Non-Self Defense Deaths Involving Persons Legally Allowed to Carry Concealed Handguns

[SecularMotion]

Washington, DC--At least 447 people, including 12 law enforcement officers, have been killed in incidents not ruled self-defense involving private citizens legally allowed to carry concealed handguns according to the May update of the Violence Policy Center's (VPC) Concealed Carry Killers on-line resource (http://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm).

VPC Legislative Director Kristen Rand states, "This tragic body count is only a fraction of the number of innocent people who have paid with their lives for the gun lobby’s vision of an America where every person is armed at all times. The only beneficiaries of lax concealed carry laws are the gun lobby and the industry it represents.”

http://www.vpc.org/press/1205ccw.htm

[mvccd1000]

1. Those numbers don't look good.

For the VPCs agenda, anyway.

Out of what.... tens of millions? of CCW holders in the US, there have been 447 murders? I'd like to see any other group of tens of millions of people in the US who have committed fewer murders. (OK, toddlers, perhaps.)

At any rate, thanks to the VPC for pointing out how incredibly law-abiding CCW holders are.

Now... what can we do to keep that number from ever getting any bigger?

[enough]

5. Tens of million sounds high. It's hard to get solid reading of numbers nationally.

I looked at some state data and came up with an estimate of 4.5 million nationwide. Here's an article that states six million:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34714389/ns/us_news-life/#.T8tbD789DAY

[GreenStormCloud]

7. Eleven million is about right.

One of the regulars here, XDigger I think, researched the rates for all the states that published the data and came up with six million but not all states publish the data. We estimated for the other states and came up with ten million, but that was over a year ago. By now it would be up to about eleven million.

[gejohnston]

2. have you read though the list?

There a lot of "pending" as in going through the court process to see if it is self defense or not, and a lot where CCW permit is not relevant.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

3. since May 2007, committed suicide (163), 63 cases still pending. n/t

[AnotherMcIntosh]

4. Are there no Self-Defense Deaths Involving Persons Legally Allowed to Carry Concealed Handguns?

To be fair and rational, should legitimate self-defense also be considered?

What about a lawful diamond merchant, for example, who needs to be able to defend himself against armed robberies?

[GreenStormCloud]

6. 100 of those are pure sucides in which no one else was killed.

In Texas the detailed statistics are compiled annually by the Department of Public Safety and published on the internet. It is likely that the Texas experience with Concealed Handgun Licenses would be about the same in other states. The last year for which statistics are published is 2009 for convictions. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/index.htm

In 2009 there were 402,914 people who had CHLs. Out of those people there was exactly one (1) murder conviction and no manslaughter convictions. Out of the general population there were 600+ convictions for murder in its various forms and manslaughter.
So very, very few CHL holders go bad, but some do.

The DPS also publishes an annual Crime in Texas Report. http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/crimereports/09/citCh3.pdf
From that report, page 15:
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
2009, there were 106 justifiable homicides, of
which, 52 were felons killed by private citizens,
and 54 were felons killed by police.

In Texas all homicides, even those that are clearly self-defense, have to go before a grand jury which will rule if the killing was justified or not. So those 52 justified private citizen homicides were ones in which the defender genuinely feared for his life. Since most shooting are merely woundings there would be a much larger number of justified woundings in which the defender genuinely feared for his life, but that number is not kept. Obviously there are dozens of cases each year in which a CHL holder uses their gun to save themselves.

Dozens of innocent lives saved versus one innocent killed shows the concealed carry is working in Texas. As already stated, there is no reason to believe that other CCW states have a different experience.

Legal concealed carry saves lives.

I greatly doubt that you will answer this post as you have ignored the same data before.

[ileus]

8. Yeah those people don't have an agenda....gunz kill people you know.

[Warren Stupidity]

9. Stand your ground and take your gun everywhere.

What could possibly go wrong?

[Simo 1939_1940]

11. Put forth content-free statements such as "What could possibly go wrong?"

which clearly display willful ignorance, and........

What could possibly go wrong? Oh.......this:

http://www.thenation.com/article/democrat-killer

[Warren Stupidity]

13. oh I agree that my party has largely abandoned its urban voters and panders to the right

seeking always to move the center rightward capturing voters who remain elusively republican despite 30 years of efforts.

