Gun Control Cultists Conveniently Forget Details

Over at the CSGV website is the blog "Ordinary People" which

examines the gun lobby’s frequent claim that gun owners—and concealed carry permit holders in particular—are the most law-abiding citizens in our country.

And as an example of such an examination, they give us a post on Michigan's Shall Issue law and write

Ten years after Michigan made it easier for residents to obtain concealed handgun permits, an investigation by the Center for Statistical Consultation and Research (CSCAR) has revealed numerous problems regarding the implementation of the law. Of particular concern is the inconsistent manner in which permit applicants and permit holders are screened for public safety.

They also tell us that

The CSCAR investigation has revealed several alarming cases in which concealed handgun permit holders committed horrific acts of gun violence

and go on to provide three examples of those alarming cases.

The post ends with

We are constantly told by the National Rifle Association and its gun lobby partners that concealed handgun permit holders are the most "law-abiding citizens" in America. It’s now abundantly clear that such a guarantee holds little or no weight in Michigan.

Now, let's back up a bit.

Smack dab in the middle of the post, we get a link to an MLive.com article covering this investigation.

Now the article notes

License holders now stand at more than 270,000, double the number five years ago.

We also learn that

The records indicate a tiny fraction of permit-holders break the law

Also,

more than 1,000 charges were listed in the most recent annual report

which, if I'm reading the article correctly, means that there were more than 1,000 cases of problems.

If we just take the 1,000 charges listed, plus the three cases the post quotes, we get 1,003 cases of trouble.

Now according to the MLive.com article, there are, to date, more than 270,000 permit holders. Let's just go with 270,000 for this example.

Do some math with those numbers and we see that 0.37% of the current number of permit holders went bad. (1,003 / 270,000 x 100 = 0.37148, rounded up to 0.37)

0.37%.

Less than a full 1%.

Not even half a percent.

Let's look at it another way.

270,000 permit holders to date - 1,003 trouble cases = 268,997 permit holders who did not get into trouble.

Or if you like percentages, that's 99.63% of permit holders who did not get into trouble.

Now mind you, these are just calculations based on the numbers in both the CSGV/Ordinary People post and the MLive.com article. The 270,000 is noted as the number of license holders to date. To me, that means as of the writing of the MLive.com article (2011). Of the three cases the post mentions, two happened in 2009, the other in 2010.

A better analysis might be to compare total permit holders vs. permit holders gone bad on a yearly basis.

But for the purposes of this example, let's look at it as totals to date.

So-- of the 270,000 permit holders to date, 0.37% of them went bad and 99.63% did not get into trouble.

The point?

CSGV only wants you to look at the several alarming cases revealed in the investigation.

They purposely disregard the rest of the cases in which nothing bad happened.

Because that undermines their agenda.

And we can't have that.