The Concealed-Carry Fantasy

[onehandle]

The more that sensational gun violence afflicts the nation, the more that the myth of the vigilant citizen packing a legally permitted concealed weapon, fully prepared to stop the next mass shooter in his tracks, is promoted.

This foolhardy notion of quick-draw resistance, however, is dramatically contradicted by a research project showing that, since 2007, at least 763 people have been killed in 579 shootings that did not involve self-defense. Tellingly, the vast majority of these concealed-carry, licensed shooters killed themselves or others rather than taking down a perpetrator.

The death toll includes 29 mass killings of three or more people by concealed carry shooters who took 139 lives; 17 police officers shot to death, and — in the ultimate contradiction of concealed carry as a personal safety factor — 223 suicides. Compared with the 579 non-self-defense, concealed-carry shootings, there were only 21 cases in which self-defense was determined to be a factor.

The tally by the Violence Policy Center, a gun safety group, is necessarily incomplete because the gun lobby has been so successful in persuading gullible state and national legislators that concealed carry is essential to public safety, thus blocking the extensive data collection that should be mandatory for an obvious and severe public health problem. For that reason, the center has been forced to rely largely on news accounts and limited data in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/opinion/the-concealed-carry-fantasy.html

[jonno99]

1. One glaring omission in this article is the number of non-injury incidences where harm was averted

by an individual merely carrying/brandishing a weapon. These events seldom make the news or are even reported, and the number is not small.

Questions:
- how often in the course of a day do you think a police officer diffuses a situation - merely by their presence?

- how often are these "diffused" situations reported to the public?

- what is the ratio of CC holders to police officers (hint: it's >1)?

Do you see where I'm going with this?

Sorry - this article does not tell the whole story...

[greytdemocrat]

2. Ssssshhh!

People here don't want to hear this!!!!!

[Logical]

3. Where is your proof this is a large number? nt

[Ghost in the Machine]

14. MY proof is merely anecdotal, which I know doesn't carry any weight around here with a LOT of people

.... but in the last 2 years, I have caught people on my property trying to steal gas, a lawn mower and who knows what else. I have dogs that bark or growl ONLY when someone is around. I have gone outside with my "big black, scary looking, military style (which it actually is) rifle, complete with 20 round magazine, tactical flashlight and laser sight" and have run people off. I would never shoot, unless they were to come at me like they were going to attack, because 1: I would never shoot someone in the back if they were retreating, it would not be covered under self defense or Castle Doctrine laws, and 2: I wouldn't shoot wildly in the dark as even though I live in a very rural area, I DO have neighbors, and would not risk having a round hit their house and possibly injure or kill one of them.

Have I reported any of it to the police?? NO! What good would it do when you can't give an accurate description and nothing was taken. The cops have told us that we are basically on our own out here, and to do whatever we had to do to protect ourselves and families. On any given night, we only have 3 County Officers on patrol, and if they are tied up on another call, it could be an hour or more before they can even respond.

As stated, this is just MY experience over the last 2 years. I won't even get into the years I lived in Miami, Fl... I couldn't count the times just merely brandishing a pistol stopped someone from attempting to break into my house, rob me, or run me off the road in "road rage" incidents, but I would guesstimate over 100. If this is any indication, I can agree that there are millions of unreported defensive uses where a shot was never fired, and police were never called. YMMV...

Peace,

Ghost

[pablo_marmol]

17. Here you go:

Firstly -- the oft-"debunked" Kleck/Gertz study finding for high numbers of defensive gun uses has been replicated by somewhere in the order of 15 other surveys. They are listed and described in Kleck's book Targeting Guns.

But here's the real nail in the coffin for those who subscribe to the low defensive gun use theory: pro-restriction supporting "scholars" Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig confirmed Kleck's high numbers with their survey instrument.......then proceeded (laughably) to debunk their own findings! Presumably looking for a "gotcha", it was ONLY AFTER their survey turned up high numbers of DGU's that they came to the belated conclusion that NO surveys could accurately measure defensive gun use. See for yourself -- discussion of DGU starts on page nine of the pdf at link:

Applying those restrictions leaves 19 NSPOF respondents (0.8 percent of the sample), representing 1.5 million defensive users. This estimate is directly comparable to the well-known estimate of Kleck and Gertz, shown in the last column of exhibit 7. While the NSPOF estimate is smaller, it is statistically plausible that the difference is due to sampling error. Inclusion of multiple DGUs reported by half of the 19 NSPOF respondents increases the estimate to 4.7 million DGUs.

https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles/165476.pdf

[Logical]

25. There are about 11 million CC license holders, I would bet less than half....

Carry daily. Maybe much less than half.

