Important article-John Lott
dena...@ix.netcom.com
Wall Street Journal, 11 Nov. 1998
By John R. Lott JR.
Gun control became a defining issue in several of last
week's elections. Those candidates opposing new regulations
were painted as uncaring thugs indifferent to people's
deaths. Meanwhile, New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial last month
filed suit against 15 gun makers, demanding that they reim-
burse the city and pay punitive damages for all the city's
health care expenses and police salaries that arise from gun
violence. Other cities seem certain to follow, and that is
only part of the litigation threatening to engulf gun mak-
ers. To these plaintiffs, the solution to crime is simple
and obvious: eliminate guns.
America may be obsessed with guns, but much of what
passes as fact simply isn't true. The news media focus on
tragic outcomes, while ignoring tragic events that were
avoided. Rarely do we hear about the more than two million
times each year that people use guns defensively including
cases in which public shootings are stopped before they
happen. Dramatic stories of mothers using guns to prevent
their children from being kidnapped by carjackers seldom
even make the local news.
Myths about guns can threaten people's safety, by
frightening them and preventing them from using the most
effective means to defend themselves. Here are five of the
most prevalent myths:
* When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest
approach. The Department of Justice's National Crime
Victimization Survey reports that the probability of
serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for
women offering no resistance than for women resisting
with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the
benefits are smaller: Offering no resistance is 1.4
times more likely to result in serious injury than
resisting with a gun. Resistance with a gun is the
safest course of action for victims to take.
* Friends or relatives are the most likely killers. This
myth is usually based on two claims: that 53% of murder
victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances
and that anyone could be a murderer. With the broad
definition of "acquaintances" used in the FBI's Uniform
Crime Reports, most victims are indeed classified as
knowing their killer. But what's not made clear is
that acquaintance murder primarily includes drug buyers
killing pushers, cabdrivers killed by first time cus-
tomers, gang members killing other gang members, pros-
titutes killed by their clients, and so on. Only one
U.S. city, Chicago, reports a precise breakdown on the
nature of acquaintance killings, and the statistic
gives a very different impression: between 1990 and
1995, just 17% of murder victims were either family
members, friends, neighbors or roommates of their
killers.
Murderers are also not average citizens. About 90% of
adult murderers already have an adult criminal record.
Murderers are overwhelmingly young males with low IQs
who have long histories of difficulty getting along
with others.
* The U.S. has a high murder rate because Americans own
so many guns. There is no international evidence
backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns
all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995
Switzerland had a murder rate 40% lower than Germany's,
and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Fin-
land and Sweden have very different gun ownership
rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a
higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder
rate 40% below Canada's. When one studies all coun-
tries rather than just a select few, there is no rela-
tionship between gun ownership and murder. U.S. data
indicates that those states that have had the largest
increases in gun ownership have had the greatest drops
in violent crime rates.
* If law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry concealed
handguns, people will end up shooting each other after
traffic accidents as well as accidentally shooting
police officers. Millions of people currently hold
concealed handgun permits, and some states have issued
them for as long as 60 years. Yet only one permit
holder has ever used a concealed handgun after a traf-
fic accident, and that case was ruled as self-defense.
The type of person willing to go through the permitting
process is extremely law-abiding. In Florida, almost
444,000 licenses were granted from 1987 to 1997, but
only 84 people have lost their licenses for any viola-
tions involving firearms. Most violations that lead to
permits being revoked involve accidentally carrying a
gun into restricted areas, like airports or schools.
In Virginia, not a single permit holder has committed a
violent crime. Similar encouraging results have been
reported in Kentucky, Nevada, North Carolina, South
Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, the only other states
where information is available.
* The family gun is more likely to kill you or someone
you know than to kill in self-defense. The 1993 study
yielding such numbers, published in the New England
Journal of Medicine, never actually inquired as to
whose gun was used in the killing. Instead, if a
household owned a gun and if a person in that household
or someone he knew was shot to death while in the home,
the gun in the household was blamed. In fact, virtual-
ly all the killings in the study were committed with
guns brought in by an intruder. No more than 4% of the
gun deaths in the study can be attributed to the home-
owner's gun. Also ignored is that 98% of the time when
people use a gun defensively, merely brandishing the
weapon is sufficient to stop an attack. In less than
1% of the cases is a gun even fired directly at the at-
tacker. How many attacks have been deterred from ever
occurring by the potential victims owning a gun? My own
research finds that more concealed handguns, and in-
creased gun ownership generally, unambiguously deters
murder, robbery and aggravated assaults. This is also
in line with the well known fact that criminals prefer
attacking victims that they consider weak.
