Man who fatally wounded robber recounts tense shootout
DEAN HOFFMEYER/TIMES-DISPATCH
The owner of the Golden Food Market said the support he has received in the community has encouraged him to reopen the store where he was shot and wounded.
The man who fatally wounded a would-be robber in a South Richmond store recounted yesterday a tense shootout and hand-to-hand struggle that ended when the man hit the robber on the head with a gun, knocking him out.
The robber, identified by police as James Grooms III, shot and wounded the owner of the Golden Food Market on July 11, but Grooms was shot by an armed friend of the owner as customers took cover.
At one point, the friend said, he could feel the heat of a muzzle flash as Grooms fired at him from a few feet away. He said he chose not to flee because he might have been shot in the back, and because it "wasn't over."
"I'd be a damn bold-faced liar if I said I wasn't terrified," the man said yesterday. "I had to get it done. He shot my friend. . . . What am I going to do, let him shoot everyone else?"
The man agreed to be interviewed but does not want his name to be printed and asked that he not be identified in any way. His account matches details in a surveillance video and statements made by authorities and witnesses.
Store owner Mustapha Kassou credits his friend with saving his life and the lives of his customers. Only Kassou and Grooms were hurt. Authorities say a preliminary investigation indicates that the shooting of Grooms was legally justified.
Kassou, who was released from the hospital last Sunday, reopened his store in the 2700 block of Jefferson Davis Highway on Thursday after receiving encouragement from the community, friends and City Councilwoman Reva M. Trammell. Stricken with fear -- a friend was also shot and wounded there a month earlier -- he had said Tuesday that he might return to his native Morocco.
"You feel that there is still love in this world," he said, referring to the community support. Kassou said he will not stay open as late as he used to, at least for a while. He also is having bulletproof glass installed on the counter of his store, which is three blocks south of where a shopkeeper was slain June 9.
Kassou yesterday agreed to show a reporter the surveillance video of the July 11 shootout. He emphasized he was not looking for more attention, but believed the footage must be viewed for the episode to be most accurately portrayed.
When the robber walked into the store about 1 p.m. that day, at least 10 people were inside the store, including the man who would fire back, two women, two men and at least three boys. At least one boy looked about 10 or younger.
The video shows Grooms walking into the store wearing sunglasses, a blue baseball cap and black clothes. He told everyone to get down, Kassou said, and then opened fire, striking Kassou twice as he stood behind the counter.
One young boy, standing between Grooms and Kassou, appears to duck just in time to avoid being shot in the head. He and another boy then ran outside.
Kassou dropped behind the counter, wounded. A boy lay behind the counter with what looks like a bag of potato chips, his foot shaking. Other customers also lay on the floor.
When Grooms walked into the store, Kassou's friend hit the floor and drew from his holster a six-shot, .45-caliber Western-style revolver. He said he told Grooms to drop his weapon.
But Grooms had run to the back of the store, where he took cover at the end of an aisle. Grooms walked toward Kassou's friend, apparently trying to get a good shot at him. He was crouched behind barrels containing cold drinks and ice.
The two men exchanged fire, with a bullet bursting cans of sardines. Kassou's friend said he fired several times but believes he didn't use all six of his rounds. Authorities say Grooms was shot once in the torso.
At one point, Kassou's friend said he broke the trigger on his gun when he dropped to the floor, but was able to fire by using the revolver's hammer.
He described Grooms as "hell-bent, dead-set, determined, and he weren't acting like he was scared."
Kassou's friend said that during the shootout, he was keeping count of how many shots Grooms fired, believing the robber's gun contained six rounds.
"He was trying to draw me out, telling me he was out of bullets," he said. "And I told him, 'Well, I'm not.'" Grooms apparently did run out of bullets, witnesses told police.
Kassou's friend said he could hear the click-click as Grooms tried to keep firing. People inside the store told him to finish off the robber, witnesses told police. He said yesterday that he did not do it because he believed he would not have been justified in shooting a man who had run out of bullets.
