Gun Control Advocates Make up Facts about Concealed Handgun Laws

Gun Control Advocates Make up Facts about Concealed Handgun Laws
by John R. Lott, J

. . . the Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center portray Florida as Ground Zero for problems with concealed handgun permit holders. They boldly assert that 17 Florida permit holders have “killed” people with their guns over the past three years and that this one state by itself accounts for 17 of the 96 “killer” permit holders nationwide. The other 79 cases are scattered across 26 other states, with no other state accounting for more than 10 cases. Florida is also said to account for 2 of the 7 cases where permit holders are said to have killed law enforcement officers.

So what is the evidence? The gun control groups don’t actually point to actual court cases. They look at news stories and selectively report what is reported in those stories. For Florida, there are eleven “pending cases.” The gun control groups assume that anyone involved in a shooting will be convicted. Indeed, in 7 of the 11 cases no one was even charged with a crime. Three cases involved suicides, and three had convictions for some type of offense. (See this link for a detailed presentation of sources.)

But there is something that the gun control advocates conveniently omit: When a permit holder uses a gun defensively and kills an attacker in a public place, the police often arrest them. Typically, he will later be released, but the police must first investigate what happened. The police can’t just take the shooter’s word for it that they used the gun defensively.


– James Wonder was charged with the death of an off-duty Customs and Border Protection Agent Donald Pettit. Pettit is said to have engaged in road rage against Wonder and then followed Wonder’s car into a Post Office parking lot solely to continue harassing Wonder. Pettit had over shot the parking lot and had to circle back to go into it. He had no intention to do business with either the Post Office or any other nearby business. Pettit was clearly the aggressor in the situation. The Sun-Sentinel newspaper wrote on August 29, 2008: “local lawyers said may be able to make a strong claim under Florida law that he was within his rights to shoot Pettit.” One measure of the severity of the case is that Wonder was released on a very minimal bond of $10,000. Neither the Brady Campaign nor the Violence Policy Center noted these points in their discussion of the case.



Please follow the link and read the full article. Lots of examples and a few stats that puts things into perspective.
http://biggovernment.com/jlott/2010/07/25/gun-control-advocates-make-up-facts-about-concealed-handgun-laws/

:popcorn:

Wait, what were talking about? :sarcasm:

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would ban all firearms in gross ignorance of facts that prove the timeless wisdom that each individual is personally responsible for self-defense.

That's why SCOTUS acknowledged in Heller:

If they used the facts, they would be laughed off the stage..

They have lied and spinned so much, and so often, only a handful of people take them seriously anymore, and most of them work in the mainstream media. This is the ONLY reason we still hear their blathering.

Florida publishes a monthly summary report on legal concealed carry at http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html

This report covers a period of time between October 1, 1987 to June 30, 2010, almost 23 years.

1,808,526 concealed weapons have been issued by the state of Florida, of which 739,222 are currently valid.

Only167 licenses have been revoked because of a crime committed after the license was issued. Unfortunately, the report doesn't list the reason the license was revoked. Licenses are revoked for a number of reasons including accidentally carrying a firearm into a forbidden area such as a school or courthouse.

Obviously, those who have a concealed weapons permit in Florida are not angels. But by any measure, the OVERWHELMING majority are very responsible with their concealed firearms.

It's my opinion that the concealed weapons program in Florida has been extremely successful. Many lives have been saved because people who legally carry concealed have been able to successfully defend themselves from serious attacks, often without any shots being fired.

While there is some data that shows crime dropped in Florida after the "shall issue" concealed carry program was introduced, it is disputed. Many factors influence the violent crime rate. Since those who have concealed weapons permits are not police officers or vigilantes, they have only a small marginal effect on shootings involving drug gangs which is a common occurrence in Florida. Concealed carry may be a factor in crime such as muggings, as the wise criminal is aware that there is a possibly that he will encounter an armed victim. He may be more selective in choosing his victims or may decide to simply avoid robbing people on the street.

Most of the gun-control legislative agenda, other than the background check for purchase from a dealer, has been based on similar exaggeration. Ultimately, that proved to be their undoing, I think.