Sunday, November 22, 2009

CCW Will Not Make You Safer

The Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort released a statement earlier this week depicting the violence and mayhem caused by people that were supposedly trained and licensed to carry guns. The evidence is contrary to what the gun nuts would have you believe:
Concealed handgun permit holders killed eight law enforcement officers and 77 private citizens (including 10 shooters who killed themselves after an attack) during the period May 2007 through October 2009 according to a new Violence Policy Center (VPC) on-line resource that tallies news reports of such killings. The web site, CCW Killers, is located at http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm and is updated monthly to include new fatal shootings and changes in the legal status of concealed handgun permit holders facing criminal charges. (Any concealed handgun permit holders who are eventually acquitted of their alleged crimes are not included in the tallies maintained on the site although the facts surrounding the shooting are detailed.)
If the numbers seem low to you, as they did to me, WAVE explains why later in the release:
Because most state systems that allow the carrying of concealed handguns in public by private citizens release little data about crimes committed by permit holders, the VPC reviews and tallies concealed handgun permit holder killings as reported by news outlets. It is likely that the actual number of fatal criminal incidents involving concealed handgun permit holders is far higher.
Even here in Wisconsin, which fortunately still doesn't allow this kind of nonsense, we can see evidence by the people in blaze orange that having more guns does not equate more safety, either for people or for property.

This is something else to keep in mind when preparing to vote next November.

9 comments:

  1. I'm not too sympathetic to hunters who kill themselves or others. I will never understand the mentality of people who have a need to go out and kill animals for sport. My point of view is they need to kill animals to make themselves feel like men. Pathetic.

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  2. "I'm not too sympathetic to hunters who kill themselves or others."

    Oops...I meant...I'm not too sympathetic to hunters who kill themselves or other hunters.

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  3. Anon- If these "sport-killers" out to "feel like men" didn't shoot deer every November, they would be terribly overpopulated. And if you ever left the big city to come out where people hunted, you would hit one with your car. What is pathetic is your understanding of nature and wildlife. Posts like this give liberals a bad name.

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  4. "Posts like this give liberals a bad name."

    Jim...are you talking about capper's "post"? Or...my comment? If you are talking about my comment...I'm not a liberal. I just hate men who *enjoy* killing animals for sport or for any other reason.

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  5. While I thought capper's last line that seemed to imply hunters are dangerous misrepresented hunting, my main complaint was your comment on the killing of deer. I'll set my "liberal" tag of you aside, your ideology really doesn't matter. But let me ask you this, do you eat meat? If so, is eating meat acceptable so long as the person harvesting the meat takes no joy in it? Does someone enjoying the process of hunting somehow make it wrong, as opposed to leading a cow into a slaughterhouse and putting a bolt through its brain?

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  6. The links provided in the sentence in question does show that some hunters are indeed dangerous. I have personally seen (and reported) people that were hunting unsafely.

    Are all hunters dangerous? Of course not, but they are not all responsible either.

    And there is a big difference between hunting for food and hunting for sport. It is the ones that only hunt for the thrill of the kill that are disturbing, in my opinion.

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  7. Concealed handgun permit holders killed eight law enforcement officers and 77 private citizens (including 10 shooters who killed themselves after an attack) during the period May 2007 through October 2009 according to a new Violence Policy Center (VPC) on-line resource

    Given the source, maybe 1/10th of what you read is true.

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  8. I figured the numbers were low, but now you are saying that the actual numbers are ten times that. Wow!

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  9. I don't think it serves much purpose to point out a couple of idiots shooting themselves/others, but I don't fault you for it either.
    Also, thanks Dad29 for your input.

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