After Grooms ran out of bullets, he approached Kassou's friend. He said he grabbed Grooms' gun during a struggle, and the video shows him hitting Grooms twice over the head with a gun, knocking off Grooms' hat.
Grooms then lunges toward the door and collapses beside it, unconscious. Kassou's friend can be seen standing over Grooms as he called police on a cell phone at 1:01 p.m.
Police later charged Grooms with attempted robbery and two firearm offenses, but he died at VCU Medical Center on Wednesday, four days after he was shot. Members of his family have declined to comment.
In the video, Kassou's friend appears relatively composed during the shootout and afterward. He said he has had years of firearm training, but he declined to elaborate.
Yesterday, Kassou's friend summed up the harrowing ordeal in an understatement.
"I came by to say hello to a friend of mine," he said, "and everybody had a bad afternoon."
Contact Reed Williams at (804) 649-6332 or .
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Reader Reactions
JimMarsh—before we look at the cases you cite (great stuff) let’s make sure we agree on the VPC data (or at least are clear on where we agree to disagree). Here are the two key data points, and I think we agree on 1), but I want to make sure we understand each other on 2):
1) The vast majority of the general public, and the CCW permit holders, are law-abiding citizens and do not commit crimes in general, or gun crimes in particular.
2) However, when it comes to the broad class of gun crimes (which can include carrying a concealed weapon improperly, even when issued a valid CCW permit, or carrying while DUI, or when busted for another crime), the CCW permit holders are arrested for those crimes at a rate 81% than the general population.
We can debate which gun crimes really count, an whether or not we should expect the CCW permit holder gun crime rate should be equal to the general population, or actually much lower due to background checks and applying a standard of expecting more responsible behavaior from people who are given broader rights than the general public, and thus should be expected to behavior with greater responsibility. Let’s set aside the “what is a gun crime that matters” question, and focus on the “higher standard” principle. I’m also going to assume that you do hold CCW permit holders to a higher standard—their gun violation arrest rate is counter to the CCW permit advocate’s expectations that permit holders would show up as law abiding citizens, that background checks should weed out at least some of the bad apples, and that the spread of “shall issue” laws would put guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens, not bad apples. The reason I assume that we agree on the higher standard principle is because you’ve not challenged that, and you also submit the links on how local law enforcement is not holding themselves to a high standard when it comes to “may issue” permit processes.
Again, if we aren’t on the same page, no big deal—just let me know where there is a disagreement on those points.
And now to your case. I read a few. They are mixed with regard to quality, but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that law enforcement should always be held to a very high standard, and it looks like local law enforcement has far too many examples of potential and/or proven corruption in managing “may issue” permits.
In a way this does not surprise me. Who polices the local police? However, the State Police typically has more resources and more formal review processes, and better computer systems for tracking information. I think what you point to is that the “may issue” states have, at least in some states, delegated the process to be managed by the local sheriff, and that does not work.
That leaves open the question of “can this be fixed if it is delegated to the right people” versus “this is always a problem, so “shall issue” is the right type of law. I’m more in the “what would fix this” camp. What if federal law set some broad policies (handguns are registered, crimes such as eliminating serial numbers, carrying while committing certain crimes having very strict penalties, CCW permits being “shall issue” when the applicant fits certain classes such as private detectives and women who have protection order in place, etc).
Then the states set their standards, including autonomy in setting reciprocity, and penalties for gun crimes—state laws can be more severe than federal laws, but not weaker. Finally, the local sheriff only has “objection” power—if the local thinks a permit was issued to a bad apple, they can file an objection, the permit is held for 15 business days, and the sheriff must provide the evidence to support he objection. Final decisions are made by a 5 person panel that include a state trooper, a judge who is either elected or appointed by the Governor, a sheriff from another county, a CCW permit holder, and a non-permit holding citizen who is registered to vote and who also passes a CCW permit background check.
