Debunking Gun Control Propaganda
Hawaii ––(Ammoland.com)- With the lawsuit against the state of Hawaii’s infringement of 2nd Amendment rights moving forward, the issue of concealed carry is getting some air time in various news outlets around the state, and the usual suspects’ anti-CCW propaganda is being re-hashed.
One of the worst propaganda machines is the Violence Policy Center (VPC), a national anti-CCW lobbying group. The VPC, among other propaganda pieces, keeps a running tally of fatal shootings by “Concealed Carry Killers”.
The number of people on that list is alarming: 381 at the time of this writing(*1).
Coupled with VPC’s panic-stricken predictions of chaos and bedlam, it is quite an eye-opener. But, when one places that number in context, it becomes obvious that CCW is not remotely close to causing the forecast orgy of violence (“blood in the streets,” according to VPC).
First, 381 fatalities includes everyone killed by a CCW holder’s firearm (not just the permit holder) that was not ruled self-defense. That number also includes 101 permit holders who committed suicide in the state of Michigan, in spite of the fact that the state did not specify whether or not the victim even used a gun!
Second, although 381 fatalities are no doubt tragic, the risk of “death by CCW holder” is dwarfed by other, more obscure, causes of death.
Here is a look at just the cost of CCW permit issuance, without regard to the (numerous) benefits:
YOU LIE!
(In the interest of fair play, I’ll spot the Violence Policy Center a freebie and pretend that all 381 shootings happened in a single year, and count the Michigan suicides as gun crimes, instead of mental health issues.)
According to the Census Bureau’s website, there are 308,745,538 people in the United States(*2). Contrasted against VPC’s total number of people killed by CCW permit holders, the rate of death by CCW holder works out to 0.12 per 100,000. Tuberculosis kills more people than that! So do peptic ulcers and influenza. Of course, if one wasn’t trying to be fair, he or she certainly wouldn’t roll statistics covering a roughly four-year period into a single year.
So let’s be unfair. (Naturally, by ‘unfair’ I really mean ‘more accurate’, but in this debate they’re exactly the same thing.) Subtracting the Michigan suicides and dividing by (*4), to get an average yearly number of CCW shootings, a math whiz will quickly determine that the death rate is about 70 per year, or 0.02 per 100,000.
That’s less than acute bronchitis, diseases of the appendix, or ‘legal intervention’, each weighing in at 0.1 per 100,000. In spite of this, VPC uses these same statistics to make this claim: “…individuals licensed to carry concealed handguns are killing police, children, and other innocent victims at an alarming pace.”(*3) (Emphasis added.) One wonders how they feel about the alarming pace at which legal intervention is killing people in modern-day America.
It’s not that I don’t care about those innocents whose lives are taken; indeed, you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone who would punish the guilty parties more harshly than I. The problem is that organizations opposed to legal CCW attempt to spin these tragedies into a national epidemic. To listen to them, you’d think that CCW permit holders are nothing more than murderous thugs, raping and pillaging their way across America.
It’s a bald-faced lie that accomplishes nothing but slandering the deservedly pristine image of CCW permit holders, and it needs to be exposed.
That need is especially acute here in Hawaii, where the CCW debate is just warming up. The lies and half-truths of the gun control lobby are easily debunked with little to no effort, but they do need to be debunked, and it’s our job to do that. Get the facts and spread the word!
Statistics courtesy of Centers for Disease Control, using data from 2009 preliminary data on deaths.
Cause of Death Rate per 100,000
- CCW Permit Holder 0.03
- Legal Intervention 0.1
- Acute Bronchitis 0.1
- Diseases of the Appendix 0.1
- Tuberculosis 0.2
- Influenza 0.9
- Peptic Ulcers 1.0
- Auto Accidents 11.8
- Diabetes 22.3
- Heart Disease 195.0
Links to references:
- https://www.vpc.org/ccwkillers.htm
- https://2010.census.gov/2010census/popmap/
- https://www.vpc.org/press/1109ccw.htm
- https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr59/nvsr59_04.pdf
About Hawaii Concealed Carry:
Hawaii Concealed Carry is a single-issue group formed with the mission to promote the restoration of Second Amendment rights contained within the constitution, the right of the people to keep and bear arms. We are a non-partisan group; our only care being, whether people support the right of self-defense and defense of others. Our philosophy is that through responsible use, education, communication, and understanding we can promote a safer environment for Hawaii residents, while reducing crime, and supporting our fundamental constitutional rights. Visit: www.hawaiiccw.com