Was that your point?

I actually wasn't talking about gun control per se, but rather about the insanely irresponsible promoting of HollyWood Cowboy Culture, that "pack it everywhere and don't give an inch" bullshit that has become the next front for the NRA. Now its all about letting your inner six year old act out white hat gunslinger fantasies, most unfortunately in the real world. RIP Trayvon.

[SGMRTDARMY]

15. Because that happens soooooo often

right?

[gejohnston]

17. Ummmm no.

and SYG was a product of the Progressive Era.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand-your-ground_law

Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. declared in Brown v. United States (256 U.S. 335, 343 (16 May 1921)), a case that upheld the "no duty to retreat" maxim, that "detached reflection cannot be demanded in the presence of an uplifted knife"

SYG is not relevant to Trayvon Martin. It is either murder or justifiable homicide even under duty to retreat. It is up to the jury to figure out which one.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

18. The Brown case reinforces your statement, "It is up to the jury to figure out which one."

But not the conclusion that the "SYG was a product of the Progressive Era."

Since the 1921 Brown case referred to in your Wikipedia excerpt "upheld the 'no duty to retreat' maxim," it is fair to say that the SYG principle originated prior to 1921.

The Brown case is interesting, in part, because the shootee was shot 4 times, with the last shot being after he was on the ground. To a person not trained in the law, a shooting of a person on the ground after he was shot three times would appear to negate a shooter's claim of self-defense for at least the last shot. The surviving witness with the gun, however, claimed that he was defending himself against a pending knife attack and the last shot was fired as a result of an accident. In a manner consistent with common sense but not the common law, the trial judge refused to give a jury instruction to support the defendant's relatively preposterous claim.

The Supreme Court reversed. As Holmes explained,

An instruction to the effect that, if the defendant had reasonable grounds of apprehension that he was in danger of losing his life or of suffering serious bodily harm from Hermis, he was not bound to retreat, was refused. So the question is brought out with sufficient clearness whether the formula laid down by the Court and often repeated by the ancient law is adequate to the protection of the defendant's rights.

Holmes wrote that the jury could disbelieve the claim, but the question was still a jury question.

[gejohnston]

19. SYG is older than then

that. California has been SYG since about 1895.

[AnotherMcIntosh]

20. I'm not sure that I understand what you mean.

If you mean that the SYG doctrine as referenced by California law is older than the reference in Brown case, absolutely.

If you mean that the SYG doctrine as referenced by California law is older than the common law, then no. The common law was, of course, developed in England before the Revolutionary War.

[gejohnston]

21. the former

As I understand it, California's is by court precedence and not by statute.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law
I was using the term as I understand the above definition, not as in English common law (which IIRC, where Duty to Retreat comes from.)

[rrneck]

10. And the alphabet wars rage on. nt

[krispos42]

12. 447 in 60 months

So that's... 7.45 a month in a nation that sees nearly 1,100 homicides a month.

And OF COURSE, some of the murders they're quoting were done in the CCW permittee's house, where a CCW permit wasn't an issue. And some of them were done in a premeditated fashion... go home, get a gun, come back and start killing... which also has nothing to do with CCW permits.

[SGMRTDARMY]

16. Now you've done it

bringing facts in. How dare you interupt a good rant.

[GreenStormCloud]

24. 100 of those were pure suicide. Only dead person was the CCWer.

Go to the VPC site, click on CCW killers, go down to the Michigan page. (I think it is Michigan. I don't feel like going there and checking.) There are three entries where Michigan lists the total number of CCW suicides for there years. They total 100. In each of those 100 no one else was killed. We don't even know the method of suicide, only that 100 CCWers killed themselves. But VPC lists them as CCW killers.

[krispos42]

25. I'll bet you 99% of them were also DL killers.

[oneshooter]

14. I have noticed that you post here and then run and hide. If you are that afraid of the responses

Then why post?

Oneshooter
Armed and Livin in Texas

[PavePusher]

22. Promoting lies on D.U.?

Huh. I thought that was against the general philosophy around here....

[L0oniX]

23. I'm sure that if they hadn't had a CWP this would never happen.

[Common Sense Party]

26. Of these 447, how many were suicides? Accidental shootings?

How many were actual murders, committed with a concealed handgun?