Yet Another NY Times Attack on Concealed Carry
The NY Times has yet another hit piece on gun owners. It quite naturally begins with an unarguably illegal use of a handgun by a CCW holder. It also contains many of the hallmarks of the typical anti-gun screed, including this gem:
Gun advocates are quick to cite anecdotes of permit holders who stopped crimes with their guns. It is virtually impossible, however, to track these episodes in a systematic way.
This is, of course, followed by the citation of a few specific incidents in which CCW holders committed murder or manslaughter. (Including at least one in which the CCW had no relevance—a husband killed a man he caught with his wife. Hello? What does his CCW have to do with that?) So it isn’t permissible to cite known instances where a CCW holder successfully and legally used his weapon, but you can trot out the stories that support your side?
To further support its slant, the Times pats itself on the back for having “examined the permit program in North Carolina.” Their study uncovered 8 convictions for murder or manslaughter with a handgun by concealed carry permit holders in North Carolina over a five year period (2006-2010). Since 1995 there have been 228,072 CCW permits granted by NC (almost 60K in 2007 alone). The NC permit is good for five years, so not all of those are current, but permits have reportedly been increasing. Suppose there are only 150,000 CCW holders in NC (I’d bet that’s low, but it skews the numbers against me). That works out to 0.005% of CCW holders being convicted for some form of gun-related wrongful death. Now, in 2005-2009 there were 7,515 vehicular fatalities in NC. Now North Carolina has 6,536,601 licensed drivers. So deaths caused by vehicular accidents occur at a rate of 0.115% per licensed driver—twenty-three times the rate of gun-related deaths caused by CCW holders. North Carolina’s entire population is 9.5 million and if every one of its citizens were a driver, the rate of vehicle deaths per driver would still be 0.079%—almost 16 times the “kill rate” of CCW holders.
So using real-world numbers—even when skewed against the “gun lobby”—which is a bigger threat to public safety, CCW holders or drivers? Only when you have a clear anti-gun agenda can you answer the former, but I have yet to see a Times piece clamoring for more stringent vehicle licensing. Now that’s good journalism.