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The gun control advocates over at the Violence Policy Center maintain media traction with their “Concealed Carry Killers” feature. There are lots of ways I could deconstruct or contextualize the VPC’s anti-gun agit-prop. Suffice it to say, stats from Florida and elsewhere indicate that Americans with concealed carry licenses are far less likely to commit a violent crime than Americans who aren’t carrying a concealed weapon. D’uh. Licensees must pass a criminal background check AND their licenses are subject to revocation should they commit a felony. That said, there are concealed carry licensees who murder. Gun owners who fit the VPC’s Concealed Carry Killer profile. To wit this via seattletimes.com . . .

Dinh Bowman [above], 29, was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, accused of pulling his silver BMW Z4 convertible alongside [Yancy] Noll’s vehicle at a stoplight and firing five times, striking the 43-year-old three times in the head, according to charging documents. A 9-mm bullet casing was found next to Noll’s car, an expended bullet was found in his dashboard and another bullet, shot through a window, was found inside a nearby house, the papers say . . .

Police got a warrant to search the garage, then additional warrants to search Bowman’s residence and a Sodo workshop, the headquarters of Vague Industries, where Bowman apparently manufactured some kind of robotic equipment, charging papers say.

They found Bowman’s BMW Z4 in the garage of his home, the papers say. He allegedly had replaced glass that had been shot out of the passenger-side window and changed and painted all four tires in an apparent attempt to conceal the crime, charging papers say.

Detectives also found a “gun room” in which “Bowman had set up a sort of laboratory dedicated to his obsession with guns,” including bullet-making equipment, ammunition, long rifles and scopes, the papers say. While no handguns were found, detectives “did locate two empty 9-mm holsters and magazines,” the papers say.

At Vague Industries, detectives found the tires Bowman had taken off his BMW — the treads matched skid marks at the shooting scene — and also located a slide for a 9-mm handgun, according to charging papers.

“This item was concealed in a plastic container, wrapped in paper towels and placed on a shelf in the back of the shop,” the charging papers say in reference to the slide.

So, a “gun nut” with “anger issues” who murdered Mr. Noll in some kind of road rage attack. The guy shoots IDPA and there’s a film of him running a course. Proof positive – in the prosecutor’s eyes of murderous intent.

All of which makes him the perfect poster child for the VPC’s campaign to limit (i.e. deprive) Americans of their constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. “Proof” that average Joes are too mentally unstable to own or carry a firearm.

Which made me think twice about retelling the twisted tale of a gun owner breaking bad. As a solidly pro-2A American, it pains me to publish stories of irresponsible and unstable gun owners. I realize that the enemies of our firearms liberties can use these cases against us. On the flip side . . .

I believe gun rights advocates will not win the day if we resort to the antis’ irrational, emotional arguments. If we use rational thought and anecdotal evidence to support our cause (e.g., Defensive Gun Use of the Day) we can’t imitate our adversaries and pretend that men like Dinh Bowman don’t exist.

Our credibility demands that we accept the rough with the smooth. That we acknowledge that there is a price to be paid for our firearms freedom. Sometimes it is paid in blood. But that doesn’t change the fact that individual gun ownership is, on balance, the bedrock upon which all our freedoms rest.

So we will continue to report irresponsible and criminal gun use regardless of the perp’s legal right to carry (or lack thereof). In this we are guided by the words of Bo Bennet: “For every good reason there is to lie, there is a better reason to tell the truth.”

[h/t G. from Seattle]

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48 COMMENTS

  1. 70 million people own guns, a few are going to do things they should not, a few of those are going to inevitably have permits to carry or be considered “ordinary” gun owners.
    Are we supposed to hide under the bed from these cases? No we shouldn’t.

    Why don’t the VPC do gooders have a page on criminals using guns? It might draw attention to lax sentencing guidelines, paroles, or other shortcomings that prove laws against guns are ignored if laws against murder are as well.

    They have some nerve suggesting permit carriers are a dangerous group based on .001% of the holders doing something like this.

    • It isn’t nerve, it’s strategy.

      When the commies finally take over, they don’t want any trouble from armed members of the population. You see it’s hard to govern when your people hate you because you steal everything from them and their children, no matter how your media spins it.

      It’s a nightmare for them really! Even tho they have all those “law enforcement” and “anti-terrorist ” types roaming around doing their bidding….

      Oh and the constitution and bill of rights are not a factor because their judges and media friends agree with them.