That may sound like a lot of bureaucracy, but we would then have a system with more information, more checks and balances, and perhaps something that gun advocates and anti-gun advocates could live with. I think it would be much better than the current situation where these two groups argue, whomever has more money wins in the sense of getting laws passed (that would be the gun advocates), but the “win” is not well-designed because it got the “shall issue” law passed, but with no good plan for administering the law.
This is not an ivory tower thought experiment. Prohibition followed the same path from debate to legislation at the state level to broad federal control which had supermajority support, but it failed because of poor planning and foresight.
Now, let’s look at the current federal bill on CCW permit reciprocity (next post…)
wpanak:
The stats are saying two things: most of the permitholders are safe and sane (at a rate greater than the general population) while a small number are somewhat nutty. Well yeah, we knew that - although “nutty” doesn’t mean murderously nutty in the vast majority of cases.
That misses two things though: first, you’re assuming that this nutty minority of permitholders would be disarmed without permits - a very questionable assumption at best. But it also misses something bigger: if a state doesn’t do “shall issue” permits, are the options any better?
We have a small number of states with no permits issued (Hawaii, Illinois and Wisconsin) and a larger set (in terms of both number of states and population base) doing “elite issuance” of some sort: law enforcement or judges get to hand-pick who packs.
(On paper Hawaii has an “elite permit system” but with as few as one permit issued last I heard, we’ll class it with “zero permits” for now.)
The states doing “elite issue” permits have severe problems as a result. You want horrifying case histories? Oh baby have we got ‘em. Basically, the results are caused by basic psychology: if you tell people they’re “special” or “above the law” there’s a fair chance they’ll act on that basis. And when they do, unless it’s a total gory mess law enforcement has a motive to cover up the fiascos because their brass personally approved these clowns.
Case #1: James Colafrancsco, Sacramento, 1994. Drunk with gun threatens with same in an argument over a parking space. Turns out to be a political crony of the sheriff, and charges are later dropped to disturbing the peace, $100 fine, and disgusted deputies leak the original police report:
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/colafrancescopapers.pdf
Note that Colafrancesco is completely open about how he got the permit: bribery.
Case #2: Aerosmith. Yeah, the band:
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/aerosmith.html
Case #3: Sheriff Baca of LA gives badges and carry permits to cronies after getting turned down by Jay Leno and Steven Seagal. Of 20 of these “executive reserve” officers, two are busted for felonies inside of a year and the “unit” is disbanded in disgrace:
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/lastory.pdf
Case #4: local reporters in Fresno County add up how many permitholders have Latino last names - 2%. This in a county with a 44% Hispanic population per census data:
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/fresnobee.html
(This sort of junk goes both ways: years later, Sacramento’s permitholder roster had a high proportion of Greek gun packers. The Sheriff’s name at the time? Blanas (yeah, Greek).)
Case #5: Florida pre-permit. Florida famously put in a “shall issue” permit system in 1987 (law passed in 1986) replacing a “zero permit” system on paper similar to Illinois. Except we can find evidence there WAS a permit system involving “honorary deputy status”, and it was common as fleas in some circles. The best paper trail involved criminal defendents horrified to learn that their public defenders were themselves on paper “cops” to gain carry rights:
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/howardpearl.html
Getting rid of this stupidity that was putting criminal convictions at risk was quietly part of what caused the ‘86 reform.
This sort of thing also happened in Ohio prior to their shall-issue law of 2003 I think it was? And it may be happening in Wisconsin and Illinois today.
I can cite more cases. Disgraced sheriff Carona of Orange County California was recently convicted of felony corruption in Federal court. The original charges included the sale of carry permits for a grand a pop, later dropped in the plea bargains. When Sheriff Baxter Dunn of San Joaquin County California was busted by the Feds in a real estate scam, his partner in crime pulled a gun on Federal agents carried under a permit issued by Dunn - the FBI was *not* happy about that one.
