Violence Policy Center Makes It Up as They Go Along — Again
Would you trust the statistical and factual reporting acumen of an organization that can’t even tell the difference between someone being dead or alive?
No, this isn’t about the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia or the other bad actors of Climategate (though it could be). This is about a little organization that Barack built. Not ACORN (though it could be). This is about the Violence Policy Center (VPC), one of the gun-control organizations our B+ president helped fund as a board member of the left-wing Joyce Foundation.
For the past few months, the VPC has decided to target concealed carry permit holders as particularly bad, evil people. This approach is quite puzzling to anyone actually familiar with concealed carry permit holders, a group that tends to be a bit older, a bit whiter, and a bit more likely to buy Fleetwood Mac albums than most. As a subset of the citizenry, concealed carry permit holders are also more likely to be law-abiding that the general population.
And so it was with a certain degree of satisfaction that I picked apart “Concealed Carry Killers,” a series of poorly formatted and tabulated PDFs that is part of the Violence Policy Center’s crusade to misrepresent and demonize those who carry concealed handguns (CCH).
Actually, that isn’t entirely accurate.
In its reporting, the VPC doesn’t restrict itself to reporting homicides committed by a permit holder drawing and firing his or her concealed weapon. Of the 85-person body count they claim (we’ll get back to that in a moment), concealed handguns only accounted for 30 of the fatalities.
Twenty-seven of the deaths were caused by rifles. One was a brutal beating. Another was a vicious strangling. Read again closely, dear reader. The Violence Policy Center isn’t trying to demonize the actual practice of carrying concealed handguns in its reporting; it is trying to demonize concealed carry permit holders.
And they’re willing to misrepresent, lie, cheat, and (presumably) steal to accomplish that goal. But don’t take my word for it. Open up a copy of the VPC’s “Private Citizens Killed by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders: May 2007 to the Present” and learn from the tragic story of Christine and Arthur Burroughs:
On March 8, 2008, Christine Burroughs, naked and covered with blood, ran to neighbor Alice and Lance Lather’s house seeking refuge from her enraged husband, Arthur Burroughs. Burroughs followed his wife to the home, fatally shooting Lance Lather. Burroughs then barricaded himself in the neighbors’ bathroom with his wife. A SWAT team and hostage negotiator were called to the house, but Burroughs shot and killed his wife and then himself. Christine Burroughs had previously told Alice Lather that her husband wanted to kill her because she wanted a divorce. Burroughs had been previously employed in loss prevention and security for T.J. Maxx and had possessed a concealed handgun permit since at least 1999.
The crime was a brutal case of domestic violence that expanded beyond one family’s tragedy when Christine Burroughs fled from her husband and sought sanctuary at the home of their neighbors — unwittingly drawing them into the violence. Lance Lather paid with his life for Arthur Burroughs’ inability to cope with the thought of his wife divorcing him. In the end, Arthur Burroughs killed himself as well. The tragedy of the situation was not lost on Christine Burroughs, who considers Lance Lather her hero, and credits him with saving her life.
No, Christine Burroughs wasn’t killed by her husband in their neighbor’s bathroom.
Switzerland is a very nice country…. beautiful mountains, incredibly vistas, wonderful towns, nice peaceful citizens…every single house is armed with semi / fully automatic weapons, and the owner trained how to use that weapon effectively and with deadly accuracy.
Nice safe nation.
They want to find a government document linked to violence, they should research how many convicted murderers have birth certificates. I bet the numbers are STUNNING.
What is that time honored Legal tactic? Argue the facts unless they are against you, then argue the law. If the law and the facts are against you, get a better client.
Liberals use the same basic principal. If the facts are against them, they argue emotions. If the facts and emotions are against them, move the goalposts. It is sort of working. We are talking about crime and the 2nd amendment. The 2nd amendment has nothing to do with crime. The 2nd amendment is the Contitutions last ditch defense against tyranny.
So by arguing crime, the socialists have moved the goal posts and are attempting to undermine the Consitution’s last ditch defense.
Considering the frontal assault that the current administration is mounting against the Constitution, that last ditch might be a battle zone before to much longer. Another year or less.
You guys manning the Bastions just need to hold out for another 9 or 10 months. Make it to the 2010 elections and we will change the administration thru legal means. My fear is that this administration knows that and like so many Socialists before them will suspend the elections to avoid losing power. That will mean taking up those arms the 2nd amendment allows us.
So did the VPC use the usual tactic of not contextualizing the “gun crimes committed by permit owners” within the universe of all gun crimes, or all permit holders? Was this another “descriptive” study tallying up a bunch of unrelated crimes and making random assertions about the invented parameters?
Did they even contrast this group with crimes committed by people illegally posessing guns?
If you had told me ten years ago that pseudo-statistical criminological research would become less reliable than it already was, I would have laughed. But I was wrong. How wrong? 100%.
I am shocked that a liberal group would use such dishonesty to get their message out. Down right shocked.
