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Ten
Myths About Gun Control
By Glen Otero, PhD
#1999-60
January 6, 1999
Introduction
For about a generation now, crime has run rampant in America. Since the 1960s
our rates of violent assault, murder, and rape have led the industrialized
world. More recently we have been able to cut these violent acts sharply back by
a return to an older policy: strong punishment for violent offenders. This
policy emerged from data discovered in the 1980s,[1] and it is proving a
powerful remedy to one of society’s chief ills.
Even as this policy has been vindicated by the clearest evidence, opponents
of tough criminal justice laws deny its efficacy.[2] Instead, a competing idea
has grown up to explain violence among us. And with that idea has grown up a new
policy to combat crime. This policy seeks to displace tough punishment of the
guilty. Indeed it does not even address itself directly to those who commit
crimes. Rather it addresses a tool that criminals, as well as millions of law
abiding citizens, sometimes use.
This new policy is gun control. Across our country a new regime of gun
control is emerging in a dozen forms. The movement exploits every celebrated act
of violence to advance its agenda. The attention given to these incidents
overwhelms the hundreds of thousands of offsetting cases in which guns are used
as defensive weapons to save the lives and property of the innocent.
At the Claremont Institute, we are devoted to the Constitution, and we take
seriously therefore its Second Amendment: "A well-regulated Militia, being
necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and
bear Arms shall not be infringed."
In many things today, we are too ready to think that the principles of the
American Revolution are relics of an irrelevant past. Neglect and defiance of
the Second Amendment is one of the worst examples. But before we consign the
right to keep and bear arms to the ash heap of history, let us look at some
contemporary facts that suggest that the founding principles reflect truths that
have not died.
—Larry P. Arnn
President
The Claremont Institute
Notes to Introduction
[1] See "Ten Myths on Crime," by Joseph Bessette, The Claremont
Institute, 1992 (GSP #13).
[2] Consider the puzzled tone of New York Times reporter Fox
Butterfield, in an article this August : "The nation’s prison population
grew by 5.2 percent in 1997," Butterfield wrote, "even though
crime has been declining for six straight years." The headline read:
"Prison Population Growing Although Crime Rate Drops," New
York Times, August 9, 1998, p. 18 (emphases added).
Myth 1: The proliferation of guns in this country is responsible for an increase
in the violent crime rate.
This is arguably the most pervasive untruth associated with firearms. It is
true that there is a great deal of gun-related violent crime in this country,
including homicide, robbery and assault. Additionally, the proliferation of
firearms in this country has been steadily increasing. These two facts have led
many to believe that the increase in guns in this country is responsible for the
increase in violent crime. However, decades of data collecting and analysis
reveal that nothing about a guns/crime relationship is self-evident.
In 1978 the National Institute of Justice initiated a study to examine the
relationship between firearms and violence. Upon reviewing the criminological
research to date, the authors of the study concluded that there were no strong
causal connections between private gun ownership and the crime rate.
Furthermore, they added that there was no good evidence supporting the idea that
homicide occurs just because guns are readily available, or its corollary, that
many homicides would not occur were guns less available.
Since 1978, criminological studies examining the relationship between violent
crime and private gun ownership have typically found no significant positive
effect of gun ownership on the violent crime rate. Some studies actually find a
negative relationship. In other words, areas with high gun ownership experienced
less crime than comparable areas with lower firearm ownership. Studies that draw
a causal inference from a gun/homicide correlation usually fail to take into
account the possible reverse relationship. That is, these studies do not address
the possibility that high crime rates may have stimulated higher gun ownership,
and not just the reverse.
The national homicide, gun homicide, robbery and gun robbery rates, as well
as the percentage of guns involved in aggravated assault, have not significantly
increased from what they were in 1974. However, the number of firearms in this
country increased 75 percent between 1974-1994, for a total of nearly 236
million guns. While the number of guns steadily increased in this country
between 1974-1994, half of that time the homicide and robbery rates were
decreasing, the other half they were increasing, resulting in no net change. The
proliferation of firearms during this period cannot be held responsible for an
increase in the violent crime rate when in fact there has been no such increase.
