Statistics on crimes with guns overinflated

Responding to my Feb. 20 letter answering one of his, John Johnson wrote on March 12, “Evidently, Mr. Varner did not check the Violence Policy Center's Website provided in my letter.” That's about the only thing he got right in two letters.

As I stated earlier, the VPC stats are propaganda. They are a radically anti-Second Amendment group. When their other efforts to stifle the right of private citizens to keep and bear arms failed, they began concentrating on overturning concealed-carry weapons (CCW) laws of various states.

Last year, they adopted the strategy of portraying permit holders as murderers to counter legislation in Congress calling for interstate recognition of CCW permits issued by all states, just as the nation does with drivers licenses.

They tried to thwart such a law by listing a minute number of permit holders who had supposedly committed various violations. Their inflated statistics don't bear up under scrutiny.

Mr. Johnson refers to a questionable 80 incidents. There are over 5 million CCW licensees in this country. Do the math. The VPC's violation percentage is microscopic.

Contrary to VPC's dire predictions, in the 14 years since they've tried to kill right-to-carry laws, the nation's murder rate has been cut in half.

Dean Varner

Cedar Rapids