louisiana concealed handgun permit holders are more law-abiding than average

It has been a while since I wrote one of these posts, but since the usual suspects are presently losing their minds at the thought of background-checked, trained individuals peacefully carrying firearms – when those usual suspects already entrust their children to these individuals for up to eight hours a day – it seems time to do another.

This time, we are going to take a look at Louisiana:

Since their Concealed Handgun Permit system’s inception on 19APR96, through until 31DEC16, Louisiana issued 120,391 original permits, and 7,362 lifetime permits, totaling at 127,753 total permits.  (It is worth noting that the concept of a “lifetime permit” did not start in that state until 01AUG13.)

In the same time window, only 2,092 permits have been suspended, and only 1068 have been permanently revoked.

In other words, over the 20 years that Louisiana has had a Concealed Handgun Permit program, they have had a failure rate of only ~0.836%.

Comparatively, in 2016 Louisiana had a total felonious crime rate of approximately 3,863.8 per 100,000 people.

Considering that Louisiana had a crime rate spike in, coincidentally, 1996 at 6,838.8 felonies per 100,000 people, it is entirely reasonable to state that Louisiana Concealed Handgun Permit holders are at least four times less likely to break a serious law than non-permit-holders.  

To bring this all back around to the current topic of debate, Louisiana is a state where school districts can allow teachers who are willing to carry firearms.  Tennessee and Florida also allow districts to decide, and Utah and Texas already have armed teachers in classrooms… and if you look at those older posts, you can see how much of a non-issue this is.

the 2015 brady campaign state scorecard – how does it score?

Many years ago, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership would release a yearly “Scorecard” to judge, based on their subjective and ever-changing standards, how well the fifty states were doing at implementing their desired “gun control” regulations.  Of course, we pro-rights activists would routinely dismantle, discredit, disprove, and generally destroy this “Scorecard” as being in any way useful, and they fell out of the habit of making such a fanfare of it.

In fact, the last one I can find published anywhere on the internet was from 2015, and was buried – almost like they were ashamed of it – in this rather paltry attempt at a knockoff of a TripAdvisor report of some sort.

From this 2015 “Scorecard”, we can determine a few things.

1. No state, not even California, gets a perfect score.  Even with all of the draconian laws that California has in place regarding firearms, the Brady Campaign does not think it is enough yet.  This is, unfortunately, a typical mindset for the “gun control” extremists – they get a piece of the cake, and keep wanting more and more and more.
2. The Brady Campaign has no idea what they are talking about.  For example, they penalize states 12 points for allowing non-residents to apply for carry permits by mail.  For some reason, though, they neglected to deducted 12 points from Connecticut’s, Idaho’s, and New Hampshire’s tallies for doing exactly that.  If we cannot trust them to get the basic facts right, how can we trust them on anything else?
3. Speaking of “basics”, the “Scorecard” informs us, in big, bold font at the very top that “States can receive a maximum of 100 points”.  From checking the various positive point tallies, this is true.  However, it also leads the reader to believe that the states are judged on a 100-point scale.  This is false.  It appears possible for states to achieve scores of -47, and, in fact, Arizona has the distinction of the lowest score at -39.  How does a 147-point scale make any sense?
4. Finally, the Brady Campaign had to blatantly massage their numbers to come out as “good” as they did, and they still are not that good.  But we will get to that.

All that said, the Brady Campaign incessantly claims that all of the various “gun control” laws they desire will somehow make people safer.  As such, it seems logical to conclude that – if they are correct – violent crime rates will be lower in states that have higher Brady Scores.

But are they?

Thankfully the Federal Bureau of Investigations makes finding state violent crime rates easy by way of their Uniform Crime Reports, and since this Brady Scorecard was published in March of 2015, we will compare it against the crime rates for 2014:

It does look like, impressively enough, that the Brady Scores and the violent crime rates of the various states correlate with a coefficient of -0.129, indicating a very weak – but negative – correlation.  This means that as the “Score” increases, the violent crime rate tends to decrease slightly.

