SAF’s Kostas Moros Pulls Conviction and License Data Straight From Texas, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, and It Shows Permit Holders Rarely Commit Crimes

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

GREENWOOD, IN — When a shooter opened fire with a rifle inside the Greenwood Park Mall food court on July 17, 2022, Elisjsha Dicken, 22, a legally armed citizen, engaged him from about 40 yards, fired ten rounds, and struck him eight times. The entire thing was over roughly 15 seconds after the shooting began. That sequence now opens a new two-page fact sheet from the Second Amendment Foundation, assembled by Kostas Moros, SAF’s director of Legal Research and Education, that lines up these rare stopped-attack moments against the newest official state data on who permit holders actually are.

Moros’s sheet highlights other defenders too. On Dec. 29, 2019, when a shooter opened fire during a service at the West Freeway Church of Christ in White Settlement, Texas, volunteer security team leader Jack Wilson fired a single round and stopped the attack, later receiving the Governor’s Medal of Courage. On Oct. 15, 2026, a father saw a shooter force his way into Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, retrieved a pistol legally secured in his vehicle, and shot him as a teacher fought for the weapon. He did it before police arrived. Last month I covered the Bend shooting and identified that father as Kaylub Giamanco.

What makes the sheet worth reading is not the drama. It is the paper trail. Moros pairs the incidents with conviction and licensing numbers pulled straight from state agencies, the kind of records that settle arguments.

Download the SAF fact sheet (PDF)

Texas is the clearest example. According to the Texas Department of Public Safety’s conviction report for 2025 and its active-license count, 258 license holders were convicted of violent crimes out of 1,416,121 active licenses, about 18 per 100,000. Other Texans aged 21 and older were convicted of violent crimes at roughly 161 per 100,000. That is about nine times the rate for license holders. The violent categories counted include murder, kidnapping, robbery, assault and aggravated assault, sexual assault, and injury to a child, elderly, or disabled person.

The pattern holds state to state. Florida has issued 6,661,440 carry licenses since 1987, with only 24,251 revoked for any reason and not reinstated through Sept. 30, 2026, about 0.36 percent. In Minnesota in 2025, at most 342 convictions of permit holders fell into violent-crime categories among 381,405 valid permits. In Michigan, 2,071 license holders were convicted of any crime, including traffic misdemeanors, in fiscal year 2024 to 2025, out of roughly 850,000 active licenses. In Virginia in 2024, there were 815 revocations for any disqualification against 686,994 resident permits.

The sheet does not rest on advocacy voices alone. It quotes the RAND Corporation’s gun-policy review, updated in January 2026: “the available evidence shows that license holders as a group are particularly law-abiding and are rarely convicted for violent crimes.” It also cites a sworn declaration from Brian R. Marvel, president of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, which represents more than 80,000 law enforcement and public safety professionals. Marvel’s point is blunt: people willing to go through the permitting process before they carry are not likely to break the law, and in fact demonstrate a strong law-abiding disposition.

More from USA Carry:

• October 7 Is the Date: Massachusetts’ Highest Court Will Hear the Holyoke Man Denied a Carry License Over Decade-Old Charges That Never Led to a Conviction
• SAF Attorney Kostas Moros Argues California’s 11% Gun ‘Sin Tax’ and Colorado’s 6.5% Levy Fail Bruen in New Law Review Article
• SAF’s Kostas Moros Answers Everytown and Cook County With Founders, Judges, and 1800s Schoolbooks
• Did You Know That Your Texas Concealed Handgun License is Now a Valid Proof of Identification?
• Texas Set to Recognize All Valid Out-of-State Handgun Licenses Starting September, Pending Governor’s Signature

Moros also turns the Violence Policy Center’s “Concealed Carry Killers” project against itself. That website is frequently cited against permit holders, but the fact sheet argues its own totals show how rare these killings are, and that it inflates its count by labeling suicide victims as “killers.”

The through-line Moros draws is the one worth keeping. The people most restricted by bans on carry in everyday “sensitive places” are, by the state’s own records, the population least likely to commit a crime. The Greenwood food court is the proof of concept. The mall’s code of conduct said no weapons, and Dicken carried anyway. He broke mall policy, not the law, and fifteen seconds is how long it took to matter.

Read the original story: SAF’s Kostas Moros Pulls Conviction and License Data Straight From Texas, Florida, Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia, and It Shows Permit Holders Rarely Commit Crimes