NC concealed carry hit piece in NYT

Via Borepatch

The New York Times has written a hit piece on concealed carry in North Carolina. In particular, they try to make the case that North Carolina’s CCW permit process is flawed, and that it allows prohibited persons to obtain CCW permits. The Times offers the following:

More than 2,400 permit holders were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors, excluding traffic-related crimes, over the five-year period, The Times found when it compared databases of recent criminal court cases and licensees. While the figure represents a small percentage of those with permits, more than 200 were convicted of felonies, including at least 10 who committed murder or manslaughter. All but two of the killers used a gun.

2,400 crimes committed, and “more than 200 convicted of felonies” would seem to imply that 2,200 of the crimes were misdemeanors. But still, 200 felonies is a lot, right?

Well, lets see how many permits we have in NC? 228,072 So the raw rate of all crime is:

=2400/228,072 = .01 or 1%.

Felonies ->

=200/228,072 = .00008 or .08%. Get that? 8/100 of a percent that a CCW holder will commit a felony over a 5 year period.

We need to do some math in order to compare this with the general population. Note that the 200 figure is over a five year period. Lets assume that the 200 felonies are evenly distributed. (Normally this isn’t a good idea, but we are only really interested in order of magnitude comparison here.) 50 felonies in a single year period. Now, normally, crime rates are quoted in number of occurrences per 100,000 persons. Since the numbers are so close, I’m going to keep the math simple and halve the number of people who have CCW permits . Note that is will overstate the number of crimes committed by CCW permit holders. 25 felonies per 100,000 permit holders per year.

Let’s compare this with the general NC population, shall we?

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