killings committed by concealed handgun permit holders

[russ1943]

UPDATE
killings committed by concealed handgun permit holders identified through news accounts ….from May 2007 to the present……….Concealed Handgun Permit Holders Have Killed at Least 151 Since May 2007, Including 9 Law Enforcement Officers—“Concealed Carry Killers” March Update.

“People who get permits in states which have fair right-to-carry laws are law-abiding, upstanding community leaders who merely seek to exercise their right to self-defense." This assertion, summarized by Metaksa in the blunt and absolute assertion that "these citizens don't commit violent crimes,"

http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm

[safeinOhio]

1. *

:popcorn:

[xchrom]

2. Recommend

[SteveM]

27. Strangely, people SHOULD read this data...

That's 151. Since 2007. Out of over 5,000,000 concealed-carry permit holders.








wow

[depakid]

3. This is one of the major reasons why they want to hide the public records

[friendly_iconoclast]

10. 151 divided by circa 5,000,000 people over 33 months. It's official, then:

American CCW holders are statistically safer to be around that Australians.

I think you might be more interested in keeping that little statistic quiet...

[friendly_iconoclast]

31. CORRECTION: They are about as safe to be around as Australians...

...due to recent declines in Australia's murder rate. Depending on what time period one uses, it's pretty much a wash.


Still, I would ask one of our distinguished Australian DUers:

Why such venom directed towards these people, when they are demonstrably no more dangerous than the inhabitants of the
"fine society"?

[Name removed]

13. Deleted message

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

[eqfan592]

15. Are you joking!?!?!?

I share these particular numbers with people on a regular basis! I've used these very same numbers to actually change a few minds on this issue, in FAVOR of CCW! Please, make these numbers as public as you want! Those not blinded by their own hatred of firearms and their owners will see the truth behind them, in spite of the negative spin you attempt to place on the numbers.

[Glassunion]

20. Ha!

Ha ha!

That's rich. That was a joke right?

BTW... How's AUs Indian problem going?

[GreenStormCloud]

23. Texas and Florida post their CCW statistics.

It is the names and addresses that we want to shield. Concealed means concealed.

[cowman]

34. Why do

you care? Your not even an american and you don't live in this wonderful country.

Go fix your own country

[Xenotime]

4. 151 Needless deaths..and this stopped crime how? Geez.

[friendly_iconoclast]

11. No one has claimed CCW holders except Metaska, and *that* only once.

Besides, if you actually read the accounts at the VPC websites, they threw in suicides, accidental discharges and
at least one "case dismissed".

[eqfan592]

16. Wow, 151 deaths....

.... compared to over 5 million permit holders. And notice how no mention is made of the lives that were saved and crimes prevented by CCW holders. Irrational much?

[bluestateguy]

5. and compare that to murders committed by non-permit holders

and it will be a landslide.

Good try though.

[proteus_lives]

6. And your point is?

Shall we post the hit-and-runs committed by people with valid licenses?

[OneTenthofOnePercent]

7. That's a very low occurrence rate.

Especially when you consider that even though these people may be CCW permit holders, most of the incidents did not involve acts while carrying concealed in accordance with the law. Said otherwise, the fact that most were CCW permit holders played no direct role in the crimes committed.

The link you have provided indicate that CCW holders may have MUCH lower homicide rates compared to other demographics.
Thanks! :D

[veganlush]

8. hand guns are no good because people are stupid..n/t

[friendly_iconoclast]

12. I can only reply thusly:

[cowman]

32. People are no good because handguns ar stupid

See how asnine, like your post, sounds

[Katya Mullethov]

9. Sorry about that

Mea caulpa . My bad .

[eqfan592]

14. Thanks for pointing out just how amazingly unlikely it is for a CCW permit holder....

....to kill someone (illegally of course)!!

