I complain a lot about the anti-gun mentality among Philadelphia city officials, and one of my pet peeves is the totally disingenuous attempt to label people with concealed carry permits as part of the problem. Police Commissioner Johnson has complained that his police officers are "outnumbered" by them.

Now, via Newsbusters, I see that CNN has chimed in:

On Thursday's "Anderson Cooper 360," CNN's Randi Kaye filed a story in which she promoted gun control as a solution for Philadelphia's crime problems, as she pushed the argument that the city's high rate of gun violence was the result of Pennsylvania state lawmakers voting to loosen gun laws in the 1990s. And, as if criminals would bother to apply for a permit to legally carry a concealed weapon, Kaye further suggested that the availability of concealed carry permits has contributed to the city's problems. Kaye: "In 1995 there were fewer than 800 applications for concealed weapons here. 'Keeping Them Honest,' we checked, and today there are 29,000 permits to carry. And it's against the law for police to ask anyone why they want one. One law enforcement source told me permits to carry are being passed out like candy."

Here's Les Jones:

One study found that in Florida CCW holders were 300 times less likely than the general population to commit a crime. A Texas study found that CCW holders in that state were "5.7 times less likely to commit a violent crime, and 14 times less likely to commit a non-violent offense."

There's a simple reason CCW holders as a group are so law-abiding -- they have to be law-abiding citizens in order to qualify for a permit in the first place.

Unfortunately, Philadelphia statistics are not kept as to the number of permit holders who cause problems, but there seems to be little doubt that it is very low.

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.

Every once in a while, a concealed carry permit holder happens to be on the scene when a crime is committed, or as in a case I was delighted to see reported in the Inquirer, a criminal targets a concealed carry permit holder:

Two days after Myers was killed, Bilal was arrested on robbery charges stemming from another holdup in the area, Costello said.

In that confrontation, in the 1900 block of North 22d Street, one of two victims had a permit to carry a gun - and he used the weapon on the two suspected robbers.

Highway Patrol officers heard shots fired and apprehended Bilal, who had been shot in the hip.

Incredibly, the same CNN report dares to mention this past week's Loomis robbery murder case:

After a report by correspondent Jim Acosta that recounted the story of security guards who were attacked by a gunman in Philadelphia, Acosta mentioned that the city's police commissioner "took the nation's presidential candidates to task" for not making gun control an election issue.

I'd be willing to bet that had he robbed a local merchant instead of a bank, he'd have served a lot less time, but what is the campaign gun control issue?

Why did gun control laws fail to prevent a convicted bank robber from breaking them?

A better question might be: Why weren't there more concealed carry permit holders in the neighborhood?