General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: New Concealed Carry poll [View all]GreenStormCloud
(12,072 posts)I love it when people take that VPC headline and don't look at the internals. First, they started counting in 2007 and accumulate the numbers. So that is six years worth, instead of an annual rate. That is a deceptive practice to enable them to use the most alarming number possible.
Go to the VPC page you linked, click on the total killed box, scroll down to Michigan. You will find that they list people with CCWs who committed suicide, killing no one but themselves. There is no listing of method, so some of those would be by means other than a gun. How many? Unknown. Now look at the numbers, 29, 43, 28, 29, for a total of 129 suicides of undetermined means. Do you really believe that having a CCW made any difference to those people? VPC shamelessly uses their deaths (some by pills, some by hanging, etc.) to push the number higher.
Further, remember that a CCW is NOT a license to merely own a gun, it is a license to carry one in public. So if the murder happens at home, where the offender could have a gun anyway, in what way does having a CCW contribute to the act? Even without a CCW the offender would still have a gun and still commit the crime. The CCW is irrelevant in those cases.
Some CCWers do go bad. I posted the stats for Texas DHL convictions for murder/manslaughter. There are over 1/2 million CHL holders yet we make up a very tiny percentage of the total state-wide convictions. 1.047% is our percentage. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/RSD/CHL/Reports/ConvictionRatesReport2011.pdf
Nationally we estimate that there are over 12 million people in the country with CCWs, and the number is growing daily. Out of 12 million people, some will go bad, but the number each year that do go bad is very small. After all, it has taken VPC six years to reach the number that they have, and they had to cheat to get that number.