Permit holders who are charged with a crime will have their permits suspended or revoked. Amazingly, these individuals virtually never get convicted. From 2008 to 2012, suspensions and revocations totaled 6,565, while convictions for primarily misdemeanors and a few felonies totaled 548. Thus, just 8 percent of those who were suspended or revoked. Over time that percentage has generally been falling, down to 5 percent in 2012 (120 convictions/1301 suspensions and 905 revocations).
It is hard to describe to those outside the legal system how incredibly low 8 percent is. Normally when people are charged with a crime about 90 percent end up being convicted. This more than reverses what normally happens.
This just shows how one should be very careful in relying on suspensions and revocations in evaluating the behavior of permit holders.
Convictions per permit holder has also been falling over time, dropping by 25 percent during the five years between 2008 and 2012. The probability that a permit holder would have any type of conviction on his record, usually something fairly trivial and unrelated guns, fell from about 3 hundredths of one percentage point to about 2 hundredths of one percentage point.
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