Here are some comments from the San Ysidro post below, with my comments interspersed.
My views on gun control aren’t as strong as they used to be, but I just gotta point out: at the airport, we’re dealing with armed f/t security prepared for the worst. (In several European airports, police patrol El Al baggage claim holding automatic weapons.) Unless we’re going to have armed guards right at the entrance to McDonalds (which they have in Israel now), a suicidal shooter is going to get off more rounds there than at the airport. Maybe not 21, OK. But some.
I get kinda worried by people who think a gun permit conveys Spidey-Sense, too. They’re gonna be shooting up mailmen and paperboys. Maybe even themselves.
Andrew Lazarus
Andrew: Two main responses; First that unless we are willing to live in a world where there is a policeman on every corner, with the concomitant impact on civil liberties, Ill suggest that well never get a high enough density of police/guards to effectively stop these events, as opposed to cleaning up afterwards, which is what typically happens now. Next, that I dont know anyone who thinks possession of a gun conveys spidey-sense, and while Im willing to let the implied insult roll, the simple facts that shootings in states where CCWs are must issued havent skyrocketed might give you some ground to reconsider.
I didn’t follow your reference to Australia. Care to clarify?
— tim Dunlop
Gun crime in OZ has declined, but not at any greater rate than it did before the buyback (see Guns And Crime: Gun Control in Australia I havent seen any data contradicting the data and conclusions there, including the INSA study in 2000.
Steve L., I think you missed my point. I think that the significant difference between the McDonalds shooting and the LAX shooting is that at El Al check-in counters worldwide, there are armed, alert security personnel whose full-time job is protection. I think it’s a dangerous fantasy to believe that armed fellow passengers in line could have done a better job of stopping this suicide attack. In fact, I put that right up there with dreaming that you’re Spiderman. A surprise attack where the terrorist just wants carnage and doesn’t intend to survive and there isn’t already someone on guard is going to be “successful”, maybe not as successful as the 21 victims in the McDonalds but a lot more than the two victims at LAX.
If we really have a lot of gun-toting honest citizens who think their superhuman reflexes are going to head off unexpected, unprovoked terrorist attacks by other gun-toting malevolent citizens, I think I’ll stay in the basement until the crossfire dies down.
— Andrew Lazarus
Yeah, Ill agree. I dont think San Ysidro would have been prevented by the presence of an armed civilian. But it might have been mitigated. And how many of the 19 people who dies in San Ysidro would have had to survive before youd consider that a positive result?
Hartin’s post is an example of exactly the kind of thing I object to. He believes, and would have us believe, that England and Australia are terribly dangerous places. That’s false. I know that there are some statistics floating around, but I know people who have lived in both places.
He believes, and would have us believe, that armed self-defense has always been the primary source of personal safety. That’s false too — the rule of law works a lot better.
St. Onge says that someone carrying a gun is unlikely to use it in any given year. Sure, but a statistically small number of uses can be pretty awful.
If “concealed carry” is by permit, it is a form of gun control. And if carriers are screened, I don’t have a big problems with that. Most second amendment guys don’t want any regulation or registration at all, though.
Note that both St. Onge and Hartin are totally passive about the “causes of violence”. We’re just a violent country, nothing can be done about it, gun ownership isn’t the cause, and since we’re a violent place we should all arm ourselves. Somehow the fact gets lost that, even after arming ourselves, we’re still less safe than people in a lot of other countries.
If I have a gun, I can protect myself against fists, clubs, and knives. Against guns, only maybe. The initial advantage is lost, especially because an evildoer with a gun has the initiative.
Nobody took up what I said about the third-world places where every man is armed and armed self-defense really is the only safety you have. Those are NOT safe places.
— Zizka
Ziska: Your assumptions about England and Oz are off-base. I know people who live in Moscow right now, and they havent been mugged, so is Moscow safe today? The plural of anecdote isnt fact; you have to dig into the real numbers somewhat, and the reality is that major cities in Europe are as dangerous or more so than major cities in the U.S. right now.
And at what point in history before the foundation of modern police forces by Robert Peel in London in the 1820s was armed self-defense not the primary source of personal safety? You flatly misread history there.
