The Violence Policy Center loves to tout its junk science. Their latest creative “science” whopper is entitled “Concealed Carry Killers” and purports to claim that concealed carry licensees have been involved in over 722 “non-self-defense deaths”.
The title of the study would suggest that concealed carry licensees are a murderous bunch, liable to kill an innocent person for merely expressing noxious flatulence.
Hardly. What are non-self-defense deaths? According to their own “science”, VPC counts everything from suicides, car accidents, and even accidental deaths involving the CCW license holder’s gun – when the licensee wasn’t even present!
The bottom line is that there have only been 172 instances of a concealed carry licensee being criminally convicted of taking another life, according to the best information available from the Violence Policy Center.
When you consider that well over 5% of the American public is licensed to carry a firearm in public, one is far more likely to be attacked and killed by an alligator than to be criminally murdered by a concealed carry licensee in any given year.
Odd that I haven’t seen any Aligator-free signs or legislation seeking to restrict where alligators can go. Our legislators need to address this grave threat to public safety and leave law-abiding citizens alone unless and until they actually commit a crime.
That is absolutely not true. Like, three people a DECADE are killed by alligators. As for concealed carry deaths…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_alligator_attacks_in_the_United_States_by_decade
http://csgv.org/resources/2013/homicides-committed-by-concealed-handgun-permit-holders-in-florida/
Yeah, more like bear attacks: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fatal_bear_attacks_in_North_America