Sometimes the elitism is so disgusting all you can do is laugh. In Oakland California, only one guy was deemed “morally fit” enough to pack - the mayor’s long-time best friend. Problem was, at the time he was the sole permitholder (with an active legal permit), the city had already paid out $50,000 to the first of his sexual harassment victims and believed there were at least three more cases pending. Apparently part of the “good character” requirement to pack in Oakland is serial sexual harassment…or maybe “be the Mayor’s bestest buddy”.
http://www.ninehundred.net/~equalccw/oaklandzen.html
Upshot: throughout history, the fastest way to ID “the elite” anywhere in the world has been to determine who’s armed. It’s a basic human instinct. With heavy gun control in place, that sick trend re-surfaces despite it’s being totally contrary to what America is supposed to be about: the rule of law and equality.
You may think you want to scrap that, but trust me, you do NOT.
Finally, Susan, you cite the Florida CCW permit data (which, btw, is a great data source, thank you for finding this!):
According to that website, out of 1,540,712 concealed weapon licenses issued between 10/1/87 and 6/30/09, 4,851 of them have been revoked by the state. 167 of those revocations were due to crimes committed utilizing a firearm.
However, the 1.5 million licenses issued over a 22 year period is not the right number to look at. Rather the number of current permits, which is 745,466, is the base number—we don’t want to count permits held by persons in 1987 who are now deceased, or who have allowed the permits to expire, or who have moved out of Florida, to be included in the calculation of the rate of permit.
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/licensetypecount.html
Then we can look at the chapter 493 administrative report to see the violations:
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/07012008_06302009_493_annual.html
If we ignore “fines” and “probation” (I’m assuming those are minor infractions) and tally suspensions, revokes, and relinqueshes, we see that those events are very rare, and in 2008-2009 it appears that the risk of a CCW permit holder losing his license is about 0.07%.
I grant that it appears to be a very safe number. However, it ignores a big class of “action pending”. We don’t know what to do with that. So at that point I’m stymied. However, I do note that Chapter 493 applies to security officers.
Turning to this page, we can look at the rates of CCW permit revokes in general:
http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/07012008_06302009_cw_annual.pdf
Scrolling to the bottom of the table and noting that license renewals are required every 7 years, the sum total of CCW permits issued is a bit lower than 745,466—it is 103,669 + (73926 * 7) = 621,151. Close, but for the benefit of the doubt I’ll use 745,466 as the base. The table then reports 3593 revokes and suspensions during the same year, or 0.5% of all CCW permit holders losing their permits on an annual basis.
So althought the annual rate of revokes an suspensions appears low, these numbers are a lot higher than what you cited—you said only about 5000 aross 21.5 years, but these numbers say about 3600 in one year alone. You say only 167 were due to crimes committed utilizing a firearm, but these numbers say over 2000 “disqualifying arrests”—again, are you soft on crimes committed by CCW permit holders, do you only care if they are robbing and raping and killing?
Finally, the 0.5% annual risk understates the true hazard, which is cumulative across years. If we assume the risk is constant over time, 3.5% of CCW permits will be revoked DUE TO THE CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES OF THE CCW PERMIT HOLDER during the 7 years that the permit is valid. Stated otherwise, when Florida issued 103,699 permits in one calendar year, they can expect 3629 of those permit holders to turn out to be criminals for whom the permits must be revoked.
Isn’t that like handing out an extension of the 2nd amendment to 100,000 people, and then realizing you have handed out guns to 3600 criminals?
I’m saying that to be provocative, but if 3.5% of drivers licenses issued were revoked within 7 years due to DUI, excessive moving violations, failure to maintain insurance, etc., wouldn’t you say we need to be a bit more strict with motor vehicle licenses?
Finally, I note that you construed these Florida data into a trend analysis, which was a mistake, one very similar to Pierce’s error. I’ve reconstrued the data into a hazard analysis, but my results are speculative—I expect the hazard of crime—>revoke of CCW permit may change over the 7 years, so the 3.5% cumulative hazard of a CCW holder having the license taken away is a ballpark estimate.