Its no more true that 2nd Amendment absolutists want no regulation than that gun control advocates want no guns. The reality is that both political organizations are increasingly radicalized. Sadly, because I know that the large majority of gun owners would accept some reasonable regulation (I know Im handwaving a bit here), as long as it was tied to some irreducible right rather than being this years slice of the salami.
No, the issue isnt that were a violent country so we should do nothing; its just that we are a violent country and this piffle about gun control gets in the way of finding and fixing the problems that make us so.
Your facts about armed self-defense arent true either; the average gunfight takes place at close range, a number of shots are fired, few if any hit, and it takes ten to fifteen seconds.
Hartin: I find your analysis simplistic. There are societies that are highly armed that are relatively safe against personal crime, and ones that are terribly dangerous. There are societies that are lightly armed that are safe and I suppose there are ones that are dangerous, although, frankly, I’m having a hard time thinking of one. I’ve spent about 2 months in the UK over the last 5 years, and believe me I wasn’t walking around scared. What bothers me the most about your argument, however, is that it appears to me to be based on symbolic or ritualistic thinking. In other words, the UK and Australia are going to have high crime because they’ve gotten on the wrong side of the Gun God and the right to self-defense. Sometimes you look like you’re writing a statistical argument (one which I suspect is false: Australia is a safe country), sometimes you seem to believe that a philosophical/historical argument compels the desired statistical results. I don’t think so.
I’ve decided that some gun control groups have indeed missed the target: the target is gun crime (and I suppose gun accidents), not gun ownership. But your metaphysical arguments don’t sway me.
— Andrew Lazarus
Well, were in agreement the target is gun crime. But then why does everyone focus on the one variable that is a) relatively uncontrollable there are more than enough guns in the world today to provide for criminals for the next millennium; and b) shown not to have major impacts on the gun crime we are concerned with?
This thread all got started from the comparison of the 21 dead in the San Ysidro massacre with the 2 dead at LAX, with the clear implication that more people carrying guns around McDonalds would have cut down on the death toll. And I’ve been saying that is only very partially true. Even people carrying guns (but who are not armed security guards looking for troublemakers) won’t get the drop on a suicidal lunatic who comes in gun[s] blazing. First they’ll have to put down their Big Macs.
You don’t seem to accept this. Hence I am very worried that your faith in the defensive capabilities of firearms is exaggerated.
— Andrew Lazarus
No, Andrew, I know for a fact what the defensive capabilities of firearms are; Ive done force-on-force training and studied the literature on the subject extensively. It would be useful to find people who wanted to debate this issue who had done the samething. It might get us past rhetoric, and on to problem-solving, because (unlike many in the gun world who wont admit this I believe because they feel its like giving your arm to a shark) I believe we do have a horrible problem with gun crime in this country, and Im ready, willing, and able to sit down with people who really want to solve it.
This has been a relatively civil thread on a heated and controversial topic; I want to thank everyone even you, Andrew! and look forward to more. Maybe we can find a path through this together. We certainly wont do it alone.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> Also, I would like to know what quality-of-life variables other than violence and crime Freeman uses for his claim that American ghettoes are so much worse than Canadian and French ones.My friend Lazarus has some information.>> And of course, there is that question of why the poor neighborhoods of Canada don’t look like East Palo Alto.Me? I’m out of here for a while. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy Lazarus’ baseless charges of racism or his belief that murder wasn’t affected by socio-economic factors, but ….Those of you with pay TV might have seen the Chris Rock comedy special a couple of months ago. In it, he claimed that no white person would change places with a black person. His example was a poor white janitor and him, and he’s rich.I don’t know if Rock is correct about white people but I suspect that he’s correct when he says that US blacks would be very surprised if he was wrong.I’m sure that Lazarus will find something in the above to support his accusation. (Hmm – I didn’t capitalize “black”.)