These are only some of the myths about guns and crime
that drive the public policy debate. We must not lose sight
of the ultimate question: Does allowing citizens to own guns
on net save lives? The evidence, strongly indicates that it
does.
Mr. Lott is a fellow at the University of Chicago Law
School. He is author of "More Guns, Less Crime: Understand-
ing Crime and Gun Control Laws" (University of Chicago
Press, 1998).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Processed by WordSTAR for DOS 7.0 by Carl William Spitzer IV
GOD save America from herself
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are
not warned from time to time that their people preserve the
spirit of resistance? The tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
It is its natural manure) *Thomas Jefferson
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God.--Thomas Jefferson
*******************************
"If no one among us is capable of governing himself, then
who among us is capable of governing someone else"
Ronald Reagan
*******************************
There are very few problems in the world that cant be cured
by the appropriate amount of high explosives..--unknown
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in
most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine
this right within the narrowest limits possible.Wherever
standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the
people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext
whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated,
is on the brink of destruction." -- Henry St. George Tuck-
er,in Blackstone's 1768 "Commentaries on the Laws of Eng-
land."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would
things have been like if every Security operative, when he
went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain
whether he would return alive and had to say goodbye to his
family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for exam-
ple in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire
city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling
in terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every
step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing
left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an
ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or
whatever else was at hand.-- The Organs would very quickly
have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and,
notwithstanding all of Stalin's thirst, the cursed machine
would have ground to a halt!"
Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, *The Gulag Archipelago*
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C section
107, this material is distributed without profit
or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-
profit research and educational purposes only.For
more information go to:
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Tim Lambert
> Gun Control Advocates Purvey Deadly Myths
> Wall Street Journal, 11 Nov. 1998
> By John R. Lott JR.
> * When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest
> approach. The Department of Justice's National Crime
> Victimization Survey reports that the probability of
> serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for
> women offering no resistance than for women resisting
> with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the
> benefits are smaller: Offering no resistance is 1.4
> times more likely to result in serious injury than
> resisting with a gun. Resistance with a gun is the
> safest course of action for victims to take.
This might be true, but it hardly follows from the data presented.
When two things are correlated, (here with-gun resistance and lack of
serious injury) it does not inevitably follow that the first caused
the second. It also possible that the second caused the first: That
is, it may be that receiving a serious injury makes it harder for
someone to deploy a gun. And it is also possible that some third
factor caused both. For example, experience of a violent attack may
help someone learn how to avoid injury and also prompt them to get a
gun for defence.
> * The U.S. has a high murder rate because Americans own
> so many guns. There is no international evidence
> backing this up. The Swiss, New Zealanders and Finns
> all own guns as frequently as Americans, yet in 1995
> Switzerland had a murder rate 40% lower than Germany's,
> and New Zealand had one lower than Australia's. Fin-
> land and Sweden have very different gun ownership
> rates, but very similar murder rates. Israel, with a
> higher gun ownership rate than the U.S., has a murder
> rate 40% below Canada's.
The international correlation between gun ownership and homicide is
not perfect, so it possible for Dr Lott to cherry-pick a subset of
countries to "prove" that there is no correlation. However, he has
hasn't even done that competantly. Here is data on homicide rate and
household gun ownership percentages taken from
http://www.cybersurf.co.uk/johnny/dunblane/homemain.html
homicide gun ownership
USA 7.6 48
Switzerland 1.2 27
Finland 3.0 23
New Zealand 2.0 22
Australia 1.9 19
Sweden 1.3 15
W.Germany 1.2 9
I counted six errors of fact in just two of his sentences.
> When one studies all coun-
> tries rather than just a select few, there is no rela-
> tionship between gun ownership and murder.
Actually, there is, provided you use correct numbers...
> U.S. data
> indicates that those states that have had the largest
> increases in gun ownership have had the greatest drops
> in violent crime rates.
Once again Dr Lott relies on demonstrably false data. There have been
dozens of polls on gun ownership in the US. These show that it has
stayed pretty much the same over several decades. Howver, he has
picked out just two of these many polls and concluded that gun
ownership increased by 50% over 8 years, in spite of the fact that
there was no appreciable increase in gun sales.
> * The family gun is more likely to kill you or someone
> you know than to kill in self-defense. The 1993 study
> yielding such numbers, published in the New England
> Journal of Medicine, never actually inquired as to
> whose gun was used in the killing. Instead, if a
> household owned a gun and if a person in that household
> or someone he knew was shot to death while in the home,
> the gun in the household was blamed. In fact, virtual-
> ly all the killings in the study were committed with
> guns brought in by an intruder. No more than 4% of the
> gun deaths in the study can be attributed to the home-
> owner's gun.
