Bogus Gun-Control Numbers

People walking the streets armed with guns are dangerous, right? With all 50 states finally allowing concealed handguns to at least some degree and with over 11 million Americans now having permits to carry them, this question ought to have been settled. In fact, despite continued attacks by gun-control organizations, permit holders almost never commit violent crimes with their guns.

Nonetheless, this past week, just in time for the NRA convention, gun-control advocates were at it again, touting ridiculous charges that concealed-carry permits were responsible for 636 deaths nationwide over the seven years from May 2007 to March 2014.

The Violence Policy Center regularly puts out these bogus charges in a report called “Concealed Carry Killers.” But how does it claim to arrive at these numbers?

The VPC collects cases of permit holders’ abusing their permitted concealed handguns for each state. For Michigan, for example, it cites state-police reports on permit holders indicating that 185 died from suicide during the period 2007 through 2012. Surely some alarm bells should have gone off, with Michigan suicides supposedly making up 29 percent of all 636 deaths nationwide the VPC attributed to permitted concealed handguns.

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