Near perfect
Something we already knew: concealed carry permit holders more lawful than most. But News Channel 5 notes:
“As it turns out, we’ve not had any trouble with our gun permit holders– they’ve got a near perfect behavior record,” Rep. Frank Niceley, R-Strawberry Plains, told a House committee last week.
Still, he defends his characterization of “a near-perfect record.”
“Their behavior records is better than our uniformed police,” Niceley tells NewsChannel 5’s chief investigative reporter Phil Williams. “We’ve had no problems. We’ve not had shoot-outs at the OK Corral, like some of these people predicted.”
It’s a sentiment echoed by state Rep. Eddie Bass, D-Prospect.
“From a law enforcement perspective and with 20 years, I’ve never, never had a problem with a gun permit holder,” the former sheriff says.
Good. But we can’t have a gun story without some good old fashioned shitting our pants:
But NewsChannel 5 Investigates checked a database of those who have had handgun permits and discovered almost 500 potential matches with people who’ve ended up committing murders, attempted murders, rapes, robberies and other serious felonies.
So, 500. Out of more than 190,000. Even at 190,000, that’s about 0.2631%. I guess that’s not near perfect enough. However, I’m with News Channel 5 on this:
But even when permit holders have committed serious felonies, our investigation last month discovered that the Department of Safety had been, in some cases, renewing their permits.
Now, that is a concern. The 0.2631%, no so much.
Update: Curt makes a good point in comments:
“Potential matches?”
TWEEEEET! Flag on the play.
Misleading through use of weasel words. 15 yard penalty. Loss of down.
What, exactly, is a “potential match”? Does that mean that someone with a permit happens to have the same name as someone who was convicted of a violent crime?
Hardly compelling evidence if you ask me. It shouldn’t be that hard for an enterprising investigative journalist to track down both sets of (public in most cases) records and compare them.
Of course, doing so would not only require them to leave their comfy desk chair to actually do some “investigating”, but may very well completely disprove their entire point.
Can’t have that, now can we?
December 11th, 2008 at 12:25 pm
What is funny is that the news article seems to be making the case that allow permit holders to go more places isn’t such a great idea. They have totally missed the facts though:
“Their behavior records is better than our uniformed police,”
Apparently they need to start restricting where their uniformed police can go. If only for the children.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:08 pm
“Potential matches?”
TWEEEEET! Flag on the play.
Misleading through use of weasel words. 15 yard penalty. Loss of down.
What, exactly, is a “potential match”? Does that mean that someone with a permit happens to have the same name as someone who was convicted of a violent crime?
Hardly compelling evidence if you ask me. It shouldn’t be that hard for an enterprising investigative journalist to track down both sets of (public in most cases) records and compare them.
Of course, doing so would not only require them to leave their comfy desk chair to actually do some “investigating”, but may very well completely disprove their entire point.
Can’t have that, now can we?
December 11th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
*potential* matches being the operative word here.
As as working librarian, this caught my eye because of course you’re talking about what we call an authority control problem (i.e. Is this John Smith who wrote Book X or Book Y? are they the same?).
What a complete red herring…so roughly 500 CCW permit holder’s names bear a striking resemblance to the names of about 500 persons allegedly committing crimes; Whoopty doo–the account is so vague it doesn’t specify if these are *convicted* felon names or merely suspects, and it doesn’t confirm any matches, just insinuates them without providing any solid proof. PSH, QED.
Felony conviction should mean revocation in all states. In Texas, as part of the application process, you have to submit fingerprints to both the Texas Department of Public Safety and to the FBI, who runs a background check and reports any findings back to DPS.
Not sure about felony indictments still pending that could go either way; If the person is acquitted by a jury of their peers, then their permits *should* be renewed. If the case is still ongoing when the renewal comes up, then probably that renewal should be placed on hold until the case is concluded with either the charges dropped, an acquittal, or a guilty verdict.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Gotta agree with JJR and Sailorcourt. The “potential” match thing is a huge red flag. How many people have you heard mention on gun boards and the like that they have to include their SSN on NICS checks because they have the same name as someone who is a prohibited person?
I’d like to see how many of those 500 are actually felons. My guess is, not very many.
December 11th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
I have a friend of mine who has to renew his voter registration every election because his name is a “potential match” to a convicted felon — that felon being a guy who shares his first and last name but not his middle name.
Every. Stinking. Election.
What a nightmare.
So yeah, I’m leery of “potential matches,” too.
December 11th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
There is an awful lot of “potential” reporting going on here.
December 11th, 2008 at 4:41 pm
I have a name that’s not terribly common, live in Tucson, which is not exactly New York City or LA. Even so, I know there are at least two other David Hardys in town. I get calls for them from time to time.
And if those are records of *present* CCW holders, you could be virtually sure that they weren’t matches. (1) If a person is wanted for murder or rape, and the State has his picture and exact address, it’d stand to reason he’d already have been arrested and (2) that his permit would have been revoked. And beyond this, what criminal records did the station run? Police don’t keep and issue lists of mere suspects. Odds are the station got arrest records, which would I suspect rule out the possibility that a holder of a presently valid CCW is the person named in the arrest.
December 11th, 2008 at 5:03 pm
+1 on the flag on “potential matches.” I had an… interesting (but polite and professional) interaction with a police officer once, when I learned that my exact full name was shared by a felon. Fortunately for me the other Dave was much older, so it was easy for the officer to sort out just based on date of birth.
December 11th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
As a piece of curiosity (related to the potential name-match data), you can go here to find out how many people in the U.S. share your name.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
also, how many of those names are alias’s for a criminal… former roommate of mine used my name when ht got arrested one time… on his criminal record, my name is listed as his alias.
December 11th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
I’d also like to know what the “other serious felonies” are and what the proportions are.
December 11th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Maybe so, but what Angelina did was really uncool.
December 11th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
CHP holders tend to be a law-abiding lot. CHP applicants, not so much.
December 12th, 2008 at 12:53 am
What, exactly, is a “potential match”?
One of ten thousand in the same town who own Glock 40s?
One of three hundred people in the same store that day?
One of twenty thousand in the county who drive a Honda?
Actually a “potential” match can be defined as a “non match” until such time as it is determined to be a “match”. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work?
December 12th, 2008 at 10:28 am
Maybe “potential match” is like “allegedly committed the crime.” That would mean that some of them would be exonerated, which would bring the percentage of problem cases to 1% or less. What amazes me is how you gun guys so often come up with these incredibly low percentages to prove your point, and even more than that, how much stock you seem to place in these selective stats.
December 12th, 2008 at 10:30 am
the beauty of numbers, as opposed to feewings, is they speak for themselves.
December 12th, 2008 at 2:52 pm
> What amazes me is how you gun guys so often come up
> with these incredibly low percentages to prove your
> point
Well … the low percentages (~0.2%) were implied by the original article itself, were they not?
What a lot of people are taking issue with are what the article does with the numbers – implying that even this very low percentage represents some sort of significant problem (otherwise why an article at all), and that the “potential matches” sounds very suspicious. You don’t hear that often in most reporting, for good reason. Was the information about Joe the plumber, e.g., reported as “potentially” about Joe the plumber?