HOWEVER, there is a catch.

There is a section of the Brady Scorecard entitled, “CATEGORY 3: MAKING OUR NATIONAL GUN VIOLENCE PROBLEM WORSE”.

In this category, states are rewarded, or penalized, for their “gun death rate”.  Notably, this number is cited as coming from “A Violence Policy Center analysis of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data” from 2013; why did they not just use they CDC data directly, and why not the data from 2014 at that?  Regardless, I am attempting to correlate a state’s violent crime rate with a “Score” that already includes an aspect of violent crime – naturally, this will strengthen the correlation.  As such, I went through and removed those points – positive or negative – from all states’ “Scores”.

Additionally, states are rewarded or penalized in this category for the number of “crime guns” per 100,000 residents exported from their borders – that is to say, firearms that were used in crimes in other states, but were originally bought in the state they are being scored against.  Notably, not even Hawaii – an island with significantly restrictive “gun control” laws – received a perfect score for this section.  Also, it is intriguing that the Brady Campaign is willing to give any “crime guns exported per 100,000 residents” a positive score – apparently they are willing to tolerate up to 13.2 per 100,000.  But, regardless, if firearms are exported out of a state and used in a crime in another state, they have no bearing on the safety of the people in the state that they are being scored for or against.  As such, I went through and removed those points from all states’ “Scores”.

Now that the “Scores” have been corrected from the Brady Campaign’s blatant attempt at massaging the data, what is the outcome?

In other words, the corrected 2015 Brady Campaign “Score” for a given state correlates with that state’s violent crime rate with a coefficient of -0.0539.

Which is to say, it doesn’t correlate at all.  

Put simply, a correlation of -0.0539, given a sample size of 50 entities, is not statistically significant.

Or, to spell it out explicitly, there is no correlation between the Brady Campaign “Scorecard” and the safety of those states’ residents.

There is no evidence, whatsoever, that the laws supported by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence Ownership are making anyone any safer.  Granted, those laws do not appear to be hurting – that is to say, crime rates have not gone up due to the implementation of those laws – but they still amount to unjust limitations on an individual’s Constitutionally-protected right to keep and bear arms.  For that reason alone, they should be struck from the books; the fact that they are not helping reduce crime is merely icing on the cake.

(Now, the real question is how many anti-rights blogs and sites and whatnot will copy-paste the original graphic and its conclusion without copying the part after “HOWEVER”.  I would appreciate if my readers could keep me appraised of such attempts at cherry-picking, such that I can call them out as the liars they are.)

(As always, I make a point of providing my source data, especially since I had to correct the Brady Campaign’s blatant manipulations.  Speaking of, should they attempt to Memory Hole their 2015 scorecard, I have duplicated it, unedited, here.)

utah concealed firearm permit holders are more law-abiding than average

Well, you cannot honestly accuse me of burying the lede, but I will admit that the posts here are getting a touch repetitive.

In any case, another graph to add to the list:

In 2015, Utah revoked all of 1008 licenses, and had 212,349 active permits in residents’ hands at the end of the year.

Given that, Utah’s “failure rate” with permits was approximately 0.475%.  On the other hand, in 2015, Utah had 3,216 violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents.

Based on those numbers, it is entirely rational to conclude that an average Utah Concealed Firearm Permit holder is at least six times less likely to break a significant law than an “average” Utahn.

I am sure that surprises… no one.

texas license to carry a handgun holders are more law-abiding than average

I am very thankful that so many states make a point of publishing generic data regarding their license to carry programs.

That said, here’s another image to add to the pile:

Yes, Texas did, in fact, revoke some permits in 2015.  But are you starting to see a pattern for the relative numbers?

Regardless, in 2015, Texas revoked a grand total of 880 licenses.  On the other hand, there were 937,419 licenses active that year.

Once you run the numbers, Texas had a failure rate of 0.094% with their Licenses to Carry a Handgun.