Seriously, 151 in that long of time frame with as large of a sample size as we're dealing with? Are you honestly THAT fucking dense as to not be able to see how those numbers are something that YOUR side should want to bury? I've given those same numbers (thanks to the VPC!!!) to people who were against CCW, and they were STUNNED at how low they were, convincing several of them that, at the very least, CCW was not inherently bad.


THANK YOU russ, and THANK YOU VPC!!

[paulsby]

17. who cares how many they KILLED? the relevant question is how many they MURDERED

those are entirely different things.

killings in self defense are not a negative

murders are

the report itself says it doesn't include killings AFTER the person is acquitted.

it DOES include those that have not yet reached the court stage/adjudication

so, if a guy kills somebody in self-defense, it goes under ":killings" because it hasn't resulted (yet) in an acquittal

[Mike K]

51. Exactly. It's not possible to draw any substantive conclusion -

- about this statistic without knowing something about the people involved and the circumstances of each of the 151 killings. I believe the most important thing to know is how many of the killings were wrongful (unlawful) and if it is reasonable to assume that the illegal shooters would have been armed whether or not they had a CCW.

In other words, can it be reasonably assumed that having CCWs contributed to the statistic.

[slackmaster]

18. This same garbage gets posted in the Guns forum about once a week

It's still garbage.

[cowman]

33. Yup

garbage in/garbage out

[Euromutt]

19. This garbage AGAIN?

What's the idea, to keep trotting out this pile of fetid dingoes' kidneys in the hopes that if you repeat it enough, it'll magically start to mean something?

We have eviscerated this report in at least three threads now.

We've pointed out that the premise is incoherent. It's not enough for the VPC to demonstrate that less than 100% of CCW permit holders refrain from violating the trust placed in them by society (as do doctors, police officers, elected officials, and any number of other groups), they claim that issuing CCW permits actually makes it possible for permit holders to commit homicides they would otherwise not have been able to. But the VPC then includes cases that are irrelevant to that latter premise, such as CCW permit holders committing homicides in places where their permits were not valid (Aubrey BERRY, who committed a homicide in California, where his Georgia Firearms License was not valid), in locations where they wouldn't have needed a CCW permit to possess a firearm (every homicide that occurred in the permit holder's home), and permit holders who didn't use a concealable firearm to commit the homicide (Tony VILLEGAS, who killed a friend of his estranged wife by strangling her).

There are cases counted in which the CCW permit holder did not directly shoot anyone (David NESBITT, whose son shot himself with a loaded gun he'd found in a closet), who only shot themselves (Marc KIDBY), or indeed, did not possess a CCW permit at all (Richard TAUCH, who possessed a California "Security Guard Firearm Permit," which only permits open carry while in uniform).

For perspective, I'll crunch the updated numbers. A conservatively estimated 5 million CCW permit holders commit (151/34=) ~4.44 deaths/month. If there were as many CCW holders in the U.S. as there are licensed drivers (215 million), committing killings at the present rate, they would cause just under 2,300 deaths annually*. From 1999 to 2006, licensed drivers caused an annual average of 44,600 motor vehicle deaths. I could pad those numbers further if used the VPC's criteria of data inclusion (e.g. licensed drivers who died from a non-motor vehicle-related cause while riding a bicycle, committed suicide by hypoxia from car exhaust fumes, etc.).

And frankly, it's remarkably easy to argue that the VPC is knowingly overstating the case. For example, only if we read the fine print on the "mass shootings" perpetrated by CCW permit holders do we find that the VPC uses a criterium of "three or more persons (not including the shooter) <killed> in one incident." Now, definitions of what constitutes a "mass murder" vary, but every other definition I've come across puts the low-end cut-off at four or five victims, usually within something like a 24-hour period (homicide has got to be one of very few areas in which four or five people constitutes a "mass"). Why would the VPC use a rather idiosyncratic definition of three victims? One answer that presents itself is that if they set the bar higher, even at four victims, the list of "mass shootings" would comprise five incidents, rather than 13. But not every case listed meets even the VPC's own remarkably relaxed standard.

