hill billy
12-21-2009, 7:53 AM
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/violence-policy-center-makes-it-up-as-they-go-along-%E2%80%94-again/
Violence Policy Center Makes It Up as They Go Along — Again
The gun-control group that sprang from the Joyce Foundation is using false information and bad research to demonize concealed carry permit holders.
Posted By Bob Owens On December 21, 2009 @ 12:28 am In . Column2 02, Gun Control, Legal, US News | No Comments
Would you trust the statistical and factual reporting acumen of an organization that can’t even tell the difference between someone being dead or alive?
No, this isn’t about the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia or the other bad actors of Climategate (though it could be). This is about a little organization that Barack built. Not ACORN (though it could be). This is about the Violence Policy Center (VPC), one of the gun-control organizations our B+ president [1] helped fund as a board member of the left-wing Joyce Foundation.
For the past few months, the VPC has decided to target concealed carry permit holders as particularly bad, evil people. This approach is quite puzzling to anyone actually familiar with concealed carry permit holders, a group that tends to be a bit older, a bit whiter, and a bit more likely to buy Fleetwood Mac albums than most. As a subset of the citizenry, concealed carry permit holders are also more likely to be law-abiding that the general population.
And so it was with a certain degree of satisfaction that I picked apart “Concealed Carry Killers [2],” a series of poorly formatted and tabulated PDFs that is part of the Violence Policy Center’s crusade to misrepresent and demonize those who carry concealed handguns (CCH).
Actually, that isn’t entirely accurate.
In its reporting, the VPC doesn’t restrict itself to reporting homicides committed by a permit holder drawing and firing his or her concealed weapon. Of the 85-person body count they claim (we’ll get back to that in a moment), concealed handguns only accounted for 30 of the fatalities.
Twenty-seven of the deaths were caused by rifles. One was a brutal beating. Another was a vicious strangling. Read again closely, dear reader. The Violence Policy Center isn’t trying to demonize the actual practice of carrying concealed handguns in its reporting; it is trying to demonize concealed carry permit holders.
And they’re willing to misrepresent, lie, cheat, and (presumably) steal to accomplish that goal. But don’t take my word for it. Open up a copy of the VPC’s “Private Citizens Killed by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders: May 2007 to the Present [3]” and learn from the tragic story of Christine and Arthur Burroughs:
On March 8, 2008, Christine Burroughs, naked and covered with blood, ran to neighbor Alice and Lance Lather’s house seeking refuge from her enraged husband, Arthur Burroughs. Burroughs followed his wife to the home, fatally shooting Lance Lather. Burroughs then barricaded himself in the neighbors’ bathroom with his wife. A SWAT team and hostage negotiator were called to the house, but Burroughs shot and killed his wife and then himself. Christine Burroughs had previously told Alice Lather that her husband wanted to kill her because she wanted a divorce. Burroughs had been previously employed in loss prevention and security for T.J. Maxx and had possessed a concealed handgun permit since at least 1999.
The crime was a brutal case of domestic violence that expanded beyond one family’s tragedy when Christine Burroughs fled from her husband and sought sanctuary at the home of their neighbors — unwittingly drawing them into the violence. Lance Lather paid with his life for Arthur Burroughs’ inability to cope with the thought of his wife divorcing him. In the end, Arthur Burroughs killed himself as well. The tragedy of the situation was not lost on Christine Burroughs [4], who considers Lance Lather her hero, and credits him with saving her life [5].
No, Christine Burroughs wasn’t killed by her husband in their neighbor’s bathroom.
She was never even shot. She survived a beating and watched two men’s lives end, and that is horror enough. But now the widowed Mrs. Burroughs has become something else — a symbol of what happens when the agenda-driven biases of true believers corrupt pseudo-scientific research.
Sadly, the non-death of Christine Burroughs was just part of the Violence Policy Center’s attempt to demonize carry permit holders as a group. It can’t even claim to be sure that its including valid permit carriers among those they would demonize.
While the VPC cites Humberto Delgado as having a North Carolina-issued concealed carry permit, the fact is that he faced charges for carrying a concealed weapon [6] in addition to the homicide charges. This rather strongly suggests he did not have a valid permit.