Furthermore, since 1994, the homicide rate has continued to drop, hitting a low
in 1996 not seen since 1969.
A simple calculation demonstrates that a very small fraction of the existing
guns are actually involved in any crime. The criminologist Gary Kleck estimated
the percentage of circulating guns actually involved in a crime for 1993. Let us
assume, as he did, that each of the 1,134,102 fatal and nonfatal gun-related
incidents in 1993 were committed with a different gun. This is a conservative
assumption that undoubtedly overestimates the actual number of guns involved in
violent crime. This number, divided by 228,660,966, the number of guns in
circulation that year, means that less than 0.5 percent of all guns were used in
a crime. Adjusting the calculations to accommodate crimes involving only
handguns yields a little over 1 percent of the circulating handguns in 1993
being involved in a crime. Further analysis by Kleck estimates that less than 1
percent of all guns will ever be used in a crime. Approximately 99 percent of
all guns are never involved in any crime.
Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). "Murder and Nonnegligent
Manslaughter." FBI Uniform Crime Reports for the United States, 1996-1997.
Available: <http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/CIUS/96CRIME/96CRIME.PDF> (26 October
1998). Lisa D. Bastian and Patsy A. Klaus, "Criminal Victimization in the
United States: 1973-92 Trends," U.S. Department of Justice, 1994. J.
Wright, P. Rossi, and K. Daly, Under the Gun: Weapons, Crime and Violence in
the United States, (New York: Aldine, 1983).
Myth 2: The proliferation of gun ownership in this country is responsible for an
alarming increase in fatal gun accidents involving children.
In 1995, Robert Walker, a lobbyist for Handgun Control Inc., claimed that
1,400 children are killed as a result of fatal gun accidents each year. But that
shocking claim is contradicted by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS)
and the National Safety Council (NSC). According to these agencies, 181 children
0-14 years of age were victims of fatal gun accidents in 1995. Since 1970, the
first year data is available from the NSC and the NCHS, fatal gun accidents
involving children under fifteen have not even approximated one half the number
Walker claimed.
Statistics quoted as representative of gun accidents involving preadolescents
(children under fourteen) are often inflated by including adolescent and young
adult incidents as well. This is a serious error since adolescents and young
adults are the highest risk categories for firearm accidents. Lumping together
children and adults seriously distorts the incidents attributed to preadolescent
children and infants. After properly separating children from adults, one finds
that while the number of guns increased 75 percent between 1974 and 1994, the
number of fatal gun accidents involving children ages 0-14 years decreased 65
percent over the same period.
Understandably, fatal gun accidents involving children tend to generate heavy
publicity. This disproportionate press coverage often implies that the majority
of accidental deaths of children is caused by firearms. In reality however,
between 1993-1996, fatal gun accidents accounted for less than 4 percent of all
the accidental deaths involving children under fifteen. Furthermore, firearm
accidents involving children under age 10 constituted just over 1 percent of
accidental children deaths in this age group from 1993-1995.
Sources: David B. Kopel, ed. Guns, Who Should Have Them?, (Amherst:
Prometheus Books, 1995). "10 Leading Causes of Death, United States
1993-95." Available: <http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/osp/leadcaus/ustable.htm>
(4 May 1998). "Deaths Due to Unintentional Injuries, 1996 Type of Event and
Age of Victim." Accident Facts. 22 Sept. 1997. Available:
<http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/afp08.htm#H> (22 October 1998). Gary
Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New York: Walter de
Gruyter, Inc., 1997).
Myth 3: The proliferation of guns is responsible for an increase in suicides.
The availability of guns is often presumed to increase the suicide rate. In
fact, our suicide rates are higher than our homicide rates. Nonetheless, between
1974-1994, while the civilian gun stock increased 75 percent, the total suicide
rate in this country fluctuated very little and amounted to 12 deaths per
100,000 persons in 1974 and 1994. Evidently, the remarkable increase in the
number of guns in this country has not increased the rate of suicide.