On February 14, 2009, Frank Garcia allegedly opened fire with a .40
Glock pistol in the Lakeside Memorial Hospital parking lot in Brockport, NY. He had
recently been fired by the hospital. He shot three people there, killing two, before killing
a married couple at their home in Canandaigua.

Three or more people killed, check... but Canandaigua is 49 miles from Brockport, more than an hour's drive according to Google Maps. Describing the separate shootings as "one incident" is stretching the definition to breaking point.

The long and short of the matter is that the VPC has a point it wants to "prove," and it's demonstrably willing to pad the numbers by tendentious interpretation. Anyone with a modicum of critical thinking ability should see this report for the garbage it is.

* - 4.44/month, 12 months per year, 43 times the current number of CCW permit holders; 4.44 x 12 x 43 = 2,291

[pipoman]

21. Posting VPC as fact = posting TheOnion as fact..n/t

[burrfoot]

41. Hey, I was in the Onion!

How dare you slander the good and reliable name of the most famous publication ever to come out of Madison! Rigorously fact-checked and editied with the sole purpose of providing only the most relevant and news-worthy of information to the masses!!!!

:sarcasm:

I do love the Onion :evilgrin:

[pipoman]

44. I like the Onion too

VPC is almost as funny, just a little more subtle with their humor..

[GreenStormCloud]

22. Here we go again.

That VPC number gets posted every few weeks, and gets exposed in every thread. You seem to think that you have found something to beat gun-rights advocates in general, and CCW people in particular over the head with. But the truth is that those numbers are high praise for us CCW holders.

Those numbers took almost three years to accumulate. That is about fifty a year, spread out over about five million permit holders. That is an extremely low crime rate.

BTW - VPC counts cases that are still pending. Some of those cases will be self-defense, but BPC doesn't go back and adjust the number once a case is counted.

BTW - Some of those killings we done by means other than a gun, or were done at home, so having a CCW had nothing to do with it.

You are 27 times more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to be illegally killed by a CCWer.

[shadowrider]

24. There you go spouting facts again

They'll fall on deaf ears as you well know, but we gotta keep educating, educating, educating.

[GreenStormCloud]

25. I do it for the lurkers. N/T

[Euromutt]

40. In fairness, the VPC actually *does* discount cases ruled justifiable

That is, it does subtract them from the statistics, and even though it leaves the descriptions in the list, it does change the heading to "acquitted" or "charges dismissed." Arguably, there's still some insinuation of "he got away with it because of a bad law" but we in the pro-RKBA camp on this board to need to stop making claims that can be demonstrated as false (demonstrated once you search through the report to find the damn cases, because for some odd reason, the VPC consistently refuses to tabulate their data for easy reference; it's almost--perish the thought!--as if they want to make it as hard as possible to fact-check their claims).

[Jackson1999]

26. Let's have some fun with math!!

151 CCW killings over 33 mo. = 54 a year (I am generous by including the half dozen suicides in there).

Chances of being killed by a CCW holder: 1 in 5,600,000

Chances of being killed by non-CCW holder: 1 in 18,600

Chances of being struck by lightening: 1 in 700,000

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

28. The famous VPC drive by. Forget the facts it's emotion that's important.

[Fire_Medic_Dave]

29. Thanks for posting this again. It demonstrates how safe CCW permit holders are.

[GreenStormCloud]

30. Redo the math. There are six (6) million of us now.

That is according to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34714389/ns/us_news-life/

From its beginnings in the 1980s, the “right-to-carry” movement has succeeded in boosting the number of licensed concealed-gun carriers from fewer than 1 million to a record 6 million today, according to estimates from gun-rights groups that are supported by msnbc.com’s research.

And the number is still climbing.

[cowman]

35. Do you

honestly believe that crap from the highly biased VPC?