Founded by our beloved, centrist, moderate, clean and intelligent young president? You hate-mongers will stop at nothing!
I am surprised. Communists don’t want the citizens to be armed. Imagine that. There is absolutely nowhere to go. Having a place to go was supposedly the beauty of the American way of life. We have messed things up for the entire world for generations to come. Peace, bro. Far out!
I suppose members of this organization do not want to list the Fort Hood attacks as a terrorist attack either. Seems to me, facts always get in the road of agenda driven radicals who demand all live & think as they do, or else.
The radicalization of these issue mongers will only continue to cause those who believe in our constitutional rights, even farther away from them. Sooner or later there will have to be a confrontation. Sooner or later, Americans will need to stand up & tell the left if they want to be internationalists, they need to go elsewhere because we are not giving up our freedoms to live in their utopian fantasy world.
Someday one of these intentional liars may get attacked by some savage, in a lonely dark place, while an unwitting conceal & carry person may just come along and save s/he’s life by shooting their attacker dead justifiably under “The Right To Defend Others” found side by side under the laws of self defense.
What would their stance be then while recovering from the attack with their family members, children and friends still breathing to enjoy them for the remainder of their saved life? Would they thank that conceal & carry person s/he? Would they reconsider their position[s]?
Here are some words of wisdom for all GUN HATERS out there you radical Anti-American clowns! Including the JOKER OBAMA!! He has a dismal record concerning the 2nd Amendment and HIS continous attacks AGAINST “AN INDIVIDUAL’S RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS.” BEWARE AND BE READY! LOCK & LOAD, THE BROWN SHIRTS ARE HERE AND THEY’RE COMMING!
“BRING IT ON” George W. Bush said that! I Agree 100%
So here you are, read it a weep while I clean my Smith & Wesson 50 Cal. 5 shot Pistol “THE MOST POWERFUL HANDGUN IN THE WORLD” Clint Eastwood said that!
“People who object to weapons aren’t abolishing violence, their begging for rule by brute force, when the biggest strongest animal among men were always automaticlly ‘right.’ Guns ended that, and social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work.”….L.Neil Smith The Probability Broach
found at http://nw.com/jamesd/libertarian-quotes page No.3 of 16
Conseal & Carry is legal in Missouri and has contributd to SAVING LIVES. These loons, it is obvious have never read the statistics of the NRA nor the stories published in their magazines concerning the presents of firearms and their effect of stoping crime one way or the other. They can have my GUN when “they remove it from my cold dead hands”….. Mr. Heston said that! Praise the U.S.Supreme Court’s decision in the Heller D.C. case. Chicago is next! see chicagoguncase.com
Interesting that while NICS background checks for firearms purchases are up in double digits every month for 2009 over 2008 (each check is at least one firearm sale — one check can be for more than one gun), FBI stats apparently show a 10% decline in the murder rate. True, correlation is not causation but …
Depending on whose figures you believe, gun owners make up 15% – 30% of the population.
People with guns commit 7% of violent crimes, and over 50% of homicides (about 65%, if I remember correctly).
Concealed weapons permit holders commit _____ (??) of violent crimes, and ______ (??) of homicides.
Blacks make up 12% of the population.
Blacks commit 25% of violent crimes, and about 50% of homicides.
Question: if you pick a random gun owner and a random African-American out of the general population, which is more likely to be a violent criminal?
Slight qualification, #11.
Pick a random *legal* gun owner
FTFY
“Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum.” (“Therefore, he who wishes peace, should prepare war”) – Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus, ca. 380 AD
#10: Unfortunately, many people *do* believe that correlation is causation, notable UN climatologists, journalists, and ‘pop’ medicine fans.
ok, I don’t mind being called old, or white; but you take back that part about being likely to buy fleetwood mac albums.
The same statisticians from the cru now work for the vpc
> Slight qualification, #11.
> Pick a random *legal* gun owner
> FTFY
How did that fix that for me? You’re reasoning is as shoddy as those VPC hacks, if not more so.
Are you suggesting that gun crimes are committed by legal gun owners?
Or that criminals with guns don’t count as gun owners?
And if you’re not going to pick from a random sample of all gun owners, are you going to pick only from law-abiding black people in my exercise above? If not, why not?
It’s very simple. Liberals are loosers. They have nothing to stand on and no logic behind anything they say. Nor will they ever tell you what they really believe. They may have a talking point you won’t ever back down from until it effects them in some way. See what any one of these people would have to say if their teenage daughter was raped and shot by illegal aliens with stolen firearms in font of them. By definition, a CCW permit holder is about as law abiding as you can get.
One quibble on an otherwise excellent article: The VPC does have a tiny point when they highlight homicides done by handgun permit holders with other weapons. We permit holders often boast that we represent a peaceful, law-abiding part of the population. When one of us murders someone, whether with our legally permitted handgun or with a pitchfork, it slightly weakens our (overwhelmingly true) claim.