Philadelphia Concealed Carry Stats

[Voolfie]

I have been trying to find out the answers to the following questions:

1. How many holders of concealed carry permits, issued by the county of Philadelphia, have been convicted of a violent crime involving a firearm in the last five years?

2. How many concealed carry permits - issued by the county of Philadelphia - have been revoked for cause in the last year, the last two years, the last five years?

I would appreciate any help with this that anyone can provide.

Thank you.

[danp]

I have been trying to find out the answers to the following questions:

1. How many holders of concealed carry permits, issued by the county of Philadelphia, have been convicted of a violent crime involving a firearm in the last five years?

2. How many concealed carry permits - issued by the county of Philadelphia - have been revoked for cause in the last year, the last two years, the last five years?

I would appreciate any help with this that anyone can provide.

Thank you.

This information as best I can tell is not available to the public. I just called the Philadelphia PD's public relations department and asked about acquiring some general statistics and while the guy seemed helpful (he went to ask if they are available to the "media" and whether or not we would qualify) he returned to say that those stats could not be made available.

Perhaps there's another way to get them that I am not aware of, if someone knows one I'd love to have these statistics.

[billamj]

Dan - This sounds like a FOIA request waiting to happen. I don't see why a citizen of the county should not be privy to that information unless it is just a case of the PD being afraid to look bad in public. If one of you philly residents would do it, I would be interested in the numbers myself.

[Voolfie]

That information is not available.

If 30% of permit holders were committing crimes, it would be available. Oh, boy would it be available.

It would be splashed all over the Inquirer/Daily News...every day.

Someone ought to ask ole Syl Johnson these questions the next time (and every time) he has a press conference.

[ChamberedRound]

As with everything else that surrounds public information and govt., it will most likely require a lawyer to obtain the information.

[KeithPA]

http://www.usgs.gov/foia/

Seems like a simple process? Never tried it though....

Looked through here http://www.usdoj.gov/oip/procereq.htm#agency and found this

Agencies within the executive branch of the federal government, including the Executive Office of the President and independent regulatory agencies, are subject to the provisions of the FOIA. (4) However, the FOIA does not apply to entities that "are neither chartered by the federal government [n]or controlled by it." (5) Thus, it is settled that state governments, (6) municipal corporations, (7) the courts, (8) Congress, (9) and private citizens (10) are not subject to the FOIA. Nor does the FOIA apply to a presidential transition team. (11)

Not sure if that applies? Kind of sounded like it though.

[Rule10b5]

Use Pennsylvania's "Right to Know" statute. It's 65 P.C.S.A. Section 66.1 et seq.

See below for the full text of the statute:

http://www.post-gazette.com/FirstAme...w_firstam9.asp

I'm happy to work in conjunction with someone willing to draft up the first written request.

[KeithPA]

I did some googling and found this...Not sure of accuracy...and is from 2005...

While murder rates have been falling or have been flat for years in the rest of the country, Philadelphia's rate has been rising. Last year's murder rate was the highest since 1993, and Philadelphia replaced Chicago, the perennial leader, as the top 10 largest city with the highest murder rate. With 85 murders in the first 88 days of 2005, the city's murder rate is well ahead of even last year's.

Mayor John Street's solution? He's doing little about fixing the city's declining arrest rates for murder. Instead, he blames the law-abiding citizens who have permits to carry concealed handguns. He announced on Thursday that the city will deliberately begin delaying issuing new concealed handgun permits. Gov. Rendell's proposed crime task force promises to examine the issue further.

No reporters seem to have asked Street or Rendell the obvious question: If permit-holders are the problem, how many of those 85 murders were caused by a person with a permitted concealed handgun? When I asked, the city police and mayor's office were unable or unwilling to answer that question, but my guess is zero.

In the extraordinarily rare cases when permit-holders get in trouble, there is news coverage. Yet there's not one single news story on such a case this year.

Indeed, with 28,000 concealed handgun permit-holders in Philadelphia and more than 600,000 statewide, there was no such murder last year, or the year before, or the year before in the entire state. Only two have been recorded since the state law started in 1989.

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lott/lott40.html

Only 2 murders since 1989 with people who have LTCF.....pretty interesting....

[danp]

Use Pennsylvania's "Right to Know" statute. It's 65 P.C.S.A. Section 66.1 et seq.

See below for the full text of the statute:

http://www.post-gazette.com/FirstAme...w_firstam9.asp

I'm happy to work in conjunction with someone willing to draft up the first written request.

We'd be interested in working with you on this. The information I'd like to see is:

1) Permit Numbers by county per year
2) Permit Revocations by county per year (with reasons if possible)
2b) The number of unjustified shootings by permit holders per year

[knight0334]

The PA State Police posts a report of the number of licenses issued per authority.

2005's : http://www.psp.state.pa.us/psp/lib/p...ort_-_2005.pdf

Firearms report page w/previous years(2006 has been posted yet):
http://www.psp.state.pa.us/psp/cwp/b...BCOB=0&C=69774