[spin]

36. If you read the report ...

You will find a number of incidents that involve suicide or where the case went to court and the defendant was acquitted and many pending cases. Florida has a "stand your ground" law and often if there is any suspicion, a jury ends up deciding if the shooting was justified and legal.

The number of incidents, even if inflated, just shows that CCW holders rarely misuse their privilege to carry a firearm. Obviously, the VPC wants to scare the hell out of people and convince them that allowing people to carry firearms is a terrible idea that should be repealed.

It would be interesting if another group would publish a similar report which would document cases where a CCW holder used his firearm legally in self defense or to stop a crime. I'm sure that such a report would show many more incidents than the VPC report.

Ohio
# Concealed Handgun Permit Holder: Marc Kidby
SUICIDE
Date: April 1, 2008
People Killed: 1 (including shooter)
Circumstances: On April 1, 2008, Marc Kidby died of self-inflicted gunshot wounds to
his chest and head from a 38 caliber handgun—his third attempt at suicide. His
concealed handgun permit was still active despite being the subject of a protection order
obtained by his wife. The local sheriff’s office had failed to suspend his concealed carry
permit as required by law.
Source: “Man accused of violence still had gun permit,” The Columbus Dispatch,” April 3, 2008

Florida
ACQUITTED
Date: March 29, 2008
People Killed: 1
Circumstances: On March 29, 2008, Max Wesley Horn, Jr. allegedly fired six shots at
Joe Martell with a .45 pistol equipped with a laser sight outside the Hot Shotz bar during
the Chasco Fiesta street festival, fatally wounding him. The two had “scuffled” prior to
the shooting. While Horn claimed self-defense, a police detective stated that based on
the forensic evidence, Martell “was either turning away, being pulled away or he was not
in direct confrontation with the person with the gun.” In the wake of the shooting,
Martell’s mother wrote to the court, “Even though he had a concealed weapons
permit he should not have had a gun at a family event like the Chasco Fiesta. He should
have had more self-control than that. He shot to kill, not for protection.” Horn, who had
a concealed handgun permit, had a criminal record but had never been adjudicated guilty
of any charge. Horn was charged with second-degree murder.

UPDATE: On January 28, 2010, Horn was found not guilty of second degree murder
under Florida’s “stand your ground” law. According to news reports, “The verdict
stunned Martell’s friends—some of them gun owners who were amazed that the law
would excuse their friend’s death. ‘You can’t shoot people over an argument,’ said Dan
Snell, a friend of Martell’s since high school. ‘Or, I guess you can.’” This case is not
included in the statistics cited in the Concealed Carry Killers website.
Source: “Man not guilty of murder,” St. Petersburg Times, January 28, 2010; “Shooter in Chasco fight to
argue self-defense,” St. Petersburg Times, May 30, 2008; “Fatal Chasco shooting case will go to trial,” St.
Petersburg Times, January 30, 2009; “Was shooter justified in ‘08 slaying? Jury to decide,” St. Petersburg
Times, February 1, 2009.

Florida
? Concealed Handgun Permit Holder: Narcisse “Nas” Antoine

PENDING

Date: June 1, 2009
People Killed: 1
Circumstances: On June 1, 2009, Narcisse “Nas” Antoine allegedly shot and killed
Brandon Thomas and wounded Jeffrey Thompson after an incident outside the Mystique
Lounge in West Palm Beach. Antoine had a concealed handgun permit. According to
his lawyer, Antoine was threatened by the two men and acted in self defense. Antoine
was arrested and charged with second-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder.
Source: “Club Shooting was Self-Defense, Lawyer Says,” Palm Beach Post, June 7, 2009.

