The VPC Lies With Numbers

Following up on the previous VPC post...

Let's go back to the VPC's webpage and to the box on the left side of the page. The one labeled "Concealed Carry Killers."

Now, if you click on the words "Concealed Carry Killers," you go to this page and get a cool chart giving various types of totals and neat little number wheels beneath each heading.

Lookee here:


Lots of numbers. And some big numbers.

Which, at first glance, leads the Average Person, to believe, "My god! Concealed Carriers kill lots of people!"

But let's take another look, shall we?

See that number in the middle of the chart? The one labeled: "Total People Killed by Concealed Carry Killers." That one.

385.

385 people killed by concealed carry killers since May 2007.

The page notes:

Above is the current tally from May 2007 to the present of killings involving persons with concealed carry permits or who committed a killing in public with a legal handgun in a state that allows concealed carry without a permit (Alaska, Arizona, and Vermont allow the carrying of concealed handguns without a permit)

So.

385 people.

385 people to date.

To date, meaning as of 19 January 2012.

Also as of 19 January 2012, the total population of the United States was 312,877,956 as of 20:23 UTC.


Some math:

385 people killed out of 312,877,956 total people is 0.0012%

385 people killed out of 312,877,956 means 312,877,571 people survived.

Okay, let's look at the two numbers on the right. Mass shootings and murder-suicides committed by concealed carry killers.

You'd initially assume a total of 49 for both labels. 20 for mass shootings, 29 for murder-suicides. But if you read through the two reports (PDF files) linked to each box of numbers and account for overlapping names, you actually get a total of 39.

So to date, 39 concealed carriers committed killings.

LegallyArmed.com appears to carry statistics on the number of concealed carriers around the country. According to their current numbers, there are 6,972,652 concealed carriers in the U.S.

More math:

Out of the total number of concealed carriers, 39 committed killings (according to the VPC) while 6,972,613 did not commit any killings.

In percentages, that's 0.00055% of total concealed carriers who committed killings.

So what do we have?

To date:

• 0.0012% of the total U.S. population were killed by concealed carriers, or 385 out of 312,877,956
• 0.00055% of the total number of concealed carrier committed killings, or 39 out of 6,972,652

Are we saying we should excuse those concealed carriers for their crimes?

Hell no. Punish them properly.

But don't begin to imply by your "studies" that killings by concealed carriers is some sort of pandemic.

When you do, you're just lying to the public.