This is so completely and thoroughly wrong that it makes me wonder
whether Dr Lott even read the study that he is criticising. Heck, I
don't think he even read the abstract.
1. The study did not find that the "family gun is more likely to kill
you or someone you know than to kill in self-defense". It found, and
I quote from the abstract "guns kept in the home are associated with
an increase in the risk of homicide by a family member or intimate
acquaintance."
2. It is not true that virtually all the killings were committed with
guns brought in by an intruder. The data is publically available on
the net and shows that less than 10% of the killings were of this
type. Note also that the abstract refers to family and lovers rather
than intruders.
3. It is not true that no more than 4% of the gun deaths in the study
can be attributed to the homeowner's gun. In fact, the majority of
them can be.
> Also ignored is that 98% of the time when
> people use a gun defensively, merely brandishing the
> weapon is sufficient to stop an attack. In less than
> 1% of the cases is a gun even fired directly at the at-
> tacker.
This is wrong. There is some contention over whether the NCVS or
Kleck's survey gives a more accurate estimate of the number of
defensive gun uses, but they do both agree that the gun is fired
between 24 and 40 per cent of the time.
> How many attacks have been deterred from ever
> occurring by the potential victims owning a gun? My own
> research finds that more concealed handguns, and in-
> creased gun ownership generally, unambiguously deters
> murder, robbery and aggravated assaults.
The claims about increased gun ownership are wrong since they rely on
the faulty survey data discussed earlier. Nor has Dr Lott demonstrated
that the number of concealed handguns increased significantly. If by
"more concealed handguns" Dr Lott is referring to the passage of
"shall-issue" laws, his claim is still not correct. His own research
found that the laws were associated with an INCREASE in robbery.
--
Tim
Tim Lambert
> In <tnww4rb...@oolong.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU> Tim Lambert
> <lam...@cse.unsw.EDU.AU> writes:
> >
> >dena...@ix.netcom.com writes:
> >
> >> Gun Control Advocates Purvey Deadly Myths
> >> Wall Street Journal, 11 Nov. 1998
> >> By John R. Lott JR.
> >
> >> * When one is attacked, passive behavior is the safest
> >> approach. The Department of Justice's National Crime
> >> Victimization Survey reports that the probability of
> >> serious injury from an attack is 2.5 times greater for
> >> women offering no resistance than for women resisting
> >> with a gun. Men also benefit from using a gun, but the
> >> benefits are smaller: Offering no resistance is 1.4
> >> times more likely to result in serious injury than
> >> resisting with a gun. Resistance with a gun is the
> >> safest course of action for victims to take.
> >
> >This might be true, but it hardly follows from the data presented.
> >When two things are correlated, (here with-gun resistance and lack of
> >serious injury) it does not inevitably follow that the first caused
> >the second. It also possible that the second caused the first: That
> >is, it may be that receiving a serious injury makes it harder for
> >someone to deploy a gun. And it is also possible that some third
> >factor caused both. For example, experience of a violent attack may
> >help someone learn how to avoid injury and also prompt them to get a
> >gun for defence.
>
>
> The United States Department of Justice agrees with Dr. Lott:
> Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief., Guns and Crime: Handgun
> Victimization, Firearm Self-Defense, and Firearm Theft, April 1994,
> NCJ-147003:
> "A fifth of the victims defending themselves with a firearm
> suffered an injury, compared to almost half of those who defended
> themselves with weapons other than a firearm or who had no weapon."
Oh dear, you seem to have left out the very next sentence from that
report: "Care should be used in interpreting these data because many
aspects of crimes--including victim and offender
characteristics, crime circumstances, and offender
intent--contribute to the victims' injury outcomes."
The DOJ makes the same point that I do.
> And which subset are you cherry-picking from?
I'm not cherry-picking -- these are the countries that Lott mentioned.
> And how can you say these
> figures disagree with Lott's when one is one murders, the other on
> homicides, and neither specify a year?
You can't get international statistics for murder, so Lott is probably
using murder as a synonym for homicide. The year does not matter
much, since the homicide rate does not change much from year to year.
> >> U.S. data
> >> indicates that those states that have had the largest
> >> increases in gun ownership have had the greatest drops
> >> in violent crime rates.
> >
> >Once again Dr Lott relies on demonstrably false data. There have been
>
> >dozens of polls on gun ownership in the US. These show that it has
> >stayed pretty much the same over several decades. Howver, he has
> >picked out just two of these many polls and concluded that gun
> >ownership increased by 50% over 8 years, in spite of the fact that
> >there was no appreciable increase in gun sales.
