Conceal/Carry
I'm not sure exactly how it happened, but I found my way to the Brady Campaign website. It was one of those deals where you're looking for something completely unrelated and Google makes some obscure connection, blahblahblah.
I'm looking over this page and one statistic catches my eye. The page cites some study which found that conceal/carry license holders were actually less law-abiding than the average citizen, which is contrary to popular belief. I was puzzled by this, so I checked it out.
The study was done by the Violence Policy Center. The data do indeed show license holders being arrested for a variety of violent crimes. But when I looked up the original stats from the Texas Department of Public Safety and ran the numbers myself, I didn't get the same results. Using census data, a conservative estimate of the number of license holders and conviction rates, I got numbers which support the common perception that people who get licenses to carry concealed are, on average, more law-abiding than people who don't.
The main problem with the VPC study is that they used arrest rates rather than conviction rates. I'm not sure why they would do that. Especially since it is standard procedure to prosecute anyone who uses deadly force for self-defense. The VPC study indicates that forty-one conceal/carry license holders were arrested for murder in one year. I looked at the murder conviction rate for license holders in another year and the number was one. Just one conviction. Most of these cases don't make it past the grand jury, from what I understand.
It makes sense, when you think about it. Why would someone who is willing to commit a felony balk at the idea of carrying unlawfully? I mean, do the people behind the Brady Campaign honestly imagine that there are criminals out there who will kill and rob and rape but will go through the trouble of getting a license to carry their stolen gun concealed?
It just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't get the restrictions against carrying on school property or in certain businesses either. Is someone who intends to rob a bank really going to change his mind because there's a sign on the door saying that he's not allowed to bring his gun in? I mean, is this what people think?
The more research I do, the more it seems that F. Paul Wilson's fictional hero was right: gun control is victim disarmament.
I'm looking over this page and one statistic catches my eye. The page cites some study which found that conceal/carry license holders were actually less law-abiding than the average citizen, which is contrary to popular belief. I was puzzled by this, so I checked it out.
The study was done by the Violence Policy Center. The data do indeed show license holders being arrested for a variety of violent crimes. But when I looked up the original stats from the Texas Department of Public Safety and ran the numbers myself, I didn't get the same results. Using census data, a conservative estimate of the number of license holders and conviction rates, I got numbers which support the common perception that people who get licenses to carry concealed are, on average, more law-abiding than people who don't.
The main problem with the VPC study is that they used arrest rates rather than conviction rates. I'm not sure why they would do that. Especially since it is standard procedure to prosecute anyone who uses deadly force for self-defense. The VPC study indicates that forty-one conceal/carry license holders were arrested for murder in one year. I looked at the murder conviction rate for license holders in another year and the number was one. Just one conviction. Most of these cases don't make it past the grand jury, from what I understand.
It makes sense, when you think about it. Why would someone who is willing to commit a felony balk at the idea of carrying unlawfully? I mean, do the people behind the Brady Campaign honestly imagine that there are criminals out there who will kill and rob and rape but will go through the trouble of getting a license to carry their stolen gun concealed?
It just doesn't make any sense to me. I don't get the restrictions against carrying on school property or in certain businesses either. Is someone who intends to rob a bank really going to change his mind because there's a sign on the door saying that he's not allowed to bring his gun in? I mean, is this what people think?
The more research I do, the more it seems that F. Paul Wilson's fictional hero was right: gun control is victim disarmament.