The gun grabbers are forever promising “blood in the streets” whenever we remove their unconstitutional anti-gun laws. They imagine that we live in a world where the only thing keeping average people from murdering each other over parking spots on Black Friday is anti-gun law. Violence Policy Center (“Where Doing Violence to Your Constitutional Rights is Our Policy”) publishes their “study,” Concealed Carry Killers!!!111Eleventy!™ (No link for them) in a weird attempt to frighten the non-gun owning segment of the population into believing that concealed carry permit holders are somehow a threat to the Xanax and boxed wine crowd that makes up the online “activist” base of the gun grabber militia.
Unfortunately for their gun hating ways, VPC’s “study,” is riddled with errors, misdirections, and ends up being an unsuccessful attempt to conceal the fact that concealed carriers are some of the most law abiding people on the planet.
When you dive deep into the actual cases, you find most of them have nothing whatever to do with concealed carry. People who murder their family members in their own home do not need a concealed carry permit to do so. People who kill themselves, likewise. And people who use rifles, shotguns, and other firearms that aren’t suitable for concealment can hardly be blamed on a “permissive” concealed carry permit system.
There’s even one memorable case where they claim a North Carolina CHP holder murdered a cop in Florida. Just one problem. I have a copy of the last CHP database released by North Carolina. This copy of the CHP database includes every single person who has ever so much as applied for a CHP in NC between 1 December of 1995 and 29 September 2013. The killer’s name does not appear at all. He not only didn’t have a CHP, he never even applied for one. But his name still appears on VPC’s Concealed Carry Killerz! list.
Today, however, we find out that the gun grabbers will be warming up their blood dancing shoes. They’ve finally found a NC CHP holder who murdered someone in a public place where it would have been illegal for him to carry without his permit.
I have checked that last copy of the CHP database and he does indeed appear on it. His CHP is listed as valid (as of 29 September, when the CHP database was most recently released) and would have expired in September of 2017.
The murder occurred in a public place, at a gas station, and it would have been a Class 2 Misdemeanor for the murderer to have carried this handgun concealed into public to commit what is clearly a premeditated ambush murder. He attempted to murder the victim’s female companion** and succeeded in murdering her unborn child. The punishment for a Class 2 Misdemeanor for a first time offense in NC can be as much as 30 days in County Jail. There are only two possible punishments for premeditated murder, a Class A Felony, in North Carolina. Life without parole, or death. After the passage of North Carolina’s “Unborn Victims of Violence Act,” murder of an unborn child is also a Class A Felony. So that’s two Life without paroles, or two death penalties. If the woman ends up dying that’s three, but if she lives, that’s attempted murder, which is a Class B1 Felony, for which the minimum possible punishment is 12 years in State prison. I sincerely doubt that the extra 30 days in County lock up would have deterred him. Anyone with half an ounce of sense would agree with me on that.
What’s interesting to me is that the killer in this case went and purchased a new firearm to commit these murders. Much will be made of this. The news report is pretty clearly pointing at the lack of “cooling off” period for the purchase of a handgun. But ask yourself. Is it likely that a person who has a NC Concealed Handgun Permit doesn’t already own a handgun? I doubt it. Is it likely that a person who stalked and murdered a man, attempted to murder that man’s female companion, and murdered her unborn child, couldn’t have bided his time until he had the weapon he wanted? I don’t think so.
According to the story, he also applied for and received three “Pistol Purchase Permits.” I have no idea why anyone would do this as a CHP acts as a PPP when purchasing a handgun in North Carolina. But it does point out that the suspect could easily have purchased the murder weapon without having a CHP.
In the end, the murderer took the coward’s way out. He’s saved us the difficulty of putting him to death for his crimes. That’s too bad. I would have cheerfully put a rope around his neck myself.
*It has long been the editorial policy of this blog not to publish the names of criminals and suspects of crimes. Criminals do not deserve fame for their crimes.
**The story doesn’t give a relationship between the murdered victim and the female passenger that is currently in critical condition. Rather than assume, I have chosen to style her as “the victim’s female companion” with no attempt to imply any relationship beyond the fact she happened to be accompanying him on the trip to the gas station. I join with everyone else in praying for her speedy recovery.