Posted on 01/08/2010 8:41:04 AM PST by neverdem
More than 900 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 killed somebody in 2007. Should we be scared of young black guys?
Of course not. There are roughly 3 million black males in that age group in the United States. It would be horribly unfair to toss around the first statistic without mentioning the second; doing so would be misleading, if not malicious.
Now consider this statistic: Concealed handgun permit holders have killed 107 people since 2007. That news, from the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., sounds pretty bad - until you put it in context. How many Americans have been issued a permit to carry a concealed weapon?
The Violence Policy Center doesn't say. And it's probably impossible to pin down a precise number, because records are kept on a state-by-state basis, and reporting criteria differ from state to state. But NRA estimates put the number in the neighborhood of 5 million, as of a couple of years ago. (The NRA adds that permit applications have jumped 50 percent since the 2008 elections - which seems borne out at least here in Virginia. At present there are 211,435 active permits in the commonwealth. Just this year, Virginia courts have granted more than 62,000.)
If that's true, then the percentage of concealed-carry permit holders who have killed someone with a firearm comes to two one-thousandths of 1 percent. Yet to listen to the VPC's Kristen Brand - who says "concealed handgun permit holders are killing people over parking spaces, football games, and family arguments" - you'd think the cohort of permit holders was as dangerous as the gang at Rikers Island.
Now, the Violence Policy Center notes that its numbers might be incomplete: Because of the variations in state reporting criteria, it might have missed some cases in which a concealed-carry permit holder killed someone. Let's say the VPC missed a lot of cases - nine out of 10, in fact. Using that generous standard, then the fraction of permit-holders who have killed someone with a firearm in the past couple of years comes to two one-hundredths of 1 percent. That still doesn't make much of case against permit holders, does it?
Here's another way to look at it: How many firearm homicides are there? It varies from year to year, but 10,000 is a conservative round number. That's a godawful lot, far too many. (Although out of 70 million firearms in the U.S., it also comes to less than two hundredths of a percent.) Again, the figures indicate concealed-carry permit holders are responsible for less than 1 percent of them.
And if you look into the details of the cases cited by the VPC, it's clear that the group is using the most expansive definition of "people killed by concealed-carry permit holders" possible. For example, a couple of the 107 cases involve accidental firearms discharges; in one, a young child accidentally shot himself with his father's pistol. That's a horrible, gut-wrenching tragedy. But you don't need a concealed-carry permit to keep a gun in the house.
Of course, homicide is not the only crime you can commit with a gun, and concealed-carry permit holders have committed other crimes, too. On the other hand, gun-rights groups point out that sometimes gun owners can stop or deter a crime.
Estimates of how often this happens vary wildly, from 108,000 times a year (the 1993 National Crime Victimization Survey) to 1.5 million (Department of Justice, 1994) to more than 3 million (a 1976 California study). Florida criminologist Gary Kleck may have produced the most scrupulous count, which he puts at 2.5 million annual defensive gun uses. Gun-rights groups also point out that after Florida adopted a "shall-issue" concealed-carry permit law, its homicide rate fell even as the national rate rose. Post hoc does not imply propter hoc. On the other hand, it's impossible to say, at least based on Florida's experience that liberal gun laws lead inexorably to more murders.
Should states make it harder to get a permit? Perhaps - but not because of the VPC's statistics, which make concealed-carry permit holders seem a lot safer to be around than, say, airbags.
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, airbags have saved 25,000 people - and killed 290. If a pharmaceutical company came out with a new drug that killed more than one person for every hundred lives it saved, Washington would ban it in a heartbeat. Yet airbags are federally mandated. Maybe the Violence Policy Center should look into that.
I wonder why that "sounds bad"?
Aside from the accidents, most of those 107 probably needed killing.
‘Now consider this statistic: Concealed handgun permit holders have killed 107 people since 2007. That news, from the Violence Policy Center in Washington, D.C., sounds pretty bad - until you put it in context. How many Americans have been issued a permit to carry a concealed weapon?’
It doesnt say how many were in self defense.
“More than 900 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 killed somebody in 2007”. Maybe that’s how many they know of, the ones who got caught. Remember, Respect the Shooter, Don’t Snitch.
It's just the same ol' same ol' from the gun grabbers.
Exactly
More than 900 black males between the ages of 14 and 17 killed somebody in 2007. Should we be scared of young black guys?
Of course not. There are roughly 3 million black males in that age group in the United States. It would be horribly unfair to toss around the first statistic without mentioning the second; doing so would be misleading, if not malicious.
You have to give that a thought.
How many did Hispanic gangs kill in the same period?
How many did white kids kill?
Then ask me who should you be frightened of.
If I recall correctly, if the black, teenage male gun homicide rate were to be removed from the US male teenage gun homicide rate, the overall rate would be something more like Switzerland’s.
My sentiments entirely.
I thought there were that many murders in Detroit alone.
It's not a matter of how many people with a CCL have killed someone. That is very misleading, which I'm sure it was supposed to be.
The real issue about shootings involving a CCL person is how many were indited of a crime, and how many of those indited were convicted of that crime.
When I got my CCL in 2007, Texas had been issuing permits for 10 years, if I remember correctly, fewer than 40 people with a CCL had been involved in an incident. Of those 40 only 10 had been indited of a crime and of those only 1 had been convicted. And, he was only given probation and the revocation of his CCL.
I'll bet you all 900 of the black males were indited for commiting a crime; murder.
Now consider this statistic: Concealed handgun permit holders have killed 107 people since 2007.
So gang bangers kill 900 per year and CCW 36 per year. Are those 36 homicides or Rightious hits?
Gun control is a religion that attempts to abdicate humans from any responsibility for their own actions by casting “evil” as an exclusive property of a certain class of objects. Naturally, it fails everywhere it’s applied for its stated purpose.
Ask the gun-grabbers if they have put signs on their homes that say “GUN-FREE ZONE”
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Yet to listen to the VPC's Kristen Brand - who says "concealed handgun permit holders are killing people over parking spaces, football games, and family arguments" - you'd think the cohort of permit holders was as dangerous as the gang at Rikers Island.
Liberals - especially those in the MSM can't do math --- they don't "think" they "feel"...
Thanks for the ping!
I’d say that VPC is being more outrageous than ever, but the fact is they’ve been this bad as long as they’ve been around. Go back and read their reports from the 90’s, all equally insane.
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