Fla. gun-carry permit holders behaving badly?

Factual Questions
1

I don’t get live TV, so am just now catching up on back episodes of the Dateline “To Catch a Predator” series on their website. (For the uninitiated - the TV show sets up a sting operation to snare guys who meet underage girls online and then show up to molest them.) Something that was on the show brings up a somewhat peripheral question; hopefully someone with knowledge of the law-enforcement environment in Florida can speak to it.

I love the fact that the more recent shows have the police there to arrest these guys when they show up. Clearly, though, the police are putting on a show for the cameras by running out, shouting, with guns and tazers drawn. Even they reveal that this is not really necessary in that they DO occasionally make a quiet arrest on the show, when they don’t want to tip off another perp who’s shown up unexpectedly, (apparently without any danger to the officers.)

Anyway, my question relates to the series done in Florida. There, the police take things even further - they do all of the above, PLUS they have several officers rush the perp from behind and slam him to the ground before he even knows what’s going on. They state (repeatedly) on the show that the reason the police in Florida do this is that it’s “relatively easy to get a gun permit” in the state, so the police aren’t “taking any chances.”

This implies a few things:

  1. Gun-carry permit holders in Florida have become a menace to police, apparently WAY worse than the people who carry guns without bothering to get a permit.

  2. Florida’s permit program is some sort of unique disaster, seeing as how other states have gun-carry permits and the police don’t need to do this.

  3. Because of the carry-permit program, EVERY arrest in Florida is now being treated as an armed-and-dangerous scenario, with the arrestees being slamed around even for non-violent crimes where they have shown no intent to resist arrest?

But, somehow, this paints a picture that’s a little hard to swallow (especially since if it were true it seems like we would have heard about it elsewhere). Is this just a cover, so that the police can rough up anyone they want to, and then blame gun permits? Does anyone have stats on how big a problem this has become in Florida?

2

Well, the arrests that go peaceably and smooth simply don’t get televised. Since the whole thing is about manipulating the audience into hating those dirty pervs, showing the more violent arrests is just giving them what they want. Which do you think is more likely to get airtime on Dateline:

Detective walks into room: “You’re under arrest.”
Suspect: Okay. [puts hands behind back to be cuffed]

or

Six cops burst into room screaming “POLICE! FREEZE!” knocking over furniture in their zeal to mass-tackle the suspect.

Whether the cops are playing to the camera may not matter as much as the violent arrests getting more airtime, suggest all or most arrests happen in this way. Is there evidence of an increasing rate of unnecessary roughness in arrests away from televised sting operations?

3

It’s probably a load of crap, just to give them an excuse to be dramamtic and act like they’re arresting a machine-gun wielding maniac.

As you yourself noted, the dangerous guys generally can’t be bothered to get a permit in the first place.

4

The CHL program in Texas is usually compared to the one in Florida, because I believe the legislation was based on the Florida law. We have reciprocity with each other, which Texas does not grant unless the application method and training are up to Texas standards.

A person with a Texas Concealed Handgun License has gone through both state and federal fingerprint checks, local background checks, has never committed a felony, has not had a misdemeanor in at least 5 years, has taken a training class that included a shooting test, etc. It’s a lot of trouble for a bad guy to go through, and I’m sure they keep our fingerprints on file somewhere.

At last count, there were about 250,000 active CHL licenses in Texas. The latest data I can find is from 2001:

Texas DPS crime data

Of 35,250 convicted offenses, 35,070 did not hold a Texas CHL.

Of 157 murders, 156 did not hold a Texas CHL.

Even in the cases of assault, where 54 of the convicted had a CHL, it only indicates that the individual had a valid license, not that the gun had anything to do with the crime.

"In an unpublished report, engineering statistician William Sturdevant found that concealed carry licensees had arrest rates far lower than the general population for every category of crime. For instance:

* Licensees were 5.7 times less likely to be arrested for violent offenses than the general public - 127 per 100,000 population versus 730 per 100,000.

* Licensees were 14 times less likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses than the general public - 386 per 100,000 population versus 5,212 per 100,000.

* Further, the general public is 1.4 times more likely to be arrested for murder than licensees [see Figure I], and no licensee had been arrested for negligent manslaughter. "

From here

5

I haven’t seen the show you’re discussing, so maybe I’m off base, but I’d note that on the A & E show, “The First 48”, the Miami cops don’t seem to go through all those dramatics to arrest suspected murderers

6

Big to do in Florida now about the number of people with gun carry permits who have been convicted of a felony but judgment being withheld.