A second person mentioned in the VPC report as a carry permit holder is William Littleton, who was issued a permit in North Carolina in 1998. But like most states, North Carolina’s carry permits must be renewed periodically. North Carolina requires permits to be re-issued every five years. The VPC offered no evidence that Littleton renewed in his permit in 2003 or in 2008 as would have been required. Ten years ago is apparently close enough.
Is the Violence Policy Center attempting to claim that people “tainted” by obtaining concealed carry permits will one day be overcome with a murderous rage? Actually, that seems to be precisely the point of “Concealed Carry Killers [2]” — demonizing a government-issued document. But the inclusion of Delgado and Littleton is just another example of shoddy, agenda-driven, faux research.
In addition to not being able to tell the living from the dead, or even to verify that the killers they cited had valid concealed carry permits, the VPC compounds its errors by failing basic mathematics — re-counting the dead of other crimes and padding the total.
Jason Keith Hamilton, who killed a police officer and two civilians in his rampage, apparently had his two civilian victims counted twice in the VPC’s final tally. Hamilton’s victims are listed on both the law enforcement [7] and private citizens [3] pages. When the number of dead on the private citizens page is accurately totaled, the number of dead is not the 77 the VPC claims. When you subtract the non-death of Christine Burroughs that the VPC did not verify and the addition of two fatalities that the VPC’s own tabulations don’t support, the number of civilian dead is 74 — bringing the the total number of actual deaths to 82, not 85.
At this point it seems reasonable to conclude that the VPC didn’t use page numbers on their documents because the math was too hard.
And before we leave this sorry state of affairs, it is also worth mentioning that Charles Podany was listed as one of these killers in the original VPC report debunked in August [8], but the man he killed is no longer included in the VPC’s victim tally. The 49-year-old Podany was cleared in court [9] of shooting 24-year-old Casey Landes, a man who had attacked him. The case was textbook proof of Florida’s “stand your ground” law. Podany’s listing does go to prove another point about the research generated by this organization: you don’t have to be guilty of a crime to show up on the VPC’s list; you just have to be charged. It appears that from the VPC perspective, gun owners are guilty until proven innocent.
No doubt the VPC’s reporting should be judged with the same skepticism.
Violence Policy Center Makes It Up as They Go Along — Again
The gun-control group that sprang from the Joyce Foundation is using false information and bad research to demonize concealed carry permit holders.
Posted By Bob Owens On December 21, 2009 @ 12:28 am In . Column2 02, Gun Control, Legal, US News | No Comments
Would you trust the statistical and factual reporting acumen of an organization that can’t even tell the difference between someone being dead or alive?
No, this isn’t about the Climate Research Unit of the University of East Anglia or the other bad actors of Climategate (though it could be). This is about a little organization that Barack built. Not ACORN (though it could be). This is about the Violence Policy Center (VPC), one of the gun-control organizations our B+ president [1] helped fund as a board member of the left-wing Joyce Foundation.
For the past few months, the VPC has decided to target concealed carry permit holders as particularly bad, evil people. This approach is quite puzzling to anyone actually familiar with concealed carry permit holders, a group that tends to be a bit older, a bit whiter, and a bit more likely to buy Fleetwood Mac albums than most. As a subset of the citizenry, concealed carry permit holders are also more likely to be law-abiding that the general population.
And so it was with a certain degree of satisfaction that I picked apart “Concealed Carry Killers [2],” a series of poorly formatted and tabulated PDFs that is part of the Violence Policy Center’s crusade to misrepresent and demonize those who carry concealed handguns (CCH).
Actually, that isn’t entirely accurate.
In its reporting, the VPC doesn’t restrict itself to reporting homicides committed by a permit holder drawing and firing his or her concealed weapon. Of the 85-person body count they claim (we’ll get back to that in a moment), concealed handguns only accounted for 30 of the fatalities.
Twenty-seven of the deaths were caused by rifles. One was a brutal beating. Another was a vicious strangling. Read again closely, dear reader. The Violence Policy Center isn’t trying to demonize the actual practice of carrying concealed handguns in its reporting; it is trying to demonize concealed carry permit holders.