  2. Upside, downside. Good and bad. Yin and Yang. Wilson Combat and the Ring of Fire. Goes with the territory.

    Honest self-criticism is required for improvement, even for a group.

  3. “Our credibility demands that we accept the rough with the smooth. That we acknowledge that there is a price to be paid for our firearms freedom. Sometimes it is paid in blood. But that doesn’t change the fact that individual gun ownership is, on balance, the bedrock upon which all our freedoms rest.”

    This is precisely why I think we should focus the argument on the primary purpose of the Second Amendment, which is to ensure that in the last resort, free men hold the means of retaining their freedom. The primary issue is not crime control, it’s government control.

  4. I just thought of something. The states where those incredible reports come from about the low percentage of concealed carry permit holders who lose their permits are also the states with the lowest education. Maybe they just can’t count.

    The best explanation I’ve read is that the reporting is faulty. This makes perfect sense to me and it would mean the percentage is really much higher.

    Then there’s the way many of the fuck-ups among you have their charges dropped or plea-bargained down. There are all those who take your advice to STFU and turn violent crimes into DGUs.

    If my “one strike you’re out rule” were in effect you’d see some different numbers.

    So, the numbers are way off, to say the least. Your poster boy today is not the anomaly that you wish he were.

    • “The states where those incredible reports come from about the low percentage of concealed carry permit holders who lose their permits are also the states with the lowest education”
      Another fabricated fact straight from your ass. Go ahead and tell residents in several states they are uneducated, stupid and unwashed. Best for you to do that by phone.

      • “Best for you to do that by phone.”
        ——
        No, no, no. In person. GS650G, you’re in charge of ticket sales. I’ll get ahold of the Pay-Per-View folks.

    • Hang on, Mike. I’m not sure I follow you. I think your argument went something like this.

      1. All the numbers indicate that legal CC’ers are less like than average to commit a violent crime.
      2 . I don’t believe that, because is just can’t be true.
      Conclusion: All the numbers are wrong. It is not unusual for legal CC’ers to become homicidal maniacs.

      Is that an accurate summary of your argument? I just want to make sure I’ve understood you properly.

    • That’s right Mr. Bonomo there are just hundreds if not thousands of unreported murders in this country. Please take OJ with you while you look for the bodies under the bed. You never know you could become famous for helping him find the real killer. Wouldn’t that be cool.

    • Past experience with gun control leaders such as Annette “Flirty” Stevens (Illinois Million Mom March president caught with drugs and a de-serialized handgun), Sheila Eccleston (Mothers Against Violence, imprisoned for possessing a sawed-off shotgun), James Kelly (Seattle Urban League anti-gunner caught brandishing a handgun during an argument), Bart Stupak (champion of mandatory federal trigger locks whose son later committed suicide with dad’s unlocked gun), and Barbara Graham (DC Million Mom March activist convicted of a revenge shooting of an innocent person who HADN’T killed her son) suggests that frustrated gun control activists tend to go out with a bang rather than a whimper.

      The moral is, if you ever happen to come across Dennis Henigan, and Mikeb’s of this world take cover. You don’t want to be at Ground Zero when they go postal and its not a matter of if, its a matter of when!

  5. “Detectives also found a “gun room” in which “Bowman had set up a sort of laboratory dedicated to his obsession with guns,” including bullet-making equipment, ammunition, long rifles and scopes, the papers say. ”

    Yes, because a guy who shoots IDPA and has a dedicated “gun room” full of…hmm…well, everything everyone else who shoots IDPA has, that makes him double-plus guilty. Seriously? So if a person who stabs someone is later found to have a “whole kitchen full of various knives and ‘knife accessories’ (i.e. a kitchen with a knife block, magnetic knife rack over the sink, a knife drawer, and a knife sharpener or two), that makes the stabber more guilty of stabbing? I have no problem throwing people like the shooter under the proverbial bus for committing crimes, but for the love can the VPC just…I don’t know, stop with the hand-wringing?

  6. Nothing in the US constitution suggests a right should be abolished if it is abused. That goes for the 1st as well. Ask any one in journalism if there are free speech abuses and it’s everywhere.

  7. This will put the numbers in perspective. Every year, in every state, about one resident who has a concealed handgun carry license will murder someone. That’s it.

    Of course a more populous state like Texas might have two or three residents (with concealed handgun licenses) who murder someone and less populous states like North Dakota may go three or four years without any residents (with concealed handguns licenses) who murder someone.

