U.S. of F-ing A" to bring it more in line w/ the Apple Ipod age? Principles that good men and women have DIED for, so your @$$ can criticize in the comfort of your home instead of some old Soviet communist gulag? And what's with the "gummit" comment? You think everyone who owns firearms responsibly are some inter-breeding morons or something? Seriously dude, get off your high horse.

[GreenStormCloud]

40. Bumped for RealityInSeatle

You seem to think that you are accomplishing something by spamming the board with the few incidents of CCWers doing wrong with their guns. But as you can see, I beat you to it, and I am a gunnie. And as you can see by the OP, CCW misbehavior with a gun is very, very rare. It happens sometimes, after all, there are almost 5,000,000 of us, so a few will go bad. Those few that do go bad are more than made up for the the others who use their guns to stop crime.