Again, great data—I just question your analysis and interpretation.
Susan—you citation of Pierce also calls out this:
“The VPC report also makes much of the fact that 7 of the victims in these news reports were police officers. They go out of their way to imply that as concealed carry has swept across the nation, law enforcement deaths have risen alarmingly. The only problem with this? It, like so much else that comes from the VPC, is blatantly untrue.
In a report released last week, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund released data that soundly refutes this claim. Chairman of the Memorial Fund, Craig Floyd said it best, ‘There are three-times more officers on our streets than in the 1970s, and we have half the number of fatalities.‘“
However, a careful reading of the VPC report shows that Pierce’s description is not true. The VPC report leads off with the detailed description of cop murders and other murders by CCW permit holders. The VPC article does state that the method is not perfect—internet search of news reports—and VPC does speculate that the true incidence rates are higher. I agree, as no internet search will be complete, but I also credit VPC that they did not speculate on how much higher, and then bootstrap that speculation to put out a larger “body count”. I’m giving VPC credit for not stepping beyond the data. The case study approach yields valid case reports, but it can’t be used to set base rates—hence, calculating odds ratios, as Pierce did, would be misguided.
However, Pierce states that VPC has gone far beyond the data to do flawed trend analyses of crime rates over time, when that simply is not true. If you read the VPN report, you see that their case study description covers only 2007 to 2009. They do not try to say that the body count was lower in years past. They only report the cases they found, without arguing for trends. If the reader infers a trend, that is an inference by the reader, but the VPC report is pretty careful about not inferring a trend. Furthermore, in the larger survey studies in part III of the VPC report, data from several periods are reported—Florida in 1995, Florida in 1996, Florida through 2007, Texas from 1996 to 2000, Texas from 2002 to 2007, Tennesee through 2008. However, VPC is not doing any trend analyses, or any reporting the results in a way that is inferring a trend. Rather, VPC is aggregating data over many years to get reliable single data points (like the 1.81 odds ratio for CCW permit holder gun violations), while making the strong statement that, counter to the CCW permit advocates, the increase in CCW permit laws nationwide did not deliver what the gun advocates promised. There is clear evidence that CCW permit holders are not more law abiding—as an group, they commit more gun crimes than non CCW permit holders.
That is the primary point of the VPC article. Pierce misses that point because he construes the VPC report as a trend analysis (which it is not) and then argues that the trend in lower police fatalities invalidates the VPC report (which it does not!!!).
This last point is the final nail in the coffin within which we can put Pierce’s blog to rest, which is why I place the exclamation points. Pierce shows a very naive way of thinking about trends—the lower police murder rate, as cited in the USA TODAY article Susan linked to, can easily be explained by better emergency medical treatment of police officers who have been shot, better technology support (everything from medivac helicopters to faster radio dispatch for backups in critical situations, to kelvar body armor), and more advanced training that helps officers to manage crises better today than 40 years ago. Inferring a trend analysis in the VPC report that simply was not in the report, and then citing a seemingly conflicting trend that can be explained by other factors, while ignoring the headline of the USA TODAY article that stated that law enforcment officer fatalities of all types are on the rise in the first half of 2009, is just plain bizarre. It is as if Pierce’s haste to put out his blog reveals him to be very poor at analyzing information and drawing conclusions about an area where he professes passion and expertise.
My advice, Susan and whiteeagle, is to avoid relying on gun nut blogs. From a basic “look at the data and think through the issues” standpoint, this is the weakest stuff I have seen in a long time—next time stick to the NRA or other highly funded gun rights forums for gathering your information—at least the NRA has a highly paid professional staff that are are unlikely to show up as complete hacks.
Susan—I thank you as well. The links and information are quite useful.
Let’s start with John Pierce’s self-stated bio:
John Pierce is a life-long gun rights advocate, an NRA certified instructor and co-founder of the nationwide gun rights group OpenCarry.org. John has an MBA from George Mason University and is a law student at Hamline University.