But if half do, you are claiming 27% of them pull their gun every year? Or needed a gun?

I call bullshit on that number.

[pablo_marmol]

30. You can call bullshit all day long.

Last edited Sun Nov 1, 2015, 02:46 AM - Edit history (1)

The bottom line -- as even the CDC has agreed -- is that the best current evidence demonstrates that defensive gun use is at least as common as offensive gun use. Which destroys the "moral" argument for gun restriction.

Tell me/us........why do you think it is that the media has been so absolutely silent on the gun restriction unfriendly recent comments from the CDC? I mean, y'all have been screaming about how the evil NRA is intent on silencing this righteous and honest organization.

Your a logical chap/gal -- you must have a smart answer at the ready!

[MillennialDem]

4. Yeah but you have no falsifiable studies that

back up the claims made by Lot and others about brandishing causing a significant reduction in crime. So do some better studies because right now you're just speculating. Also even if the numbers were true you haven't shown a gun was significantly more effective than other weapons or unarmed people stopping crimes being assertive.

hell cops in many european countries rarely have guns. do they not prevent crimes?

[Skittles]

12. shhhhhhhhhh!!

they don't want to hear that!!!

[pablo_marmol]

20. It's clear that you haven't done any homework whatsoever on the gun violence issue.

It is well established at this point that the more lethal the defensive weapon, the better the outcome for the attack victim.

This dynamic, for whatever reason, is even more apparent when the victims are women.

[MillennialDem]

21. Yet the best available data (also, again, not falsifiable even though it supports my position)

doesn't support your contention:

http://www.guns.com/2015/09/10/study-defensive-gun-use-not-associated-with-reduction-of-injuries-during-a-crime/

“Running away and calling the police were associated with a reduced likelihood of injury after taking action; self-defense gun use was not.” Researchers said. “Attacking or threatening the perpetrator with a gun had no significant effect on the likelihood of the victim being injured after taking self-protective action.”

Researchers concluded, “A gun used in self-defense was not associated with a significant reduction in the likelihood of being injured during the crime.”

And that's of course, does not factor in the extra numbers of Americans killed or injured by suicide, murder, assault, and accidents with guns. Face it, what the truly falsifiable information (FBI database on justified homicides by private citizens with a gun and number of annual deaths by gun) show that there are some cases that the victim would have survived or been uninjured if we had guns but there are many more innocent people killed or injured because we have guns. It's a numbers issue. This is true even if you completely disregard suicides.

[pablo_marmol]

31. LOL -- "the best available data" never comes from the agenda-driven medical community!

Which you would know if you read anything but single biased articles which support your ideology.

As I've suggested to others -- try something brand new. Roll up your sleeves and read a book by the liberal authority on gun violence -- Dr. Gary Kleck. ('Targeting Guns', and/or 'Armed - New Perspectives on Gun Control'*) Or one of the two books by liberal criminologists James Wright and Peter Rossi. ('Under the Gun', and/or 'Armed and Considered Dangerous') The latter Wright/Rossi book outlines the ground-breaking prison interviews. Then I imagine there are still used copies of 'Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out' still available. (Written long ago, though the messages are still relevant)

It's a numbers issue.

Most honest thing I've heard to come from a person (I assume!) who supports the pro-restriction "argument" for reducing gun violence. And all the more reason why you should have no excuse not to check out the data-driven information I've delivered to you on a silver platter with white gloves!



* Co-written by civil rights attorney Don Kates

[pablo_marmol]

32. For your viewing pleasure: (and others with integrity)

A sample of what an honest researcher looks/sounds like:

[haele]

6. Well, if all these non-injury incidents are required to be reported -

- then a gun-usage study can give a better picture of actual usage rather than ancedotal.
I've found when having to do an analysis of activity, that both self-reporting of incidents or non-reporting "anecdotal" incident numbers can be wildly across the board, depending on who you are speaking to and who was doing the actual action (in this case, holding the gun); one person's diffused situation when confronted be threatening people can be another person's "we were just standing on the corner, and this guy came up with a gun yelling at us because we were blocking his way, so we all left because we thought he was a nut and going to shoot us".
From my experience, it's six of one, half dozen of another: in more cases than not (again, in my real-life experience) someone who just points a gun at someone else, yelling "I'll shoot" and then doesn't fire, they get their ass kicked rather than "diffusing" a situation and chasing away "the bad guys".
My instructors always told me never to pull the gun unless you're going to use it. If you're just pulling it out of the holster to scare someone, you take your chances. There's also the issue of "the drop" and how close the subject of your aim is to you.

