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]