Another Floridian [apparently] with a concealed license.....

Thanksgiving Massacre Gun Bought in Fort Lauderdale
Merhige bought three guns a day before killing four family members
By TODD WRIGHT
Updated 7:40 PM EST, Fri, Dec 4, 2009
Jupiter police have released more surveillance video Friday with footage showing fugitive Paul Michael Merhige buying a gun at a Fort lauderdale gun shop.
The video is from Nov. 25, the day before Merhige drove to Jupiter and shot six of his family members, killing four of them including his twin sisters and a 6-year-old cousin.
The owner of the shop, who did not want to be identified, said Merhige bought two pistols and an automatic rifle and had a Concealed License Permit. He has also recently shopped for guns at Bass Pro Shops, the owner said.............

.............If you have any information, contact the Jupiter Police Department at (561) 746-6201, Miami Police or Crime Stoppers’ anonymous "TIP" phone number, 1-800-458-TIPS (8477).

First Published: Dec 4, 2009 2:36 PM EST

http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local-beat/Thanksgiving-Massacre-Gun-Bought-in-Fort-Lauderdale-78538747.html

(probably not an "automatic rifle")

But I do hope you aren't attempting to paint all (or even anything close to a majority of) CCW holders with this single, horrible brush.

Look at the title.

Grabbers can't back-up their views so they always resort to the same tiresome stereotypes.

I just wanted to give him/her at least a chance to not look like a jack-ass.

Since when is four dead a "massacre"? Rather trivializes the word, if you ask me.

If a person who has a permit or license to publically use a dangerous item misuses that item to intentionally kill several persons, that misuse justifies stripping innocent persons who where in no way involved of their permits or licensing (or at least blaming them for exercising freedom that other folks have abused).

That seems like far-fetched logic when you remove the "guns" issue from the table. So that begs the question: "if the logic applies ONLY TO GUNS, doesn't it boil down to 'I don't like guns therefore {place whatever you want here}?'"

According to the Florida Dept. of Agriculture and Consumer Services' Division of Licensing (http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html), there were 674,225 current CCW licenses as of November 30, 2009. Since 1987, a total of 1,666,203 CCW licenses have been issued, of which 4,465 have been revoked for a crime committed after the license was issued, and of those 4,465, 167 involved a firearm.

That's one out of 9,977 licensees. In other words, for every Florida CCW permit holder who commits a crime with a firearm while licensed to carry, there are 9,976 licensees who do not.

As a very rough comparison, in 2006, one out of 139 drivers was arrested for DUI (http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/810809.PDF). Admittedly, that's arrests, not convictions, but then again, it's only of several offenses that you can commit using a motor vehicle.

The guy used a gun to kill some people. How is that misusing the gun? Was the gun not produced specifically for the taking of human life? I'm not anti-gun, but I'm not going to pretend that guns like handguns, M-16's, or other certain types of gun are not prduced specifically for use against other humans. There are guns out there that are made for hunting animals, but that's a small fraction of the total number of existing firearms. Unless the guy was using animal hunting equipment to kill humans, he was using the gun for its intended purpose and not "misusing" a gun. If he was using it to crack open hazelnuts, he'd be misusing the gun.

and the vast majority are not misused. For every gun used in a murder, there are tens of thousands kept in safes, by bedsides, or in holsters for lawful defensive purposes.

If a police officer were issued a pistol, and used it to execute people who dissed him, that would be a misuse of his duty weapon. If a soldier were issued an M16, and used it to murder his superior officer and fellow soldiers, you would agree that would be a misuse of the weapon, would it not?

Alcohol is made to be consumed, but my father-in-law was misusing it during his alcoholic years, when he would drink himself senseless and then beat my wife's mother and terrorize his children.

(And BTW, you do know that M-16's are as tightly controlled as howitzers and bombs in this country, yes?)

And context is rather important. Driving an IndyCar at 200 mph is not "misuse" on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway; it is misuse if you do it in downtown Indianapolis.

Similarly, even when a firearm has been designed primarily for anti-personnel use, it still matters whom you shoot with it. An army-issue weapon is intended to be used to shoot enemy belligerents, not non-combatants or members of one's own side. Weapons in civilian hands--both those of law enforcement and private citizens--are supposed to be used only to incapacitate people who are engaged in unlawful activity that threatens (or is reasonably believed to threaten) harm to innocent life or limb. Using a firearm on a person whom you're not legally entitled to shoot is therefore "misuse."

And you are hanging your biases/bigotry out in public.

Not all killing is unlawful, but all types of firearms have perfectly legitimate non-lethal uses.