And they’re willing to misrepresent, lie, cheat, and (presumably) steal to accomplish that goal. But don’t take my word for it. Open up a copy of the VPC’s “Private Citizens Killed by Concealed Handgun Permit Holders: May 2007 to the Present [3]” and learn from the tragic story of Christine and Arthur Burroughs:
On March 8, 2008, Christine Burroughs, naked and covered with blood, ran to neighbor Alice and Lance Lather’s house seeking refuge from her enraged husband, Arthur Burroughs. Burroughs followed his wife to the home, fatally shooting Lance Lather. Burroughs then barricaded himself in the neighbors’ bathroom with his wife. A SWAT team and hostage negotiator were called to the house, but Burroughs shot and killed his wife and then himself. Christine Burroughs had previously told Alice Lather that her husband wanted to kill her because she wanted a divorce. Burroughs had been previously employed in loss prevention and security for T.J. Maxx and had possessed a concealed handgun permit since at least 1999.
The crime was a brutal case of domestic violence that expanded beyond one family’s tragedy when Christine Burroughs fled from her husband and sought sanctuary at the home of their neighbors — unwittingly drawing them into the violence. Lance Lather paid with his life for Arthur Burroughs’ inability to cope with the thought of his wife divorcing him. In the end, Arthur Burroughs killed himself as well. The tragedy of the situation was not lost on Christine Burroughs [4], who considers Lance Lather her hero, and credits him with saving her life [5].
No, Christine Burroughs wasn’t killed by her husband in their neighbor’s bathroom.
She was never even shot. She survived a beating and watched two men’s lives end, and that is horror enough. But now the widowed Mrs. Burroughs has become something else — a symbol of what happens when the agenda-driven biases of true believers corrupt pseudo-scientific research.
Sadly, the non-death of Christine Burroughs was just part of the Violence Policy Center’s attempt to demonize carry permit holders as a group. It can’t even claim to be sure that its including valid permit carriers among those they would demonize.
While the VPC cites Humberto Delgado as having a North Carolina-issued concealed carry permit, the fact is that he faced charges for carrying a concealed weapon [6] in addition to the homicide charges. This rather strongly suggests he did not have a valid permit.
A second person mentioned in the VPC report as a carry permit holder is William Littleton, who was issued a permit in North Carolina in 1998. But like most states, North Carolina’s carry permits must be renewed periodically. North Carolina requires permits to be re-issued every five years. The VPC offered no evidence that Littleton renewed in his permit in 2003 or in 2008 as would have been required. Ten years ago is apparently close enough.
Is the Violence Policy Center attempting to claim that people “tainted” by obtaining concealed carry permits will one day be overcome with a murderous rage? Actually, that seems to be precisely the point of “Concealed Carry Killers [2]” — demonizing a government-issued document. But the inclusion of Delgado and Littleton is just another example of shoddy, agenda-driven, faux research.
In addition to not being able to tell the living from the dead, or even to verify that the killers they cited had valid concealed carry permits, the VPC compounds its errors by failing basic mathematics — re-counting the dead of other crimes and padding the total.
Jason Keith Hamilton, who killed a police officer and two civilians in his rampage, apparently had his two civilian victims counted twice in the VPC’s final tally. Hamilton’s victims are listed on both the law enforcement [7] and private citizens [3] pages. When the number of dead on the private citizens page is accurately totaled, the number of dead is not the 77 the VPC claims. When you subtract the non-death of Christine Burroughs that the VPC did not verify and the addition of two fatalities that the VPC’s own tabulations don’t support, the number of civilian dead is 74 — bringing the the total number of actual deaths to 82, not 85.
At this point it seems reasonable to conclude that the VPC didn’t use page numbers on their documents because the math was too hard.
And before we leave this sorry state of affairs, it is also worth mentioning that Charles Podany was listed as one of these killers in the original VPC report debunked in August [8], but the man he killed is no longer included in the VPC’s victim tally. The 49-year-old Podany was cleared in court [9] of shooting 24-year-old Casey Landes, a man who had attacked him. The case was textbook proof of Florida’s “stand your ground” law. Podany’s listing does go to prove another point about the research generated by this organization: you don’t have to be guilty of a crime to show up on the VPC’s list; you just have to be charged. It appears that from the VPC perspective, gun owners are guilty until proven innocent.
No doubt the VPC’s reporting should be judged with the same skepticism.