Florida

# Concealed Handgun Permit Holder: Charles Podany

CHARGES DISMISSED
Date: February 29, 2008
People Killed: 1
Circumstances: On February 29, 2008, Charles Podany allegedly killed Casey Landes
following a dispute over a speeding pickup truck in which Landes was a passenger. The
incident began when Podany, on a bicycle, approached the truck and asked the driver to
slow down. Landes became upset, got out of the truck, and punched Podany in the face.
Podany fell to the ground and Landes prepared to strike him again. Podany then pulled a
.40 Glock pistol and fired two shots, hitting Landes once in the face. Detectives reported
that Podany’s injuries were abrasions and a cut to the left side of his lower lip, “which
does not justify deadly force.” In 1994, Podany was charged with misdemeanor battery,
and in 1999 with felony aggravated assault with a weapon. He pleaded no contest to the
assault charge and adjudication was withheld. Podany, who had a concealed handgun
permit, was charged with manslaughter.
UPDATE: On September 1, 2009, Hillsborough Circuit Judge Robert Foster agreed to
toss out the manslaughter charge after Podany’s attorneys argued that Podany fired in
self-defense under Florida’s “stand your ground” law. This case is not included in the
statistics cited on the Concealed Carry Killers website.
Source: “Man Shot After Speeding Confrontation,” The St. Petersburg Times, March 2, 2008; “Win for
stand your ground,” tampabay.com, September 1, 2009.
http://www.vpc.org/fact_sht/ccwprivatecitizens.pdf

[GreenStormCloud]

37. The problem is that often the CCWer doesn't have to shoot, and the criminal runs away.

In fact that is what usually happens. Since it dosn't bleed, it doesn't even get reported in the news.

[spin]

39. I agree, but many reports of a CCW holder using his weapon ...

for legal self defense do make the news.

Fire_Medic_Dave does a good job of posting these articles in this forum.

[AtheistCrusader]

38. 'Identified by news accounts'

Uh huh. Tell me more. Especially tell me more about how the news differentiates between a permit to own a handgun in the states that require them, and a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Also, I'd like to know how many of the people in that 151 group had their permits already revoked for XYZ crime.

[aikoaiko]

42. More people were killed by lightning over that time period.

All deaths a tragic in their own way, but in a relative sense the numbers of low for CCW homocides.

[eqfan592]

43. Notice how the bottom-feeders jumped ship?

As soon as we point out AGAIN how the very numbers they are hand-wringing over actually STILL show how unlikely it is for a CCW permit holder to commit a wrongful homicide (not to mention how the numbers themselves do nothing to prove that the CCW permit the people in question had actually had anything to do with them committing their crime), these folks jump ship.

[GreenStormCloud]

48. Somebody on their side will try again next month. N/T

[friendly_iconoclast]

50. Some folks just don't understand the meaning of 'counterproductive'

IOW: We'll get to play the Washington Generals again

[DrCory]

45. In The Spirit of Inigo Montoya...

You keep posting that study. I do not think it means what you think it means.

[Hoopla Phil]

49. THAT was a funny post!

[SsevenN]

46. Let's do some basic math

151 killings in three years, 5,000,000 permit holders.

You have a .000302% chance in the next three years of being killed by a permit holder.

You're more likely to be murdered by a police officer than a concealed carry permit holder.

But don't let that stop your fear-mongering.

[eqfan592]

47. Actually, your numbers are just a hair off.

First, your initial percentage was off by one zero. It's actually a .0000302% chance when using the old numbers instead of .000302%, so it's even smaller than what you posted.

Second, MSNBC estimates now that the number is over 6,000,000 permit holders. While this wasn't a constant over the entire 3 years, the actual percentage is likely even a bit lower still because of the increasing number of CCW permit holders over that period of time.

[jazzhound]

52. Still not quite right.......

Dividing 151 by 5,000,000 you get .0000302 --- but to convert that to a percentage you multiply by 100, which is to say you move the decimal point two places to the right. So using 5,000,000 as your figure you end up with .00302%.

Using 6,000,000 as your figure you get .00251%

Edit: Since government statistics have shown that concealed carry permit holders are somewhere in the area of 5 times less likely to commit homicide than "average Joe", your chances of getting killed by Joe are .01255%