If gun availability does influence suicide, one would have to explain why
countries with strict gun control laws, such as West Germany, France, Austria,
Finland, Belgium, Denmark, Hungary, Luxembourg, Norway and Canada, have higher
suicide rates than the U.S. If we group the suicides and homicides together as
an indicator of handgun availability, the U.S. falls below the international
median in this statistic. The view that gun availability has a direct effect on
total suicide rates, here and abroad, is not supported by any empirical evidence
or technically sound studies.
It is worth noting, however, that the rate of suicides committed with guns,
or the gun suicide rate, increased slightly from 6.7 to 7.2 deaths per 100,000
persons in the last twenty years. Similarly, the percentage of suicides
committed with guns increased slightly from 55.4 percent in 1974 to 60.3 percent
in 1994. The slight increase in the rate and percentage of gun suicides
demonstrates that increased gun availability does correlate with an increase in
the number of suicides committed with guns. Additionally, nine of thirteen
studies conducted between 1984 and 1993 also found a positive association
between gun levels and the gun suicide rate. However, only one of the studies
found a direct correlation between gun levels and the total suicide rate, and
there is reason to believe that this study is flawed technically, having used an
invalid method to measure gun availability. A study of state level data in 1990
also found a direct correlation between gun levels and gun suicides but not
total suicides.
It should be reemphasized that the increases in the number of suicides
committed with guns and the gun suicide rate represent firearms being chosen
more often in suicides, and not an increase in total suicides. So, while people
in this country are more frequently choosing firearms as the means of
self-destruction, the number of total suicides remains relatively unchanged.
Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). Don B. Kates Jr. and Gary Kleck, The
Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence, (San Francisco:
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1997).
Myth 4: Strict gun control laws have been successful in lowering crime in the UK
and Canada.
Comparing the U.S. to the low guns/low crime societies of the United Kingdom
or Canada is one of the most common arguments among gun control advocates. In
rebuttal, gun control opponents typically reference high guns/low crime nations
such as Switzerland and Israel. However, these comparisons miss the mark. The
futility of pairwise comparisons between nations’ crime rates relative to
their gun ownership becomes apparent once one realizes that there are countries
with every permutation: the US (high guns/high crime); Switzerland and Israel
(high guns/low crime); Japan (low guns/low crime); and Mexico (low guns/high
crime). Any two countries can be compared or contrasted to make any point
desired.
A simple thought experiment will illustrate this point: Three countries, X, Y
and Z have very strict anti-gun laws. Should we assume their homicide rates to
be very low? In fact, X, Y and Z have homicide rates 100-150 percent greater
than the U.S. (compare the U.S. homicide rate at 9.5 people killed/100,000 to
X’s 19.7/100,000 in 1993). Should we suppose that X, Y and Z have one common
feature that is responsible for their homicide rates? Since X, Y and Z are low
guns/high crime societies, should we assume that guns are not causing the
homicides? If so, why not?
X, Y and Z are actually Russia, Taiwan and South Africa, respectively. But
which one characteristic, the same in Russia, Taiwan and South Africa throughout
the past and present, is responsible for their homicide rates? Attempting to
distill the cause of homicide down to one factor such as guns, in each of these
very diverse countries, is difficult if not impossible.
Gun control advocates claim that the crime rate is low in the UK because the
British have fewer guns than Americans. But European countries have always had
lower violent crime rates than the US, even before strict gun control laws were
passed. Moreover, many violent crime rates in Europe and elsewhere are
increasing faster than in the U.S. right now.
Furthermore, the logic of the low guns/low crime rate fails when one
considers that the UK’s homicide rate is lower for non-gun homicides as well.
Clearly, fewer homicides committed with knives, sticks, etc. cannot be
attributable to gun control.