The other issue is that without a report of an incident, there are lots of cowboys out there who talk big about how they stopped a robber, a mugger, or a rapist - an incident that never seem to have been reported, because of course, they took care of the issue outside of the law. So who knows what really happened, or if it was wishful thinking.
There are also more a few people out there (sadly, I can call up three such persons off the top of my head) who are inclined to deal with their anger issues and perceived insults by pulling their gun to make their point, even if it's yelling at a couple kids of the neighbor who unwisely walked their dog on a long leash, allowing it to "mark" the tire of his truck as they walked by.

And I suspect that is why there's such a big problem that many gun enthusiasts have with asking for reliable data on non-injury incidents where a gun was actually used in defense, rather than as a means to end a disagreement.

Me, I think a gun is a tool - that is meant to be used as a weapon, either offensive or defensive. And I have no problems requiring incidents that whenever a gun was used (other for target practice or hunting for food), especially if actually drawn and aimed for protective purposes, must be reported to be counted as part of use studies.
Criminal events and suicides leave evidence. Where is the evidence for self-reported use for protection? How can you ever prove the incident ever occurred if there is no police report or the claim cannot be investigated?

Haele

[MillennialDem]

22. That's why those studies about defensive gun uses are called "not falsifiable" - which means they

cannot be proven false, should be as you said, be completely disregarded.

If gun nuts / the NRA wants to prove their point, they need to do an open access study (anyone is allowed to look at the data at any time) where they put hidden cameras on people for a year and see how many justified DGU there are (and how many OGU there are). They'd also need to see how the numbers compare to people who don't have guns and are able to scare off their assailants.

[alphafemale]

15. Brandishing a weapon.

Yeah. like running out of your house with a gun because someone is turning around in your driveway.

Shooting a teen who knocked on your door in the middle of the night who was just looking for help.

You see threats in mundane things most people don't.

You are a coward.

And that is why you think "brandishing" a gun would ever be a good idea.

[hunter]

27. The "I'm an asshole who waved my gun at another asshole who backed down" defense of gun love.

Yeah, I'm convinced...

[DirkGently]

5. It is a fantasy. One apparently immune to logic or reality.

The web of irrational thinking woven around the idea that carrying guns around makes people safer has no parallel in terms of outright delusion aside from religious fanaticism.

A small segment of the population is transfixed by the idea that weapons give them super powers to stop crime, protect others, and (this one is particularly screwy) intimidate the government so that it doesn't get out of hand.

None of that has ever been true. They stack fallacies on top of fallacies, to the point where now when someone goes on one of our increasingly common shooting rampages, they literally sneer at the victims because they think the government is staging massacres to make guns "look bad."

And it's nothing more than a marketing scheme to get the gullible to spend their money on a fantasy of personal empowerment with a likelihood of "paying off" on the level of a lottery ticket. Meanwhile crime still occurs, we're less safe than countries with more restrictive laws, and of course the government continues to do whatever it wants.

I guess it's good to see statistics puncturing one of the go-to talking points, that "concealed permit holders never commit crimes." Never quite understood how going to a class magically ensured no one ever misused a weapon.

Of course the cost of disproving just that one myth is measured in dead Americans, as usual.

[beevul]

13. Who made that claim? Cite please.

I guess it's good to see statistics puncturing one of the go-to talking points, that "concealed permit holders never commit crimes." Never quite understood how going to a class magically ensured no one ever misused a weapon.

The only claim I've seen is that concealed carriers are statistically more law abiding than police.

And that, is a true claim.

[MillennialDem]

23. The idea that more guns make us safer is like saying more fast food joints make us thinner

[Lizzie Poppet]

33. Has anyone ever actually said "concealed permit holders never commit crimes?"

Feel free to cite a verifiable example...

Obviously, no informed person has ever said any such thing. However, given the over 11 million (lower bound) CCW permit holders in the country, the rate of offending seems low, very probably considerably lower than the national average. No national figures are available, but a study carried out in Texas (unfortunately, about 15 years ago: An Analysis of the Arrest Rate of Texas Concealed Carry Handgun License Holders as Compared to the Arrest Rate of the Entire Texas Population, William E. Sturdevant, PE, September 11, 1999) concludes that the four year violent crime arrest rate for CCW holders is 128 per 100,000. For the general population, it is 710 per 100,000. In other words, CCW holders are 5.5 times less likely to be arrested for a violent crime.

