Guns Save Lives

By M. Ryan Clar | Monday, February 26, 2001

'At some point in their lives, people get involved in a violent situation. I figured it was bound to happen at some point. That's why I got a gun permit,' said a Tucson resident who last year had cause to use his weapon.

Jogging on a Sunday night, the 31-year old Tucson man was approached by two men. One, Ramon Soto, threatened him with a folding knife, unaware that his would-be victim was carrying a 9-mm semi-automatic handgun. Within seconds the ordeal was resolved: after shooting Soto, the jogger held the two at gunpoint until police arrived.

Hours later Soto was in fair condition at the Tucson Medical Center. His accomplice, Eduardo Reyna, spent the night at Pima County Jail. Both were charged with armed robbery and aggravated assault.

'This proves the Arizona concealed weapons law works,' said Todd Rathner, Tucson resident and board member of the National Rifle Association.

Many, however, consider this sort of occurence to be the exception. Thus the recent wave of rhetoric to repeal concealed weapons laws across the country. And the rhetoric flows under guise of 'common sense.'

Some gun control advocates begrudgingly concede that the Second Amendment does protect citizens' right to own guns, but nearly all feel that 'reasonable' restrictions on this right ought to be enforced. Mandatory waiting periods, trigger locks, and handgun bans: common sense devices to control gun violence. But what do these measures really accomplish? A recent book by John Lott considers the role of such regulation and right-to-carry laws in preventing crime.

In More Guns, Less Crime, Lott, a scholar at Yale Law School, confronts the notion that gun control laws prevent crime. His conclusions are straightforward: concealed weapons laws reduce crime, often dramatically. Further, whereas previous studies on gun control were often limited to specific areas or short periods of time, Lott's is the largest, most comprehensive survey of gun use and crime ever conducted. His data set consists of 54,000 observations taken over eighteen years—a period that includes the enactment of tougher sentencing laws, gun control legislation, and the recent decline in crime.

The first of Lott's regressions measures the effect on crime of concealed weapons laws, the arrest rate, population, income, and unemployment. Lott found that concealed weapons laws caused violent crime to drop by 4.9 percent, murder by 7.7 percent, rape by 5.3 percent, and aggravated assault by 7.01 percent. Contradicting the rhetoric of reformers, the ability of citizens to carry concealed weapons suppresses crime far more than any other factor.

Also intriguing is Lott's comparison of the effectiveness of different types of gun laws. Concealed weapons laws and enhanced sentencing regulations each decrease violent crime by 4 percent on a county level. At the state level, violent crime decreases by 10 percent after the adoption of concealed weapons laws.

Violent crime actually increases 2.3 percent and 10 percent on the county and state levels, respectively, after the adoption of mandatory waiting periods—the same waiting periods routinely touted as a 'common sense solution.'

Only one category of crime increases when non-discretionary concealed weapons laws are adopted: property crime. The explanation is simple. Criminals switch to less dangerous crimes when potential victims are likely to be armed. Mugging wanes; car-stereo theft waxes.

The opposite has occurred in England, land of extremely restrictive weapons laws. Crime rates have skyrocketed in recent years. Assault occurs at a higher rate than in the United States. Homicides in England have doubled since gun control became law.

The common sense of many links concealed weapons laws with accidents, often crippling or deadly. Children find guns and too often accidentally shoot themselves or others. But 'too often,' while true, is misleading. Neither thousands nor hundreds of children perish annually in gun-related accidents. Of the 1,134 accidental gun deaths in 1996, only 42 were children under ten. Twice as many children die annually in bathtubs. Yet bathtubs, while twice as likely to cause the accidental death of a child, are not disparaged as lethally dangerous products—and Rosie O'Donnell has yet to call for a bathtub ban.

Lott's regressions show that right-to-carry laws do increase the childhood mortality rate by one-half percent—about nine deaths each year. Certainly any mortality is tragic, but concealed weapons prevent far more tragedy, offsetting the number of accidental deaths 150 times over.

Every night on the news, Americans see story upon story about the latest shooting—interviews with bystanders, relatives of victims, neighbors of suspects. What they never hear about are the thousands of crimes deterred or halted by guns.

It's an understandable phenomenon: a murder or rape that actually occurred is much more newsworthy than one that only nearly happened. But the stories add up to a false impression of the role of guns in crime. Surprising to those weaned on television news, guns are used 3.6 million times every year for protection and defense.

More insidious, though, is the media's use of statistics—provided by groups such as Handgun Control, Inc., and the Violence Policy Center—without examining the methodology of the studies that spawned them. In these organizations' studies on childhood gun mortality, adults as old as 30—mostly gang members—are routinely classified as 'children.' Compounding misperceptions, the majority of these gun deaths are gang- or suicide-related. The gun control lobby and the media too often ignore these crucial caveats.

Lately, school shootings have been the impetus behind gun reform. The media, however, often ignore the crucial role of firearms in resolving or preventing such shootings, hopelessly skewing the debate. For example, when a student opened fire on his classmates in Pearl, Mississippi, most news programs reported that an assistant principal had 'captured' or 'disarmed' the shooter. Had the shooter been wrestled to the ground? Actually, as the shooter searched for more victims, the assistant principal ran to his car and returned with his pistol. Only then was the wayward student subdued. Yet the fact that a handgun had saved students' lives was subsumed by the standard, sensational student-opens-fire-in-school narrative.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics recently released crime statistics for 1993-1997, which gives independent confirmation to Lott's findings. Over that time period, gun deaths and woundings dropped 33 percent. At the same time, the number of guns in circulation rose 10 percent. The data strike at the core argument of gun control enthusiasts: evidently, the number of gun crimes doesn't always increase with the number of guns.

In retaliation, the gun control movement has gone on the offensive. Most striking in Lott's second edition are accounts of gun reformers' reactions to Lott's findings. Few read his paper or examined his data, yet many leveled criticisms. Typical of the critics was Susan Glick of the Violence Policy Center. Lott called Glick to ask her to review his study prior to publication; she refused, fearing that her association would legitimize his findings. Of course, not having read the paper did not prevent Glick from telling USA Today that Lott's results were 'flawed.'

After his findings had been published, Glick called and asked for a copy of the paper. Lott questioned her about her disparaging comments; she hung up the phone.

Many also accused Lott's study, incorrectly, of being funded by firearms manufacturers.

The underlying logic of gun control defies common sense and, now, strong empirical evidence. Criminals, by definition, break the law. Gun control advocates propose new laws infringing the right to own guns—as if criminals will suddenly become respectful of authority and turn over their weapons to the police. In fact, gun control laws disarm only law-abiding citizens—increasing the likelihood that they will be victims.

As Joseph T. Chew recently observed in a Usenet posting in talk.politics.guns, 'Expecting a carjacker or rapist or drug pusher to care that his possession or use of a gun is unlawful is like expecting a terrorist to care that his car bomb is taking up two parking spaces.'

Washington, DC banned handgun sales in 1977 and soon became the 'murder capital of the United States.' Almost all areas that have banned handguns have similarly seen crime increase.

Rosie O'Donnell, who pays an armed guard to protect her children, rails with the anti-gun lobby against the dangers of guns, but she does so against all knowledge and reason. Lott's findings have left Rosie and her ilk without a plank on which to stand. Gun laws increase crime, while right-to-carry laws slash crime rates.

Ironically, Lott concludes, those most aided by the right to bear arms are women and minorities, two groups that tend to strongly support gun control. Will the media and gun control groups let that information out? It could save lives—hundreds or thousands, annually. But what would the former put on the 11 o'clock news, and how would the latter show they care about our children?

Guns Save Lives

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