  8. “Detectives also found a “gun room” in which “Bowman had set up a sort of laboratory dedicated to his obsession with guns,” including bullet-making equipment, ammunition, long rifles and scopes, the papers say.”
    ——
    I just told my wife that the reloading corner of our garage (with my bench and presses, flam-locker with ~3000 primers and several pounds of powder, case tumbler, thousands of once-fired cases of various and sundry calibers, lead and jacketed bullets galore, and stool that sits at just the right height) shall henceforth be referred to as the “laboratory”. When she recovered from her laughing fit she had this to say: “I think I peed myself, you bastard.”

  9. Thanks for reporting this… when I first heard about this story, I winced too. One of those, “WTF… why’d he have to be a guy with a CCW permit, an IDPA competitor, AND from Seattle?” While the case is still being sorted out, it doesn’t look good for Bowman, with witnesses saying he had the tires of his car changed and the fact he was concealing that slide of a 9mm gun. If they find a barrel and get a ballistics match to the 9mm casing found by Noll… he’s gonna go away for a long time.

    I think responsible, rational gun owners need to confront and distance themselves from those that abuse our rights and show themselves to be irresponsible with them.

    On a lighter note, maybe now my relatives will believe me when I tell them how terrible the traffic really is here in Seattle…

  10. The irrationally fearful and others who may be of the anti-firearm persuasion will not ever be able to differentiate between defensive/sporting/criminal uses of firearms. The media has aided and abetted by highlighting criminal/careless uses of firearms, yet ignoring the many times that guns have been utilized for the positive. When was the last time you read/heard the word “gun” used truthfully in a positive way by ANY mainstream media outlet, be it in a self-defense story or a sporting report? Most people are entirely unaware we achieved 4 golds and a silver in guns at the Olympics. Were it not for pro gun sites such as this one, positives would be relegated to file 86, yet that still leaves the pro-gunner pretty much sharing with his own kind, unable to be heard above the overwhelming din of the anti-gunners who for the most part, have been given ideological reign of the mass media outlets which are the fount of information for most Americans.

  11. Thankfully, the local media hasn’t played up this guy’s involvement in competition shooting as much as I thought they might. It was looking a bit sketchy this past weekend when the above video was running on the news. I’ve probably shot in a match with this guy in the past.

    My wife (who has learned to accept and appreciate guns but has been a long time gun-phobic) always cracks up when she news stories commenting on finding a few hundred rounds at some bad guy’s house, or in this case this guy’s “bullet making supplies”. She knows I have much, much more than that, and commented “of course he makes his own bullets if he shoots competitively”. It’s sad though, that the vast majority of the public finds these facts startling.

  12. Well it stinks that he did something so bad, but…
    Lake many have stated despite the best efforts of all involved, occasionally bad things happen. The fact the, at least using the Florida stat that .001% of CCW holders do bad things, I wish everyone was a CCW holder. Imagine a country with a .001% violent crime rate, talk about utopia!
    Ok I woke up now… Fact is we can’t stop everyone all the time from doing something stupid or wrong.
    I don’t like the slant on the article. So he had a dedicated work space for his firearms, and preferred to reload for his competition shooting. I wouldn’t even call it an obsession, but a hobby. Lord he had ammunition too! OMG!!! imagine that..
    I guess because he was fastidious about his firearms and their maintenance etc he must have done it!
    Point is they have tire tread evidence which unless it was the only tire ever made is less than what I would call solid evidence. They have no gun, oppsss that kind of sucks doesn’t it.
    I am not saying this guy didn’t do it, but where is the evidence which can totally prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If he is guilty then he serves his time, I will admit that. In the court of law you need to prove his guilt. The fact he was a competitive shooter does nothing evidence wise. So far I have only seen circumstantial evidence. Maybe if there were finger prints on the casings or possibly if the bullets themselves held together and there is a latent print off of that I could except.

    • Sanchanim, you are seriously misinformed. They DO have the murder weapon and they also have also have photos of the bullet holes in the front passenger side window before it was replaced. The receipts for the tire replacement that he got have also been obtained by the cops and the shop recorded the type of tires that he had before he got new ones. He thought he could cover it up and wouldn’t need to dispose of the murder weapons but he was sorely mistaken and made plenty of errors.

