Once again, our friends at the ‘non-partisan’ gun magazine, The Trace, have promoted an argument about the relationship of gun ownership to gun violence which has no basis in fact. The argument has now been floating around for at least 20 years and is accepted as the non-plus-ultra explanation for gun violence in the United States. Unfortunately, the explanation doesn’t work,
Why do we believe that our high level of fatal violence is because we have so many guns? Because our friend David Hemenway has been pushing this idea for years. And how does he explain the link between gun ownership and fatal violence? By doing a regression analysis using guns as the independent variable and then comparing the United States to other countries with similar demographics but much fewer personally owned guns.
There happen to be two, actually three fundamental problems with David’s approach. First and most important is his definition of the word ‘gun.’ Because the fact that there are more than 300 million guns sitting around in basements, garages, underneath the living room couch and inside a toolbox out in the truck, doesn’t tell us how many of these guns are actually used in assaults.
I looked at more than 9,000 ‘crime’ guns collected by police departments, and the types of guns which probably account for at least 75% of the civilian gun arsenal don’t show up on this list at all. Along with another 20 million or so gun owners, I own a Remington 700 bolt-action rifle. When was the last time a gun of this type was involved in a gun assault? As my grandfather would say: ‘shabbos noch schvee,’ (read: never.)
The second problem with David’s approach is the assumption that there’s any connection between the number of guns owned by law-abiding citizens and the number of times that guns are used to commit crimes. And here is another issue I have with all the so-called gun experts who conduct public health researcher and or write for The Trace. Every time they talk about gun ‘violence’ they only refer to homicides and suicides, with the latter events being twice as great as the number of murders committed with guns.
In fact, the only difference between fatal and non-fatal gun assaults is that in the latter category, the shooter didn’t shoot straight. Otherwise, everything that leads up to a confrontation that ends up as a fatal or non-fatal gun assault is exactly the same. More than 80% of all the gun injuries which occur in the United States every year are crimes. How come this issue is glossed over again and again?
I’ll tell you why. Because if there were any degree of honest discussion about gun violence, (and this is the third problem with the more guns = more violence approach) it would have to be admitted that gun violence is a problem experienced in what we politely refer to as the ‘underserved’ population. And since this population is overwhelmingly minority – Hispanic and Black – to single out those two groups would be to inject the racial issue into the gun debate.
After the last four years of being verbally abused by Trump, I don’t blame anyone for wanting to avoid discussions about social or political events which turn on the issue of race. On the other hand, why let facts get in the way of a good headline that will help gun-control organizations raise some more cash? And by the way, before yet another reader accuses me of being a shill for the NRA, I just renewed my monthly contribution to Moms Demand Action, okay?
Last but not least, the whole issue of how guns move from ‘good’ to ‘bad’ hands is also a mess. According to the ATF, the average time between when a gun is purchased and when it is used in a crime (‘time-to-crime) is more than 9 years. So even though the number of handguns sold this year has doubled over the number of purchases in 2019, who says that this is the reason why gun violence has been going up?
There are all kinds of reasons why we are suffering from an increase in gun violence regardless of how many new guns have been purchased by law-abiding gun owners in the past year. God forbid our friends in gun journalism and public health research would stop trying to scare us with headlines and conduct some serious research.
Dec 29, 2020 @ 13:20:05
Between shoddy, superficial research (and I use the “r” word loosely) and the partisan nature of much of the media, its not surprising we get junk “science” regurgitated over and over again. Trace, IIRC, is funded by Mike Bloomberg, who also funds Moms and Everytown.
Albuquerque** just introduced a police/social services program modelled after the Oakland Operation Ceasefire model, which researches high risk individuals and interacts with them directly to encourage them to get out of the high risk category. I think this is based on Andrew Papachristos work done in Chicago and elsewhere looking at the statistical interrelationships between people in violent cohorts. IIRC, that program was criticized for targeting high risk individuals, most of whom, of course, were “underserved populations”. And of course, the police have gotten a bad name with PoC. That crime is disproportionately correlated with underserved populations is, of course, the third rail of the Left’s discussion about gun violence but obvious to anyone who looks at a homicide map of Chicago or Albuquerque.
https://www.abqjournal.com/1530537/city-program-sends-personal-message-about-gun-violence.html
Whether it is the more guns/less crime or more guns/more crime argument, both miss the point. Its far more complicated but that doesn’t make for thirty second sound bytes or checks sent to your local advocacy group.
Oh, I do recall there was one notable crime involving a Rem 700. Charles Whitman at the U of TX Tower. But you have to go back half a century ago, which sorta makes Mike’s point.
Dec 29, 2020 @ 14:18:43
Having grown up on the South Side of Chicago (“Bader part of town” as the song goes) in the 40’s I know from violence. Difference being in those days we used fists, and an occasional chain or ball bat. Now handguns are used. I fear that like lawyers and armies if you have them around they will be used.
I also was President of the Chicago Board of Health for 9 years in the early part of this century. As long as the problem involved Black and Brown young men no one cared. When whites started dying,even a few, big public health problem! So we actually for a few years cut the #’s almost in half. The police vice chief and I met with some of the scariest dudes I had ever seen, fortunately the police were armed too.. Since I have left town the #’s are way up (not cause and effect I fear). I agree that this is dicey in today’s political climate, but has to be worked through.
PS: Papachristos has it right.
Dec 29, 2020 @ 14:42:26
Doc, this is the sort of stuff we all should be working on. I’ve talked to Papachristos about this stuff. But when I opened my big yap in NMTPGV, people got pretty annoyed, so I just decided that we were better as friends than as lovers, as the saying goes.
I think some combination of national licensing (which of course means that red and blue states have to compromise on the details), along with Operation Ceasefire/Papacristos ideas would go a long way to demonstrating that we are not going after every gun owner indiscriminately but trying to focus our efforts on reducing demand for crime guns while constructively trying to choke off the conduit from lawful sales to unlawful possession.
Happy New Year to all, in advance.