An Interesting Statistic on Concealed Carry

[GreenStormCloud]

2009 is the latest year for which conviction data is available. In 2009 there were 402,914 people in Texas who had Concealed Handgun Licenses. During that same year there was exactly ONE CHL holder convicted of murder, ZERO Capital Murder, ZERO Manslaughter. On that one conviction, we don’t even know if the CHL was relevant. He/she may have done murder by knife for all we know. There were 577 convictions for these crimes of citizens who did not have CHLs. Out of the 402K people who had CHLs it is reasonable to assume that there were cases in which the CHL holder used their gun in self-defense, even if no shots were fired. (My wife used hers twice in about 2006.) Certainly there had to be at least two such incidents, likely many more than just two.

Therefore, armed law-abiding citizens are saving more lives with their CHLs than are killed by CHL holders.

Therefore, law-abiding citizens, legally armed, is a good thing.

Texas state statistics may be viewed at: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/reports/convrates.htm

[Simo 1939_1940]

1. I recall seeing a post which contained that stats for Florida which mirrored

the Texas experience, but I haven't made a serious attempt to track down the citation.

[spin]

3. Florida statistics on concealed carry can be found here ...

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.pdf

[Simo 1939_1940]

17. Thank You spin! NT

[TPaine7]

2. I've read right here on DU that carrying a gun

is very dangerous.

No doubt this data will be corrected soon to show that there have been dozens (or hundreds) of deaths due to road rage, arguments over parking spaces, lover's quarrels and the like. And likely thousands of deaths due to negligent discharges.

The manslaughter cases for the NDs are probably still working their way through the courts, along with the murder cases.

There's no way almost 403,000 people with concealed carry licenses could only produce one murder and no manslaughters. That would mean everything I've been taught about the extreme dangers of concealed carry is wrong.

And that's just ... unpossible.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

4. BTW....

...since we're talking about a border state, I'm sure we'll see the convictions begin to roll in soon as many of those who got started to carry concealed will have no doubt begun frequenting gun shows and will then be drawn into the "straw-purchase-and-run-guns-to-Mexico" syndicate.

[Hoyt]

5. Yep, I bet the Texas Zimmermans, Loughners, and gun intimidators aren't inlcuded in that statistic.

Besides, when we accept a culture of guns, it's not just the folks with permits we need to look at when accessing the impact of more guns.

[gejohnston]

6. Well,

Zimmerman is still pending and Loughner did not have a permit.
How can one intimidate with a concealed gun? Open carry has been illegal in Texas for about 150 years from what I understand.

[ileus]

7. Mike...is that you....Remember folks all gunner toters are hidden criminals.

[TPaine7]

9. Of course.

The mass murders by concealed carry permittees weren't counted. It's all part of a vast NRA conspiracy.

And a gun in the possession of a concealed carry permittee means a gun in the hand of a convicted felon/gangbanger/drug dealer. (In the same way that a marriage between gays means a divorce by a previously in-love, upstanding, church-going, Fundamentalist couple.)

[GreenStormCloud]

12. The topic is the impact of legal concealed carry.

Illegal gun carriers killed over 600 people in 2009. Illegal gun carriers are going to carry no matter what the law says. Legal carry gives citizens the ability to fight back, and in 2010 50 felons were killed by citizens in self-defense.

[Meiko]

8. It seems to me that

the numbers are skewed a bit. You may have 402K people with a CHL but that does not mean that many were actually carrying, would you have to know how many people were actually carrying a concealed weapon on any given day. If the actual number who were carrying was say 25% of the 402K listed that would bring the incident rate up wouldn't it?

[TPaine7]

11. The OP is about CCW holders, and a common claim

is that the CCW system is dangerous because it allows ordinary people to carry:

Therefore, armed law-abiding citizens are saving more lives with their CHLs than are killed by CHL holders.

[Meiko]

13. There is no way

You are ever going to know that without knowing how many times a gun is used in self defense, most incidents go unreported.

[TPaine7]

14. See post # 10 n/t

[GreenStormCloud]

16. That would require too much speculation.

Certainly there are many CHLers who don't carry routinely. But the percentage is pure guesswork. By using the number of people who have CHLs I am able to use a hard data point. It is sufficient to establish my point that out of that many people there have to be some that have valid DGUs.

[GreenStormCloud]

10. Some additional information:

From the Texas Dept. of Public Safety: http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/crimereports/10/citCh3.pdf page 15

Justifiable Homicide
statistics on murder circumstances, victims, and
victim/offender relationships on the next page
include justifiable homicides. Justifiable homicide is
the killing of a felon by a peace officer in the line of
duty or the killing (during the commission of a
felony) of a felon by a private citizen. in 2010, there
were 98 justifiable homicides, of which, 50 were
felons killed by private citizens, and 48 were felons
killed by police.

The murder rate is declining but the justifiable homicide rate has nearly doubled. I would say that some career criminals are being culled from the population.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

15. The important fact...

...is that those dispatching said criminals are no longer a drain on the public (or themselves) due to their wrongful persecu... I mean prosecution.

[provis99]

18. uh, people convicted in Texas have their CCW permits taken away.

you're not impressing me with your statistics. The one guy who still had a CCW after he was convicted was obviously the result of a bureaucratic foul-up.

[GreenStormCloud]

19. He had a CHL at the time of the crime. N/T