So you’ve chosen to enter, as evidence, the blog of a self-appointed gun rights leader. I can accept his viewpoint if I see he has the credentials to deliver an unbiased opinion, and that he then does deliver an opinion based on the data and a sound interpretation of the data.
First, his credentials. He has no stated background in research methods, epidemiology, statistics, public health, or public policy. He has an MBA and is studying for his JD. I am now very suspicious of his ability to evaluate the VPC research. The VPC report is a statistical analysis of epidemiological data. That’s not Stats 101—it is PhD-level analytics. I’ve taught MBA students how to analyze data, and I consult with attorneys on statistics as an expert witness (completely outside of the gun control arena—I claim no specific expertise on gun control). In the main, MBA’s and JD’s don’t specialize in data and analysis—unless they have specialized training and a lot of passion to do the right analysis, they are simply not competent as statisticians. Therefore, I am suspect of Pierce’s ability to do numerical analysis and draw correct conclusions.
However, I’ll keep an open mind—since Pierce is passionate about gun advocacy and has focused on this throughout his life, he may have developed skills and knowledge far beyond my own, especially in the area of gun control, gun violations, etc. In other words, I grant to Pierce exactly what I expect to be granted to me—I have no formal training in gun violence epidemiology, but with decades of experience in statistical analysis and published work in epidemiology, I would expect to hold my own in the public forum where data are available and analysis need to be evaluated, and would hope others would grant that my views are sincere unless my analysis are shown to be weak, invalid, or most important, patently deceptive.
But as soon as I turn to Pierce’s review of the VPC paper, I find his calculations and conclusions flawed—not invalid, but weak, and misguided.
Pierce’s “1/10th the risk of committing murder” analysis is weak. Here’s why: Murder has a very low base rate of occurrence. Therefore, odds ratios based on relative rates of murder have high variances and are less reliable than odds ratios based on events with higher base rates, such as the aggregate of all gun violations. The VPC analysis focused on the more reliable aggregate, and reported the 1.81 odds ratio—CCW permit holders are 81% more likely to be arrested for gun crimes. VPC reported the number that was based on more “information” and which is more likely to be reliably replicated in other years of data, in other states, and with other data sets that are not identical, but at least similar.
Pierce has calculated an unreliable statistic, and then asked his readers to focus on that while ignoring the more reliable statistic that VPC reported.
Here’s a sports betting analogy that will illustrate why this is flawed. What if a bookie offered the following bet: 100-1 odds that Tiger Woods will win the next tournament that he enters. You would take that bet, because Tiger wins all the time—the current line for the 2009 PGA Championship is 2-1. So you bet the farm. Then the bookie tells you “I get to decide when to declare the outcome—I could declare Tiger has won if he hits the first fairway and the next golfer in his group misses the fairway, or if he birdies the first hole and the other golfers in his group par, or if he has the lowest score for the entire field after the first round. At any time, I reserve the right to declare that I have enough information to reliably declare that Tiger has won, or Tiger has lost. The reason I get to do that is because, as the bookie, I don’t care about reliability of information—I only care about winning”
Do you now want to take that 100-1 bet? No, because allowing your opponent (the bookie) to determine outcome on less reliable data is not fair, given your expectation that the most reliable data—final score including playoff holes—would be the determining factor. For the same reason, I dismiss Pierce’s analysis – I do not accept less reliable data when more reliable data are available, and as I stated earlier, I believe the aggregate of gun crimes is the right focus – as I stated to M&P .45, holding a low bar for CCW permit holders when it comes to drugs, DUI, and prostitution is simply unacceptable – the bar should be higher and I will state for the record that to believe otherwise is to be selectively soft on gun crimes.
Susan,
THANK YOU!
The state of Florida posts concealed permit data online at http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/weapons/index.html .