      • Correction: The murder weapon itself has not been found…..YET. But the BMW Z4 that was seen by a witness shortly after the shooting was caught on camera speeding away. So the actual process which created those tread marks was filmed. In fact, the punk not only bought new tires, he replaced them himself and left those old tires at his warehouse workshop! So detectives not only matched the tire prints, they also spotted the “ware and tear” on them. Furthermore, he went to a Portland(OR) auto shop to get the window replaced and that is how he got reported to the Police. The shop folks were very suspicious that a guy from WA went all the way to Portland just to get a car window with bullet holes replaced(they also left a few glass fragments in his car). So you say the evidence is circumstantial, but it’s pretty clear that HIS car was the one that was used to commit the murder. So unless he can prove that he lent his car to another man who looks like him, then that places his ass there at the crime scene. The post it note his wife put on the fridge is also quite damning. Even if it’s circumstantial, it’s more than enough to convict. I really wish he could be tried in Texas where people like this are put to death with little hesitation. I just hope that some judge around here will have the guts to do it.

  13. So in a nation built on individual liberty I’m supposed to be guilty of something or have my rights curtailed because of the actions of someone I’ve never met . Sounds to me like Hitler’s version of ” it takes a whole village”….If one steps out of line machine gun the whole village.

  14. “Concealed Carry Killers” shows the depths of the VPC’s contempt for us in general and me in particular. There’s not much that I hate in this world, but yeah, I hate those low-life, lying sc^mbags at the VPC.

    • There are a lot of personnel attributes which are FAR more highly correlated with someone being a “killer” than whether they hold a Carry Permit. Race, income, zip code, gender, age – all will correlate more.

  15. “Our credibility demands that we accept the rough with the smooth. That we acknowledge that there is a price to be paid for our firearms freedom. Sometimes it is paid in blood. ”

    This is an important point. All of our constitutional rights come with costs. The 1st Amendment protects our right to criticize the government and advocate for change. But it also protects bigoted and hateful speech, allowing groups like the KKK to hold rallies and parades. The 4th Amendment protects our right to be free from warrant-less searches of our homes, and it limits the circumstances when we can be detained by the police. But it also protects drug dealers and other criminals, allowing them to suppress key evidence, possibly avoiding conviction, when their rights are violated. The 5th Amendment and 6th Amendment provide rights to an attorney (the 5th through case law, i.e. Miranda v. Arizona) that if violated, can lead to the suppression of evidence. The 6th Amendment requires a speedy trial, that if violated, can allow a criminal to go free.

    The 2nd Amendment protects our right to keep and bear arms. But the cost of that right is that idiots will also get to keep and bear arms. When I hear arguments that the 2nd Amendment can be limited because criminals use guns to kill people and we need gun control to stop them, I always point out the fact that criminals use other constitutional amendments to their advantage and I ask why the 2nd Amendment should be limited where other rights cannot. They have never provided a good answer.

  16. The mind set of anti- gun people is nigh incomprehensible; I was debating an anti-G person and they were saying how they didn’t want guns on thier property but they didn’t mind people carrying knives; I responded that a knife can be just as lethal as a gun; that in a hand to hand fight It would be easier to disarm a person carrying a gun than a knife; He responds by pulling out a pocket knife and states definitively that this was not a lethal weapon! Our debate pretty much ended right there!
    How anyone can be that out of touch with reality let alone a whole population is, again, incomprehensible.

  17. Just curious but can anyone find where the VPC has called us firearms owners dangerous criminals or some other degrading or biased/prejudiced name and then we could file a class action lawsuit against them for the various constitutional and race/bias/derogatory/etc names and labels they have placed upon us.
    Like Obama the Blamer calling Vets terrorists ??
    I just get tired of hearing all the labeling b the Gov, especially since I am a ccw license holder, and a vet!!
    Just saying!!! Soapbox back in the corner now!!!

  18. What pisses me off about the fear mongering and inflammatory “labaratory” comment most is that it id the cops saying it and they should damn well know better since plenty of them participate in IDPA and steel plate and probably have reloading setups of their own. Assholes.

  19. I fail to see the point in taking the high road when antis and the general public are too stupid, brainwashed, and morally corrupt to appreciate it and politicians simply don’t care.

    Sometimes, you just have to shoot back until one side crumbles.

  20. This is anecdotal evidence. It proves NOTHING.

    Anecdotal evidence can be used to show anything you want to show. I can find a few true stories that show that the world is flat, that gravity doesn’t exist, or anything else I want to prove. However, there are many more true stories amassed into a population (statistical evidence) that proves that the world is a large globular shape, that gravity is a force to be reckoned with, and etc.