Some concealed carry permit holders may very well have a fantasyland idea about the likelihood of ever actually using their weapon to stop a crime...but given their generally law-abiding behavior, that fantasy is basically harmless (utterly so if they properly secure their weapons...but I'd like to see more stringent laws in that area, myself)..

[ibegurpard]

7. you're not going to stop this with facts

Try the private property rights approach.

[Snobblevitch]

8. The VPC is not an objective source on this topic.

[onehandle]

9. The GOPNRA won't fund a federal source on this topic.

Would gubberment be more objective in your eyes?

[Snobblevitch]

10. There is funding for research.

There is not funding for advocacy and lobbying against RKBA and gun control.

[pablo_marmol]

18. It's an *ABSOLUTE LIE* that we don't have good research on gun violence.

Liberal criminologists David Bordua, James Wright, Peter Rossi and Gary Kleck have produced an ABUNDANCE of solid findings on the subject. It's just not what the pro-restriction supporters want to hear, and has been ferociously and consistently suppressed by the media. In the world of finance, this level of suppression of information could easily be prosecuted.

Also -- see post #17.

[Recursion]

11. As people keep pointing out, we have no idea how many times a weapon was used defensively

Because we only count the times somebody got shot with it.

The NRA claims 10 million per year, which is absurd but I can't prove it's absurd because, again, we have no real numbers. Kleck said 2 million, and Hemenway said 75,000, but they used different methodology (Hemenway doesn't count the brandishing of a weapon to prevent a property crime, for instance).

But VPC's focus on only the times when someone is actually shot by someone defending himself or herself with a gun plays right into the NRA's hands by ignoring what is clearly the most common type of defense: a brandishing that causes an attacker to flee.

[hunter]

28. ... causes an attacker to flee...

... or shoot you first.

Funny thing about attackers is they've generally got more experience with violent situations than you do, and they are reckless.

Often stupid as a bag of rocks too.

It's a rare gun holder who realizes Little Tiffany deserves to die.

You may be a Man In Black, what do I know?

I have maybe the funniest bad-guy-with-a-gun-story in U.S. history, but I can't tell it to "protect the innocent," like Dragnet. And the guilty too.

I will say I've been in rough situations because I'm a socially clueless individual who frequently wanders dangerous neighborhoods, but never once have I been in a situation where me holding a gun might have improved the outcomes.

It's my observation that once the guns come out everything is fucked up beyond any repair.

Fubar.

Situations best avoided by use of brain power and whatever charisma you've got.

[Straw Man]

16. I wonder why the NY Times ...

... chose to cite the VPC rather than the study by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, commissioned by the CDC at President Obama's request. That report included the following conclusion:

Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/06/handguns_suicides_mass_shootings_deaths_and_self_defense_findings_from_a.html

[pablo_marmol]

19. Amazing, isn't it, for all of the screaming about how the evil NRA

blocked the CDC from conducting research, the restriction supporters are so completely quiet on this report! LOL!

And for what it's worth......I still don't trust the CDC any further than I could punt a rhino. The lost their research funding because they fabricated a finding, and then fabricated the source of that finding. The NRA might have helped expose their craven dishonesty, but they dug their own grave. I wouldn't be at all surprised if they've now cynically leaned in the pro gun-rights direction to get back in better graces. Nothing these pro-restriction "scholars" do would surprise me any more.

[hack89]

24. Lets look at what actually happened in Michigan

Ten years after Michigan made it much easier for its citizens to get a license to carry a concealed gun, predictions of widespread lawless behavior and bloodshed have failed to materialize.

But violent crimes have been rare among carrying a concealed weapon license holders. Only 2% of license holders have been sanctioned for any kind of misbehavior, State Police records show.

Whether licensing more people to carry concealed weapons results in more or less violent crime remains debatable. Michigan still has more than its fair share of crime, even as overall crime rates have mostly declined. But it's difficult to argue that CCWs have much impact either way.

http://www.freep.com/article/20110731/NEWS06/107310482/10-years-after-concealed-weapons-law-unclear-why-many-state-were-gun-shy

The worst you can say is that it made no difference.

[hunter]

29. Great story, bro.

Yes, I am mocking you.

I drive a freakish old 'eighties car with a bullet hole in it.

Sort of like Columbo.

One more thing...

It's always one more thing.