Very little can be concluded from international studies focused on the
guns/crime relationship. Not surprisingly, most of the research is technically
weak. The best available homicide and suicide data collected from 36 countries
by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when analyzed by Gary Kleck,
demonstrates that there is no significant correlation between gun ownership and
homicide.
To summarize, there is no consistent global correlation between gun
availability and violent crime rates.
Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control. (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). Don B. Kates Jr. and Gary Kleck, The
Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence. (San Francisco:
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1997).
Myth 5: Criminals prefer ‘assault weapons’ and cheap handguns
sometimes called ‘Saturday Night Specials’.
In an attempt to identify and isolate ‘bad’ guns, monikers like
‘assault weapon’ and ‘Saturday Night Special’ were created. In fact, the
term ‘assault weapon’ does not exist in firearms technical literature, but
was created by gun control advocates no earlier than 1985. An ‘assault
weapon’ is loosely defined as a semi-automatic firearm with a ‘military
appearance’. Many semi-automatic rifles, pistols and even shotguns can fit
this vague description. Other weapons having a hi-tech or a futuristic look,
although not related to any military firearm, may also be considered ‘assault
weapons’. Assault rifles, on the other hand, are clearly defined in the
Defense Department’s Defense Intelligence Agency manual Small Arms
Identification and Operation Guide as ‘short, compact, selective-fire
weapons that fire a cartridge intermediate in power between submachine gun and
rifle cartridges’. In short, assault rifles are military issue combat rifles
that can fire automatically. These military assault rifles and other machine
guns have been tightly regulated ever since 1934, with the passage of the
National Firearms Act. None of the current ‘assault weapon’ laws applies to
these long-prohibited firearms.
The inability clearly to define an ‘assault weapon’ led to the banning of
several specific makes and models of firearms in California as a result of the
Roberti-Roos Assault Weapon Control Act in 1989. However, the legislation did
not include several firearms similar to the 75 that were banned, and it
contained a provision that allowed the Attorney General to add firearms to the
list with a judge’s approval. These shortcomings in the legislation were
deemed unconstitutional and struck down by the California Third Appellate Court
of Appeals under the precept that they violated the principle of equal
protection under the law. The court went so far as to say that the whole law may
be unconstitutional and has asked a lower court to review it further. Part of
the 1994 federal Crime Bill included the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms
Use and Protection Act, a.k.a. the Clinton Assault Weapon Ban. That act is
plagued with similar legislative shortcomings and is being challenged in a U.S.
Circuit Court of Appeals. Since 1994, President Clinton has taken advantage of
the vague definition of an ‘assault weapon’ and the ambiguity of the
legislation, in an attempt to ban more firearms. He recently issued an order
that bars the import of several other ‘assault weapons’ that comply with the
1994 law. The ‘assault weapon’ debate is by far the most publicized and most
controversial firearm-related topic to date. But a few examples will suffice to
demonstrate that ‘assault weapons’ are not preferred by criminals:
Los Angeles: A study of drive-by shootings in Los Angeles indicated that out
of 583 documented incidents, in only one was an ‘assault weapon’ used. Only
3 percent of the guns recovered by police in Los Angeles in 1988 were classified
as ‘assault weapons’.
San Francisco: 2.2 percent of the guns confiscated in 1988 were military
style semi-automatic firearms.
Oakland: 4.3 percent of the guns recovered by police in Oakland between
1985-1990 were of the ‘assault weapon’ category, while ‘assault weapons’
involved in gun-related homicides in that city amounted to 3.7 percent in 1991.
San Diego: Only 0.3 percent of the guns recovered by police in San Diego
between 1988-1990 were classified as ‘assault weapons’.
California: In California, just over 3 percent of the guns recovered from
homicides, aggravated assaults and drug dealers in 1990 were ‘assault
weapons’.