According to that website, out of 1,540,712 concealed weapon licenses issued between 10/1/87 and 6/30/09, 4,851 of them have been revoked by the state. 167 of those revocations were due to crimes committed utilizing a firearm.
source
Re the VPC study released 20 July 09:
See this article:
“The VPC concludes their report by stating that these examples illustrate clearly that concealed carry laws are not good public policy because permit holders are dangerous. Furthermore, there is a clear implication that they are more dangerous than the general public.
Let’s take a closer look at the statistics to refute this wild inaccuracy. According to the FBI Uniform Crime Report, across the general public in the United States, there are an average of .042802 murders per 1,000 citizens per year.
Now … even if we concede all 51 deaths detailed in the VPC report as wrongful deaths, averaging them across the over 6 MILLION permit holders in the United States and taking into account the two year timeframe, we get an average of .00425 per 1,000 per year.
In other words, even if they are 100% correct in their wildly flawed report, they have simply proven that permit holders commit murders at a rate that is 1/10th of the general public.
The VPC report also makes much of the fact that 7 of the victims in these news reports were police officers. They go out of their way to imply that as concealed carry has swept across the nation, law enforcement deaths have risen alarmingly. The only problem with this? It, like so much else that comes from the VPC, is blatantly untrue.
In a report released last week, the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund released data that soundly refutes this claim. Chairman of the Memorial Fund, Craig Floyd said it best, ‘There are three-times more officers on our streets than in the 1970s, and we have half the number of fatalities.‘“
The article contains two interesting charts.
whiteeagle—please cite specific information showing that VPC has cited inaccurate information. Preferrablly focusing on the materials I cited, which I should note include specific case studies that can be searched for and verified online, and data across several states, including data that have been compiled by groups other than VPC.
Please do not claim the information is false and then provide no support. Please go beyond your beliefs to something that can be looked at objectively.
Because you cite BATFE, perhaps you could cite data that conflicts with what VPC quotes. That would be on point, and not a tangential swipe that has no substance.
Please, go beyond your gut reaction. Show some thinking skills.
binary1com—glad you acknowledge the points. I put an extreme example out (eg., stiffer penalties than would likely pass court review, a strong limit on 2nd Amendment rights to carry handguns outside the home) and I appreciate that you didn’t just pick at the corners.
Read this:
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2008/09/backfire-effect
Go beyond the fact that it appeared in Mother Jones. This is solid research, and is based on about 40 years of similar research on the ways that people think about things that can lead to common mistakes and widely-held false beliefs. For example, the tendency for people to over-estimate the risk of events that are very unlikely to occur (like being a victim of a gun crime) versus under-insuring against more likely events (such as a car accident).
M&P .45—good follow-up on the Texas situation. However, I do not give Texans, or anyone for that matter, a “pass” on the points you cite. If you apply for and get a CCW permit, you should be held to a much higher standard, and stating that being busted for carrying a joint (in other words, you have a direct relationship with a drug trafficker who gave you illegal drugs) or for hiring a hooker (in other words, you are in the mix with abused women, organized crime, sex crimes, and putting yourself in situations where violence is more likely to occur) the whole notion that being busted for CCW is an over-reach simply does not ring true for me.
I’m looking at this from the standpoint of law enforcement. Would I want to be a cop who busts the john, and then hands him back his gun and says “see you in court next month” or know that the john is less likely to be packing because if he’s caught CCW, regarless of his permit status, its 10 years in the slammer.
Should you not, deep down, be holding the CCW permit holder to a much higher standard, and be outraged when one does something so clearly illegal, while carrying a gun?
Perhaps this is my firearms safety training of my youth—my grandfather was safety-minded to the extreme—so your points just cause my mouth to drop and say “how can you say that and believe it?“
The problem with Texas is they don’t allow open carry, which leads to accidental display on person or in a car to open carry to CCW’ers.
The second problem is that their CCW law is they link misdemeanors and higher to their definition of “traveling”.
So if you are CCing and get arrested for having a joint on you… you get dinged for a gun crime. Pick up a hooker…gun crime. DUI…gun crime.
Thats why Texas stats are inflated.
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