> You are contradicting yourself. You said that all polls showed it
> stayed the same, yet two polls showed it did not stay the same.
The polls did not all give the same answer, since they asked the
qusetion in different ways, but there was no trend in the results over
time. Lott picked out two polls where the first poll gave a smaller
number than the second one. He could just as easily have picked two
polls where the second was smaller than there first and concluded that
gun ownership went down.
> And,
> since firearms rarely wear out, wouldn't ANY sales increase ownership?
No, since Lott was referring to the percentage of the population that
are gun owners. A sale to someone who already owns a gun does not
increase this. The population is also increasing.
> >> Also ignored is that 98% of the time when
> >> people use a gun defensively, merely brandishing the
> >> weapon is sufficient to stop an attack. In less than
> >> 1% of the cases is a gun even fired directly at the at-
> >> tacker.
> >
> >This is wrong. There is some contention over whether the NCVS or
> >Kleck's survey gives a more accurate estimate of the number of
> >defensive gun uses, but they do both agree that the gun is fired
> >between 24 and 40 per cent of the time.
> Really?
> * Of the 2.5 million times citizens use their guns to defend themselves
> every year, the overwhelming majority merely brandish their gun or
> fire a warning shot to scare off their attackers. Less than 8% of the
> time, a citizen will kill or wound his/her attacker. (Kleck and Gertz,
> "Armed Resistance to Crime," at 173, 185.)
"gun fired" is not the same as "attacker wounded". In Kleck's study
24% said they fired the gun, 8% said they wounded the attacker, 1%
said they KILLED the attacker.
> >> How many attacks have been deterred from ever
> >> occurring by the potential victims owning a gun? My own
> >> research finds that more concealed handguns, and in-
> >> creased gun ownership generally, unambiguously deters
> >> murder, robbery and aggravated assaults.
> >
> >The claims about increased gun ownership are wrong since they rely on
> >the faulty survey data discussed earlier. Nor has Dr Lott
> demonstrated
> >that the number of concealed handguns increased significantly. If by
> >"more concealed handguns" Dr Lott is referring to the passage of
> >"shall-issue" laws, his claim is still not correct. His own research
> >found that the laws were associated with an INCREASE in robbery.
>
>
> Wrong (deliberately?) again:
> From the Lott/Mustard Study:
> Similarly, the results indicate that the number of rapes in states
> without "shall issue" laws [if they passed them] would have declined by
> 4,177; aggravated assaults by 60,363; and robberies by 11,898.... The
> reduction in violent crimes represents a gain of $6.6 billion ($4.75
> billion from murder, $1.4 billion from aggravated assault, $374 million
> from rape, and $98 million from robbery)...."
You're quoting from the original study. In his book he extended the
analysis by including two more years of data. Robberies went UP.
Now, I'm not saying that the carry law caused hte increase, but Lott's
claim that "more concealed handguns" UNAMBIGUOUSLY causes a decrease
in robbery is plainly false.
--
Tim
Tim Lambert
> In <tnn25nh...@oolong.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU> Tim Lambert
> <lam...@cse.unsw.EDU.AU> writes:
> >
>
> >You're quoting from the original study. In his book he extended the
> >analysis by including two more years of data. Robberies went UP.
> >Now, I'm not saying that the carry law caused hte increase, but Lott's
> >claim that "more concealed handguns" UNAMBIGUOUSLY causes a decrease
> >in robbery is plainly false.
>
> You also neglected to include these portions:
>
> "Despite being widely reported measures in the press, these broader
> categories are somewhat problematic in that all crimes are given
> the same weight (e.g., one murder equals one aggravated assault). Even
> the narrower categories are somewhat broad for our purposes. For
> example, robbery includes not only street robberies which seem the most
> likely to be affected by "shall issue" laws, but also bank robberies
> where the additional return to having armed citizens would appear to be
> small....
>
> "However, if some of those who already owned guns now obtain
> right-to-carry permits, the relative cost of crimes like armed street
> robbery and certain other types of robberies (where an armed patron may
> be present) should rise relative to that for burglary.
>
> "Robbery and burglary are the violent and property crime categories
> that are the least related to changes in concealed handgun laws, but
> they are still positively correlated with all the other types of
> crimes."
>
>
> Seems to answer your idea that "robberies should go down." Some types
> do, some don't.
In his WSJ piece Lott claimed that robberies DID go down. Now you
offer us a quote where he attempts to explain away the fact that
robberies DID NOT go down. You haven't noticed the inconsistency yet?
Tim