Nationwide: Analysis of guns recovered by police nationwide between 1980-1994
demonstrates that on average, less than 2 percent of the guns used in crime are
‘assault weapons’. Just over 2 percent of all the felons in the United
States incarcerated up until 1991 for committing violent crimes with a firearm
used an assault rifle or ‘assault weapon’. Less than 1 percent of homicides
are committed using an assault rifle. During the years 1975-1992 only 1 percent
of police officers murdered in the line of duty were shot with firearms
considered ‘assault weapons’ by California law.
Just as ‘assault weapons’ are not preferred by criminals, neither are
‘Saturday Night Specials’. Like the term ‘assault weapon’, the label
‘Saturday Night Special’ is also vague. For all intents and purposes, a
‘Saturday Night Special’ is an inexpensive, low caliber handgun, with a
barrel that is under three inches long. Like ‘assault weapons’, the
characteristics that define ‘Saturday Night Specials’ are cosmetic in
nature. However, ‘Saturday Night Specials’, thus defined, are involved in
less than 3 percent of violent crime, and only about 2 percent of all
‘Saturday Night Specials’ will ever be used in a violent crime. In support
of this statistic, felons interviewed by Wright and Rossi admitted to actually
preferring larger caliber handguns. These are not much harder to conceal and are
considerably more powerful than ‘Saturday Night Specials’. The heated debate
and copious legislation surrounding these ‘bad’ guns is striking,
considering they are not the guns most utilized by criminals.
Sources: David B. Kopel, ed., Guns, Who Should Have Them?, (Amherst:
Prometheus Books, 1995). Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their
Control, (New York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). Wright, J., and Peter H.
Rossi, "The Armed Criminal in America: A Survey of Incarcerated
Felons," National Institute of Justice, 1985.
Myth 6: Few people actually use guns for self-defense.
The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) predicted in 1987 that 83
percent of people in this country would be a victim of violent crime during
their lifetime. Considering the violent crime rate has not changed
significantly, about 80 percent of the citizenry, in possession of over 230
million guns, with nearly half the households having a gun, are going to come
face to face with a violent criminal one day. This situation makes one think
that there would be many instances of defensive gun use in this country. In
fact, thirteen studies conducted between 1976 and 1994 estimated that there were
between 770,00 and 3.6 million civilian defensive gun uses per year.
The National Self-Defense Survey (NSDS), conducted by Gary Kleck and Marc
Gertz in 1993, has yielded the most accurate estimate of defensive gun use to
date. While designing this landmark study, the authors corrected many flaws
found in several previous surveys. In doing so, the authors constructed the
first survey ever specifically designed to tally the number of defensive gun
uses in this country. The survey revealed that between 1988-1993 civilians used
guns in self-defense 2.2-2.5 million times per year, saving between 240,000-
400,000 lives each year. Based on their results, Kleck and Gertz estimated that
the number of defensive gun uses is three to four times that of illegal gun
uses.
While 2.2-2.5 million defensive gun uses per year compares favorably with the
results obtained in the thirteen previous studies, it is roughly 35 times higher
than the 65-80,000 defensive gun uses documented by the National Crime
Victimization Surveys (NCVS) for the years 1979-1990. In addressing the
disparity between the NSDS, the NCVS, and the results obtained with either
survey, Kleck has pointed out several reasons why the NCVS, while a good survey
for determining the number of criminal victimizations in this country, was very
poorly designed to document the number of defensive gun uses. (The NCVS relies
on questioning, conducted without anonymity, by the U.S. Census Bureau for the
U.S. Department of Justice. One can understand the unwillingness of respondents
to report the use of firearms—even if entirely justifiable—to the highest
law enforcement agency in the country.)
Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). Don B. Kates Jr., and Gary Kleck, The
Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence, (San Francisco:
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1997). Michael R. Rand, "Guns
and Crime: Handgun Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft,"
U.S. Department of Justice, 1994.
Myth 7: Gun control laws take guns out of the hands of criminals and lower
violent crime.