Comparatively, Texas had a total violent and property crime rate in 2015 of approximately 3243.6 per 100,000 people.

So, in a conclusion that surprises absolutely no one, Texas License to Carry Handgun holders are at least 30 times less likely to break a significant law than an “average” Texan.  

At this point, I do not think anyone would blame you for noticing a trend.

tennessee handgun carry permit holders are more law-abiding than average

This post is going to be a little different than its predecessor, simply because Tennessee does not track the total number of Handgun Carry Permits they have issued over time; however, the premise is still the same.

Again, you will have to take my word that yes, some permits were revoked in 2015.  That year, 529,661 people had active, current HCPs in Tennessee, while only 291 were revoked.

In other words, Tennessee enjoyed a 0.055% failure rate with their Handgun Carry Permit holders.

On the other hand, Tennessee had a total violent and property crime rate of approximately 3,548.3 per 100,000 people in 2015.

In other words, it is entirely reasonable to say that, in 2015, Handgun Carry Permit holders were over 60 times less likely to break a major law than “average” Tennesseans.

You know, it is starting to look like all the perseverating hysteria about background-checked, trained, law-abiding Americans peacefully carrying firearms in public is… completely groundless.

Huh.

florida concealed weapon or firearm license holders are more law-abiding than average

First, allow me to present the pretty picture for today’s post:

You might have to take my word for it, but there really is a bar to go with “CWFLs Revoked and not Reinstated”.  The “problem”, so to speak, is a matter of scale.

From 01OCT87 to 31MAR17, Florida has issued 3,518,256 Concealed Weapon or Firearm Licenses – their version of a “concealed carry permit”.  As of 31MAR17, 1,747,635 of those licenses are still active.  Likewise, as of that date, 11,916 permits had been revoked, but 1,048 of those revoked have been reinstated leaving a total “revoked but not reinstated” of 10,868.

In other words, out of the literally millions of permits that Florida has issued over the past almost-30 years, they have had a failure rate of only 0.309%.

On the other hand, in 2015, the total violent and property crime rate (since any felony alone is sufficient to get a license revoked, not just a violent crime) in Florida was 3,275.1 per 100,000 people.

Given that the total violent and property crime rate in 1988 were 8,937.6 per 100,000 people, it is entirely reasonable to state that Florida Concealed Weapon or Firearm License holders are at least 10 times less likely to break a serious law than “average” Floridians.  

putting firearm owners in perspective

According to the United States Census Bureau’s Population Clock, there were 317,474,097 people in America at the end of 2013.

Based on polls conducted by CBS News, the General Social Survey, Gallup, ABC News, The Washington Post, and CNN, it seems safe to conclude that at least a third of all Americans own a firearm, or live with someone who does.

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports for 2013, there were 273,044 total violent crimes committed with firearms (8454 murders, 122,266 assaults, and 142,324 robberies).

At full size (click to enlarge), the following graphic is 1029 pixels by 1029 pixels, and thus each pixel on it represents 100 firearm-owning Americans.  The small, red square in the lower-right corner of the graphic is 52 pixels by 52 pixels, and thus each pixel on it represents 100 violent crimes committed with firearms.

Even if you assume that every single violent crime committed with a firearm is committed by a separate firearm-owning American*, we are talking less than 0.26% of the total firearm-owning population of the country.  Yet “gun control” supporters are sanguine with limiting, abrogating, or outright denying rights to the entire blue area, all in the blind, baseless hope that their policies might reduce the size of the red square.

Of course, as we already know, that red square is shrinking all on its own despite – or, perhaps, because of – the increased number of firearms in citizens’ hands, the increased number of concealed carry permits, the fact that every state in the union now has some form of carry permit system, the increased prevalence of Constitutional Carry, and all of the other countless ways pro-rights activists have been preserving and protecting Americans’ rights.

(* – This is, of course, a horrible assumption to make, given America’s high recidivism rate.)