    The anti-guns crowd loves to use anecdotal evidence to try to prove something about the complete population. However you never see them quoting statistics along with their anecdotal evidence, because the statistics would show that their one true story is an extremely anomalous event. You can’t say that we should take guns away from every CCW holder when you just told me that only o.oo1% commit violent crimes. You can inflame emotions with a graphic true story, and then many people will believe you when you say we should take away the guns.

    Watch out for anecdotal evidence. It proves nothing (except that unusual stuff happens very rarely), but it allows the anti’s to make any wild claim they can. No one (except a desperate gun-control advocate) would ever suggest that an extremely anomalous event should be used to establish laws affecting complete populations.

    The same is true about man-on-the-street interviews, which TV news outlets often use. You can usually find someone who will espouse whatever biased opinion you want to broadcast, but that doesn’t mean the majority feels that way or that that particular individual has any knowledge of the subject. Man-on-the-street interviews try to say that most people have a certain opinion, when most people actually have the exact opposite opinion. When a reporter can’t find any ‘experts’, facts, or statistics to back up his biased opinion , he can always find a few misinformed citizens to do it for him.

  21. If the statement”the rights of citizens are not contingent of the reasonable excercise of those rights by all citizens” then what Mr. Bowman did to Mr.Noll should have zero effect upon the rights of you and I.
    Mr.Bowman is solely responsible for his actions and will have to bear those consequences .

  22. This may sound a little cold, but am i the only one who thinks i would rather have a competition shooter shoot someone on the street rather than a random firearms owner/holder? more shots on target (in this case, the victim) the fewer shots go into bystanders (like we saw in NYC or seem to happen with drive bys). Dude still deserves to get the needle but i’d still feel safer if all criminals were his level of shot (at least until i got in their sights) .

  23. Heath R, what you say isn’t “cold”, it’s STUPID. Suppose some criminal with a gun decided to shoot you before you had the chance draw your pistol and shoot back??? The solution to dealing with violent crimes like this to put killers TO DEATH. In fact, I wish it were legal to harvest the organs of executed murderers regardless of the murderers own wishes. That way, an evil person will be die so that a sick person can live. That’s what I hate about American Justice in most states: Killers and rapists are given more rights than their victims. Those wanting stricter gun control laws also oppose capital punishment and support prisoners rights at the expense of victims rights!

    • 1)i think you miss the point. i’m not supporting murder. i’m supporting more shots on target. if people (good or bad) only hit their target or have a higher hit percentage than they currently do, the bystanders are safer(fewer innocent children shot on the way to school because some drug dealers can’t hit the man sized target 10 feet in front of them).
      the wrongness of killing a person out of road rage is so obvious it does not need to be mentioned.
      2) “Suppose some criminal with a gun decided to shoot you before you had the chance draw your pistol and shoot back?” i would be shot, and possibly dead. but they dont need to be a competition shooter to do that. its not too hard to get behind someone and shoot from less than a foot away. again, not encouraging behavior, just picking from evils.

  24. Heath,

    The point I was trying to make is that when it comes murder via gunfire, it really makes no difference how accurately the killer shoots and/or if there’s ‘collateral damage'(more victims that the intended ones). One innocent victim is one too many. But let’s not forget: Guns by themselves don’t kill people, PEOPLE kill people! And that’s why I think that crimes like this are not justification for stricter gun control laws because those laws failed to reduce violent crime back in the early 90s when they were installed. Those who are concerned with how gun owners are being represented by the media in this case need to stop acting like victims of “media bias” and support justice for Yancy Noll. The bottom line is punish the individuals who do this, not people who happen to own guns.

    • look at my posts, i’m not supporting gun control or random shootings. i’m saying that on average i would rather that if people are going to kill each other in spite of what is right, they should at least be competent at it so that only thier target is endangered and not the rest of the world at large.
      while one is one too many, i would rather have one dead than onehundred. magnitude matters, i would rather one life be lost than many all else being equal.
      in addition i do not support some sort of preferential treatment of accurate killers, but the same harsh penalty i would expect to be doled out to the incompetant ones.
      to clear any doubts, i support contitutional carry and have my chl that is requred for my state.
      i do acknowledge that events like this hurt our groups general credibility with the general population, but i was not addressing that issue with my original post.

  25. I know this exceedingly politically incorrect, but I have to say: Given the fact that Yancy Noll was white and dinh bowman(the killer) is a VC I really am out for his blood(and hopefully the courts are too-even if their reasons are different).

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