How hard is that to understand?

Defensive handguns and handgun ammunition are designed to quickly "stop" a human being from committing or continuing a felonious assault. Often that means, in practical terms, killing that human being.

One problem with your argument is that it assumes that "taking of human life" is necessarily and definitively a bad thing and nothing further need be said on this self-evident truth. I beg to differ. If a criminal has just shot the three hostages next to you and is adjusting his aim to shoot you, a police sniper destroying his brain is a good thing. Yes, he will die as a result. Yes, the ultimate goal of the sniper was to STOP him from killing the rest of the hostages, not to kill him. Nevertheless, killing him--as a necessary part of stopping him instantly--is a good thing.

Taking human life is sometimes good.

Now if that police sniper practices his skills at a local daycare center on the neighborhood children, that would be a misuse of his gun--even though both shooting the hostage taker and shooting an innocent child are both the exact same thing in a morality free vacuum--"the taking of human life."

A good analogy is matches. Matches are well used to light the fireplace and keep a family warm. Matches are misused to burn down the local church. The fact that matches are designed to light things on fire does not mean that arson is not a misuse of matches.

The fact that defensive guns and ammunition are designed to quickly stop a person committing a crime--and that quickly stopping sometimes equates to killing--does not mean that murder is not a misuse of defensive guns and ammo.

I'm merely saying that if a gun was manufactured for the sole purpose of firing a projectile into another human, then firing the gun at another human is not "misuse" of the gun. Remove the context of the act, including legal and moral ramifications. It's an inanimate object and the idea of defense or offense is simply grafted on by others. What you end up with is someone using the gun for it's intended purpose.

I don't agree with the matches analogy, because you're assigning legal and moral ramifications to an inanimate object. The matches were meant to provide flame for a short period of time. Whether to light a cigarette or a church fire, they did what they were meant to do as long as the match lit once the head was struck.

For those of for whom the legal and moral context actually matters, it is misuse.

I mean, if we apply your version of the matches analogy to firearms, then the purpose of a firearm is to propel a projectile at high velocity, by means of gases expanding as a result of combustion. What or whom you aim the firearm at doesn't even enter into the equation.

"were manufactured for the sole purpose of firing a projectile into another human." As a matter of fact, even military weapons can--and many probably are designed to--perform other functions, like disabling vehicles and equipment.

Civilian arms are not "manufactured for the sole purpose of firing a projectile into another human"--they are manufactured for target practice, hunting, self-defense against humans (which does not usually involve firing a projectile into another human being), self defense against animals ((which would not involve firing a projectile into another human being), and collecting.

The poster uses "Another" as if to suggest a trend, "Floridian" as if to suggest the trend is peculiar to Floridians. Then he/she cuts out.

This is 3rd grade anecdotal stuff, bud. Do you have the data on how many concealed license permits-holders in the aggregate have committed firearms-related crimes? No? You'll find out.

Certainly NOT an automatic rifle, and it appears that the reporter who wrote this was under the impression that the guy had a permit to carry a concealed license.

Foolery aside, nothing in the cited article indicates that his having a license to carry a concealed weapon, if he actually did have one, contributed in any way to his ability to commit this horrible crime. In other words, he'd have been able to do the deed just as easily without a CCW permit as with one.

Logic is sometimes hard and cold, but it is important to consider when discussing issues of public policy.

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

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=118&topic_id=269339&mesg_id=269339

It that thread the murder rate for CCW holders was compared to the murder rate for the general populace. It was shown that CCW holders are 8.16 times less likely to murder than the general populace. In fact, you are several times more likely to get struck by lightning than to be murdered by a CCW holder.

For the past twenty years various states have been adopting "shall issue" CCW laws. Forth (40) states now allow shall issue (or better) and the fears of the antis just haven't materialized. We haven't returned to the mythical Old West (The real Old West actually had a low crime rate.), every intersection isn't an OK Corral, people aren't shooting each other over insults, in fact, not much has happened.

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

If you look near the bottom you will find statistics for "Licenses Revoked".

167 licenses have been revoked for "Crime After Licensure --firearm Utilized--.

The report covers the period of time between 10/1/87 - 11/30/09. During this period of time a total of 1,666,203 licenses were issued and 674,225 are still valid.

Every misuse of a firearm is tragic. Still, the overwhelming majority of those who hold Florida Concealed Weapons permits are extremely responsible citizens who rarely abuse the privilege.

In post #6, where I pointed out that for every person who's been issued a Florida CCW permit and subsequently committed a crime using a firearm while licensed, there were 9,976 licensees who had not.