Gun control as a whole has not worked to reduce violent crime rates in this
country. A large amount of the research on gun control measures, particularly
that referenced by gun control advocacy groups, is technically poor. Out of the
21 most accurate studies, 17 found that gun control laws did not reduce violent
crime rates; two studies resulted in ambiguous results and two studies indicated
a negative (inverse) effect on violent crime rates. Furthermore, of the 21
studies, the most comprehensive one tested the effects of 19 different gun
control laws on six categories of violent crime. The researchers found that of
102 direct tests, only three demonstrated definitively that a particular measure
worked in reducing the rate of a particular violent crime. Fifteen tests yielded
ambiguous results; the remaining 84 tests yielded negative results. The authors
concluded that the various gun control laws have no overall significant effect
on violent crime rates. Summarily, the body of research on the effects of gun
control laws cannot be considered supportive of their efficacy.
A gun control law that has spawned a lot of controversy is the Brady Handgun
Violence Prevention Act or Brady Bill. The Brady law requires a mandatory
five-day waiting period between the purchase and acquisition of a handgun from a
federally licensed dealer. During this waiting period it is determined whether
the prospective purchaser of a handgun is a person prohibited ownership of
handguns by any State or Federal law. Despite research demonstrating that
waiting periods do not lower violent crime (see above), the Brady Act went into
effect on February 28, 1994.
When the Brady Bill was signed into law, eighteen states and Washington D.C.
were automatically exempt from the law because they already had stricter gun
control laws. These exempt states and D.C. accounted for 63 percent of the
nation’s violent crimes and 58 percent of the nation’s murders. Two of the
originally exempt states, California and New York, have the highest and second
highest number of murders and violent crimes, respectively. By 1997, ten more
states had become exempt from the Brady Bill. The 28 exempt states and D.C.
accounted for 75 percent of all violent crimes and 70 percent of the murders in
the nation. In fact, California and New York have more violent crimes than the
remaining 22 states subject to the five-day wait.
The Clinton Administration is constantly misquoting the Bureau of Justice
Statistics regarding the number of persons denied handgun purchases under Brady.
The numbers compiled by the Bureau of Justice Statistics need to be viewed with
skepticism, since they often do not take into account states that have become
exempt under Brady. Despite the number of persons claimed by the President to
have been denied handgun purchases under Brady, the actual number is 3 percent,
or less, of prospective owners per year. This means that 97 percent of persons
attempting to purchase handguns from federally licensed dealers are law-abiding
citizens. The actual number is undoubtedly higher since a study conducted by the
General Accounting Office (GAO) determined that half of the denials in the first
year of Brady enforcement were wrongly dispensed due to clerical errors and
other technicalities, and later reversed.
Using crime rate data for all 3,054 counties in the U.S. between 1977 and
1994, John Lott completed an analysis of the Brady law’s impact during its
first year. His research demonstrated that the law had no significant effect on
murder or robbery rates, while rape and aggravated assault rates experienced
significant increases.
The GAO also determined that in the first 17 months of Brady enforcement,
only seven individuals were convicted of illegal attempts to purchase a handgun,
and only three of these were sent to prison.
Additionally, the part of Brady that incorporates local police forces to do
the federal government’s bidding has been ruled unconstitutional. Yet, the
current administration wants to keep the five-day waiting period in effect even
though that provision of the bill expired on November 30th of last
year. Although the administration claims that it deters crime, the only thing
Brady does for sure is criminalize the law-abiding citizen.
Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). David B. Kopel, ed. Guns, Who Should
Have Them?, (Amherst: Prometheus Books, 1995). Donald A. Manson and Darrell
K. Gilliard, "Presale Handgun Checks, 1996," U.S. Department of
Justice, 1997. Donald A. Manson and Darrell K. Gilliard, "Presale Handgun
Checks, 1997," U.S. Department of Justice, 1998. Don Manson and Gene Lauver,
"Presale Firearm Checks," U.S. Department of Justice, 1997. Sarah
Brady, "Statement of Sarah Brady Re: New DOJ Report On Brady Law
Success." Handgun Control, Inc. News Releases. (21 June 1998). Available:
<http://www.handguncontrol.org/e-main.htm> (30 June 1998). "The
‘Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act’ Does It Live Up To Its Name?"
