New Math and Gun Nuts

by Michael Z. Williamson

A New “study” by the self-proclaimed “Violence Policy Center” purports that concealed carry licensees are a threat to society. To make this utterly fraudulent claim, they show “statistics” of the crimes committed by licensees in Texas.

First, let us dispose of the “non-arrest incidents” they report. If there’s no arrest, it isn’t an “incident.” Innocent until proven guilty is a fact. Foreign to them, but a fact.

On to the real evidence. They list a total of 3,370 offenses, and are gracious (and stupid) enough to break down by category. Many of these, however, are irrelevant to the issue. For example, there’s a listing for “abuse of official capacity.” Since the only people who can commit this crime are government employees, usually in a position of authority, they do not enter into a discussion of the general populace. Also listed are 814 traffic incidents, including “failure to stop and render aid.” These hardly qualify as crimes that bear relevance to the issue of firearms, which is the violent use thereof.

Rather than list excruciating details, the link above is for anyone wishing to waste their time with these deceitful idiots. I’ll simply do the math:

3,370 arrests, out of 212,969 licensed carriers (according to the AP) in Texas. This comes to a ratio of 1582 per 100,000. In comparison (which they carefully do not do--honesty is anathema to these hoplophobes [people who have an irrational fear of guns]) the DOJ reports for 1998 that 645 per 100,000 population were incarcerated. One obviously does not go to jail for a traffic violation, even if convicted. The VPC does not list convictions, of course, since that would destroy their case. I believe (and welcome feedback on this) that only about 1 arrest in 3 gets a conviction. This puts licensees in Texas slightly lower than the national average. So the entire incident is a non-issue. But we aren’t done yet.

Of that 3370, we will subtract the 814 traffic violations, even the DUIs, since the chance of any of those arrests yielding a jail sentence is negligible. They don’t list any of these as vehicular homicide, anyway; they have a different category for that, thus proving their dishonesty. We will also subtract such crimes as “pyramid scheme.” This is the year 2000. Take out a loan and buy a clue. There are 93 incidents relevant to false reports, etc. These are not violent crimes against another. Neither is it relevant if a licensee commits credit card fraud, unless VPC wishes to claim that a merchant was forced at gunpoint to accept a bad Mastercard. 34 incidents involve boating while intoxicated, furnishing to a minor, etc. Irrelevant as real “crimes” unless someone can quantify damages. They list 93 “other” offenses including cable descrambling, etc. I can’t see how a gun is relevant to most of these, either.

We will leave in the “firearms related offenses.” While most of these are the moral equivalent of violating the “White Only” signs in the 50s, there are a few that are actual crimes, and we do wish to be fair.

What we have, of crimes likely to lead to a jail term, is 2336 of 212,969 persons, for a total jailable offenses of 1097 per 100,000. Dividing by 3 for likely convictions (and again, please correct me if I am wrong) we get about 365 incarcerations per 100,000, or just over half the national average.

Looking again, at arrests for murder (since these people have such a fascination with murder as opposed to say, medical malpractice, lung cancer, or infant mortality. An obsession that verges on the morbid, but I digress), we have a total of 23, for 4 years, or 5.75 per year. This is a specific group, not a general population study, so I’m not sure how it relates, but we’ll use it. Adjusting for our 212,969 population of this group, that’s less than 2.7 murders committed per 100,000 per year. Divide by 3 for convictions (And I’m betting that many of these “arrests” were by crooked police chiefs objecting to their jobs being done for them by honest citizens chlorinating the gene pool), we get .9 convicted murders per 100,000 population of concealed carry licensees. 

If someone wishes to get me actual population and murder rates for Texas, I’ll be happy to do a general populace/specific group comparison. But as it stands above, concealed carry licensees are far less likely to be criminals than the average (by a factor of about 7), which anyone but a five-year-old or a gun nut can figure out.

Copyright 2000 by Michael Z. Williamson. Anyone is free to copy this article in toto, provided due credit is given. Please mention http://www.KeepAndBearArms.com where it was originally published.