Of course, the gun lobby fails to
mention that thousands of people with CCW
licenses have committed atrocious acts of gun
violence
I actually demontated on the Brady's own blog how this exact statement is not just inaccurate but is a blatantly fabricated lie.
The following is from post #180 in the following Brady Campaign blog section titled "Gun Violence: What are we doing about it":
http://www.bradycampaign.org/blog/2007/05/01/gun-violence-what-are-we-going-to-do-about-it/#comments
#180
Not even to page 1 of that Brady propoganda report and I found a great example of blatant Brady dishonesty. Page IV of Executive Summary:
(Quote) Of course, the gun lobby fails to mention that thousands of people with CCW
licenses have committed atrocious acts of gun violence. 6 (End Quote)
One of the sources they site for this “statistic” is of course THEMSELVES. That’s right, they cite as their source a previous “report” they issued 10 years ago. It is quite convenient for a “Research” report created by a biased organization to freely cite as a proof of its claims it own past reports.
Here is their complete source citation for the above “referenced fact”:
6. See Guns & Business Don’t Mix, at Appendix C (listing dozens of criminal offenses committed by CCW licensees in Florida alone,
http://www.bradycenter.org/xshare/pdf/reports/gunsnbusiness. pdf); see also William Rempel & Richard Serrano, Texas Concealed Handgun Law: Felons Get Concealed Gun Licenses Under Bush’s ‘Tough’ Law, Los Angeles Times, Oct. 3, 2000, at 1 (finding that more than 400 criminals - including rapists and armed robbers - had been issued CCW permits in Texas, with 3,000 more arrested for criminal behavior or found to be mentally unstable).
The first source they list:
- In the appendix section of the previous report they cite titled “CCW Holders; Law Abiding Citizens?” they say this:
“897 Florida CCW license-holders have had their licenses revoked, and 304 of those revocations were for the commission of crimes by the licensee before issuance.”
They don’t say what all 897 licenses were revoked for though they do list around 100 felony related. It is also worth noting that these 100 entries didn’t even say whether or not a firearm was used in the crime.
Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are correct that 897 licenses were revoked for criminal behavior (not even removing the 304 for this figure which shouldn’t have received the license in the first place). That is 897 out of over 200,000 licenses (using their own figures) issued over a 10 year period. 897 / 200,000 = 0.004485. So over an entire 10 year period only 0.4% of CCW licenses were revoked for criminal acts. This ultra low crime rate by CCW holders makes CCW a success to me.
The second source they list:
- The author saying “criminals - including rapists and armed robbers - had been issued CCW permits” is not the same as saying “people with CCW licenses have committed atrocious acts of gun violence.” It is blatantly dishonest to represent these as the same like the Bradys do
- The statement in the 2nd source sited, “3,000 more arrested for criminal behavior or found to be mentally unstable certainly” also is NOT the same as “committed atrocious acts of gun violence.” In fact, the statement cited doesn’t say what crime was committed, the severity of the crime or even whether or not a gun was present, let alone used. For all we know, the statement could include a CCW holder with a gun at home that was arrested for “driving without a license.”
Comment by zen21tao at 1:20 pm on May 26, 2007