ILA Research & Information Division Fact Sheet. (1 May 1997).
Available: <http://www.nra.org/research/fsbrady.html> (June 1998). John
R. Lott Jr., More Guns, Less Crime, (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, 1998).
Myth 8: You, and your family and friends, are 43 times more likely to be shot by
a gun kept in the home than is a criminal intruder.
The infamous study that yielded this illogical statistic is just one of many
that litter the public health and medical literature. Serious shortcomings in
rationale and methodology plague the study. Nevertheless, the 43:1 ratio is
arguably the gun control advocate’s most cited statistic.
The study’s authors start from the presumption that the effectiveness of
gun ownership for self-defense can only be ascertained by contrasting dead
intruders with dead innocents. Nothing could be further from the truth. Similar
to police forces and other household security measures, the real benefits of gun
ownership, demonstrated in the NSDS, are to be counted not in corpses but in
lives saved and crimes deterred. In no way do the authors address this. In fact,
the study only counted homes in which a homicide or suicide took place, ignoring
gun-containing households that may have successfully defended themselves from
criminal victimization with a firearm or had no incidents occur at all.
In an attempt to conjure up a risk factor due to having a gun in the home,
the authors tallied the gun related deaths in the homes studied. In doing so,
the authors included suicides. Of the 43 gun related deaths included in the
study, 37 were suicides. The inclusion of suicides as gun related deaths would
be reasonable if gun availability affected suicide rates. But, as explained in
disputing Myth #3, gun availability does not influence suicide rates. The
suicides would almost certainly have occurred by some other means in the absence
of a gun. Additionally, the authors excluded many cases of lawful self-defense
homicide. So, in deriving their risk factor of gun related deaths vs.
self-defense homicides, the authors used an inflated numerator and an
under-representative denominator.
Moreover, the Seattle-based homes investigated were not the average American
households. The study group was teeming with high-risk households that contained
a disproportionate number of people with histories of arrests, drug abuse and
domestic violence. By studying these high-risk homes, one cannot make sweeping
generalizations regarding the rest of this country.
Sources: Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). David B. Kopel, "The 43:1
Fallacy." Independence Feature Syndicate Opinion-Editorial. 1998.
Available: <http://www.i2i.org/SuptDocs/Crime/43_to_1_fallacy.htm> (31
July 1998).
Myth 9: Ordinary citizens (non-police, non-military) cannot effectively use
firearms for self-defense and are more likely to get injured using a gun for
self-defense than not.
The utility of defensive gun use can be determined by referencing the NCVS
database and analyzing crime incidents that occurred between 1979-1985. These
files are the most detailed and representative account of the defensive actions
of victims. According to the information in the database, guns are the most
effective weapon and means of self-defense in thwarting robbery and assault.
When using a gun in self-defense, 83 percent of robbery victims and 88 percent
of assault victims were not injured. Furthermore, only one in four victims using
a gun in self-defense was even attacked during a robbery or assault. These rates
were by far the lowest compared to other weapons, bodily force, or nonviolent
actions used in self-defense. Additional support for defensive gun use can be
garnered from the NSDS. The NSDS, which has yielded the most detailed
information on defensive gun use to date, concluded that only 5.5 percent of
victims using guns in self-defense were injured.
Despite the impression fostered by films and TV, the majority of
confrontations are not very dramatic. According to the NSDS, 76 percent of the
incidents were resolved without the victim firing a shot. In only 16 percent of
the incidents did the victim attempt to shoot the criminal, with no more than 8
percent of all incidents resulting in the wounding or death of the criminal. In
fact, only 18 percent of the gun defense victims faced a criminal in possession
of a gun, and only 3 percent of the incidents resulted in both parties shooting
at each other.
