SAF Proves Good Guys With Guns Are Not the Problem

Earlier today, I wrote about a terrible argument someone in Australia made about good guys with guns. To be fair, it pissed me off to no end, so I wrote about it, and while I'd like to say I feel better about it, I really don't. It was just that moronic.

Go and read it, but it's an attack on good guys with guns, even professionally-trained law enforcement or armed security. It's hard not to take that sort of thing personally, especially since we know better than to think good guys with guns are a problem.

The shootings in Bend, Oregon, or in Twin Falls, Idaho, should have dispelled that thinking entirely.

However, those are high-profile incidents, and we need to think about the bigger picture.

Of course, that bigger picture makes it clear that good guys with guns are not now, nor have ever been the problem.

A recent investigation by the Second Amendment Foundation provides a strong argument that law-abiding armed citizens are not a criminal threat, declaring, “and the data proves it.”

Data gathered by California-based attorney Kostas Moros, SAF director of Legal Research and Education, shows among other things that people who hold concealed carry permits/licenses “rarely commit crimes.”

According to data collected by Moros and included on a two-page Fact Sheet”

• Florida has issued 6,661,440 carry licenses since 1987. “Only 24,251 (have been) revoked for any reason and not reinstated, through Sept. 30, 2026.” This constitutes 0.36 percent of all the licenses issued.
• In Minnesota, in 2025, “at most 342 convictions of permit holders were in violent-crime categories (assault, domestic assault, protection-order violations, sex offenses, homicides including negligent and vehicular, robbery) among 381,405 valid permits.”
• In Michigan, 2,071 license holders were convicted of a crime (any felony or misdemeanor, including traffic misdemeanors) in FY 2024-25, out of about 850,000 active licenses (850,376 as if Oct. 1, 2026)
• In Virginia, in 2024, there were 815 revocations “for any disqualification (reasons not reported) against 686,994 resident permits issued, the newest year published.”

The Fact Sheet, one of seven posted on the SAF website under “Just the Facts,” briefly mentions three tragic incidents in which armed private citizens intervened and fatally shot would-be mass shooters, including one which occurred on a live stream church service.

The Minnesota conviction rate is about 0.09 percent. Michigan's is higher, at 0.24 percent, but since that includes traffic violations, that's hardly surprising. Virginia's is 0.11 percent.

In other words, not even counting traffic violations gets you to even half of a percent of all permit holders committing a crime, even speeding.

Let's remember that these are the lawful carriers in most of these states. Florida only recently became permitless carry. Minnesota, Michigan, and Virginia have continued to require permits, which means that no one is lawfully carrying without that or a police badge.

And we're just not seeing these individuals pulling guns to settle disagreements or anything of the sort, which we've been told would happen.

Of course, we heard that following the Bruen decision, and while there are more people who can lawfully carry now than ever before, our homicide rate is in freefall, with 2026 likely to be the lowest in generations.

Good guys with guns are not now, nor have ever been the problem.

Game.
Set.
Match.

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