Violence Policy Center Makes It Up as They Go Along — Again
She was never even shot. She survived a beating and watched two men’s lives end, and that is horror enough. But now the widowed Mrs. Burroughs has become something else — a symbol of what happens when the agenda-driven biases of true believers corrupt pseudo-scientific research.
Sadly, the non-death of Christine Burroughs was just part of the Violence Policy Center’s attempt to demonize carry permit holders as a group. It can’t even claim to be sure that its including valid permit carriers among those they would demonize.
While the VPC cites Humberto Delgado as having a North Carolina-issued concealed carry permit, the fact is that he faced charges for carrying a concealed weapon in addition to the homicide charges. This rather strongly suggests he did not have a valid permit.
A second person mentioned in the VPC report as a carry permit holder is William Littleton, who was issued a permit in North Carolina in 1998. But like most states, North Carolina’s carry permits must be renewed periodically. North Carolina requires permits to be re-issued every five years. The VPC offered no evidence that Littleton renewed in his permit in 2003 or in 2008 as would have been required. Ten years ago is apparently close enough.
Is the Violence Policy Center attempting to claim that people “tainted” by obtaining concealed carry permits will one day be overcome with a murderous rage? Actually, that seems to be precisely the point of “Concealed Carry Killers” — demonizing a government-issued document. But the inclusion of Delgado and Littleton is just another example of shoddy, agenda-driven, faux research.
In addition to not being able to tell the living from the dead, or even to verify that the killers they cited had valid concealed carry permits, the VPC compounds its errors by failing basic mathematics — re-counting the dead of other crimes and padding the total.
Jason Keith Hamilton, who killed a police officer and two civilians in his rampage, apparently had his two civilian victims counted twice in the VPC’s final tally. Hamilton’s victims are listed on both the law enforcement and private citizens pages. When the number of dead on the private citizens page is accurately totaled, the number of dead is not the 77 the VPC claims. When you subtract the non-death of Christine Burroughs that the VPC did not verify and the addition of two fatalities that the VPC’s own tabulations don’t support, the number of civilian dead is 74 — bringing the the total number of actual deaths to 82, not 85.
At this point it seems reasonable to conclude that the VPC didn’t use page numbers on their documents because the math was too hard.
And before we leave this sorry state of affairs, it is also worth mentioning that Charles Podany was listed as one of these killers in the original VPC report debunked in August, but the man he killed is no longer included in the VPC’s victim tally. The 49-year-old Podany was cleared in court of shooting 24-year-old Casey Landes, a man who had attacked him. The case was textbook proof of Florida’s “stand your ground” law. Podany’s listing does go to prove another point about the research generated by this organization: you don’t have to be guilty of a crime to show up on the VPC’s list; you just have to be charged. It appears that from the VPC perspective, gun owners are guilty until proven innocent.
No doubt the VPC’s reporting should be judged with the same skepticism.
Note: This article was written Dec. 15, and the VPC website was updated again December 16. They have new information … but can you trust it?
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.