Contrary to the popular fear that a criminal is likely to seize the
victim’s gun and use it against him, this situation occurred in about 1
percent of the incidents recorded in the NCVS. Furthermore, less than 2 percent
of fatal gun accidents are defendants mistaking someone for an intruder.
Sources: Gary Kleck. Targeting Guns: Firearms and Their Control, (New
York: Walter de Gruyter, Inc., 1997). Don B. Kates Jr., and Gary Kleck. The
Great American Gun Debate: Essays on Firearms and Violence, (San Francisco:
Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, 1997).
Myth 10: Law-abiding citizens cannot be trusted to safely carry concealed
weapons in public.
Most Americans who believe that more guns mean more crime are particularly
afraid of people carrying handguns in public places and believe that carrying
guns in public would escalate and foster violent conflict, turning
fender-benders and other minor grievances into gunfights. In reality, a landmark
study by John Lott and David Mustard has concluded that concealed handguns in
the hands of law-abiding citizens deter violent crime while producing no
significant increase in gun related accidents.
In an extensive and exhaustive study, Lott and Mustard used county level
crime rate data for all 3,054 U.S. counties between 1977 and 1992. During that
time, ten states adopted non-discretionary right-to-carry laws. That is, once an
individual meets certain criteria for carrying a concealed handgun, a permit
must be issued. The research accounted for many variables including income,
poverty and unemployment levels, as well as arrest and conviction rates, prison
term lengths and changes in handgun laws (e.g. waiting periods).
The researchers discovered that when a county adopted a right-to-carry law,
murder fell by 8 percent, rape fell by 5 percent and aggravated assault fell by
7 percent. At the same time, handgun accidents did not increase significantly.
It was estimated that if states without non-discretionary right-to-carry laws
had adopted them in 1992, these states would have experienced 1,400 fewer
murders, 4,200 fewer rapes, 12,000 fewer robberies and 60,000 fewer aggravated
assaults. These reductions in violent crime would have saved victims over $5
billion.
Demographically, urban counties adopting right-to-carry laws experienced the
largest drops in violent crime. Counties issuing the most concealed carry
permits also experienced the largest drops in violent crime. According to Lott
and Mustard, women and minorities benefited the most from right-to-carry
permits.
Thirty-one states now have non-discretionary concealed carry laws that allow
law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns for protection in public.
Sources: John R. Lott Jr, and David B. Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence, and
Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," Journal of Legal Studies 26
(1997): 1-68. John R. Lott., More Guns, Less Crime. (Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press, 1998).
Concluding Remarks
Scholarly analysis of decades of firearm-related data and research
consistently demonstrates that guns do not cause crime. Yet, many Americans have
a different opinion. How does such a gap between the truth in gun ownership and
public opinion arise?
MediaWatch, a media watchdog organization, examined every gun control policy
story on four evening shows (ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News,
CNN’s The World Today, and NBC Nightly News) and three morning
broadcasts (ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, and
NBC’s Today) between July 1, 1995 and June 30, 1997. MediaWatch
calculated that in those two years 157 pro-gun control stories were aired
compared to 10 stories opposed to gun control, while another 77 stories were
neutral. This approximate 16:1 ratio in favor of gun control hardly depicts an
unbiased media. Therein lies a major obstacle to spreading the truth about gun
ownership. While adopting a decidedly biased anti-gun stance, the media also
fails to promote firearm safety and education.
And judging from the depth and breadth of gun related myths in circulation, a
firearm education is one thing this country desperately needs…and deserves.
Sources: "Gun Rights Forces Outgunned on TV: Networks
Use First Amendment Rights to Promote Opponents of Second Amendment
Rights." MediaWatch. July 1997. Available: www.mrc.org/news/mediawatch/1997/mw19970701stud.html
(30 Oct. 1998).
Glen Otero is an Adjunct Fellow of The
Claremont Institute and a Research Associate at the Salk Institute for
Biological Studies in La Jolla, California. Dr. Otero holds a Ph.D. in
Microbiology and Immunology from UCLA.
Copyright Claremont Institute 1999
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