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
Funny, first Freeman claims TWICE that the improvement of East Palo Alto resulted from a police crackdown, now he claims that like Emeryville the poor people have left. I haven’t been to EPA in a long time, but any of you worried about the Emeryville poor people can relax: the commercial development was in abandoned industrial zones. The poor people are still there, and less poor. Well, were, they’re probably getting laid off now….I agree with only one thing: this back-and-forth is getting useless. I’ll let others decide why.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> I’m scratching my head trying to understand what Freeman is trying to prove with East Palo Alto.Lazarus claimed>> However, I’m extremely skeptical of the idea that American ghetto violence (and might that be reduced with more or different gun control??) is the majority component.EPA vs PA is a data point inconsistent with Lazarus’ skepticism.It may be that EPA vs PA is an exception. If so, Lazarus will find it easy to produce a counter-example.>> (BTW, the explanation why crime dropped is simplistic), However, it happens to be the only major change that occurred coincident with the drop in murder rates. Of course, it could be that they ran out of people to kill.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
The upwards mobility wasn’t very broad-based. In particular, it didn’t do much for the ghettos.You haven’t been to Emeryville lately, have you?The high employment and budget surpluses (carried down to the state levels) of the Clinton years worked wonders in depressed communities. Would you like to submit data otherwise, or is this yet another throwaway line?
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
I don’t think my last posting is exactly what I wanted to say. I think that race-neutral socioeconomic differences between the USA and Canada contribute to the different murder rate. I doubt if there are strong race-based trends after socioeconomic factors are accounted for, and if Freeman thinks so, we need data.Also, I would like to know what quality-of-life variables other than violence and crime Freeman uses for his claim that American ghettoes are so much worse than Canadian and French ones. I’m very skeptical. Before the Bush Recession, we were seeing a lot of upward mobility. With their higher unemployment rates, I wonder if Canada and France were managing the same?
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> A.L., I don’t think it’s racist per se to argue that the difference in US and Canadian homicide rates is murder rates in the black ghettoes.Gee thanks, that’s awfully white of Lazarus….>> However, I’m extremely skeptical of the idea that American ghetto violence (and might that be reduced with more or different gun control??) is the majority component.I note that Lazarus linked to a bjs table showing that the black murder rate in the US is 3-8x the white murder rate.Since Lazarus doesn’t believe that the difference is due to living conditions, perhaps he can tell us what causes the difference.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
A.L., I don’t think it’s racist per se to argue that the difference in US and Canadian homicide rates is murder rates in the black ghettoes. I’m arguing first that Andy Freeman’s vocabulary to discuss this phenomenon is pejorative. Second, I’m arguing that his claim appears to be false, so I question his motivation for repeating it. For example, Freeman is reiterating his 1992 claim that the difference in murder rates between Seattle and Vancouver can be explained by the different breakdown of the non-white components. But the table I reprinted suggests this claim is dubious. Another problem is that the white USA murder rate is higher than the total Canadian rate.I repeat: I’m perfectly open to the idea that gun control is not a major cause of the difference between USA and Canadian murder rates. However, I’m extremely skeptical of the idea that American ghetto violence (and might that be reduced with more or different gun control??) is the majority component. If Mr Freeman wants to put that idea forward, he should supply some genuine statistics and not his little one-liners. (His musings on the French underclass are no more valuable than my opposite holdings and maybe less.)
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> I don’t think it’s racist per se to argue that the difference in US and Canadian homicide rates is murder rates in the black ghettoes. I’m arguing first that Andy Freeman’s vocabulary to discuss this phenomenon is pejorative.Interestingly enough, I didn’t bring up color, and for good reason. Many/most US ghettos are not Black.Black came into the discussion when Lazarus brought up my previous comments about Seattle/Vancouver, where I pointed out that being Black in Seattle is not like being Asian in Vancouver.Maybe he didn’t do that because he wanted to yell racist….
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> As best as I can tell, Freeman’s argument is that there is no difference between USA and Canada murder ratesNo, that’s not my argument. I’ll repeat my claim>> Among comparable populations, the US is as safe, or safer, than other countries.Yes, Detroit and NYC have/had much higher murder rates. However, there is nothing comparable to them in Canada. (There’s a huge difference between being poor in Canada and being poor in US inner cities.)Among the comparable populations, the murder rates are the same. The effects of not-comparable populations don’t change that fact, even if it is inconsistent with Lazarus’ faith in Canadian gun control.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
Andrew Lazarus:I’m puzzled; Andy Freeman is making an argument that may or may not be supportable by facts – are you arguing that his facts are wrong, or that it’s illegitimate to even be discussing the issue?A.L.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> (1) claims with no data whatsoever (notice there isn’t any link for his claim that the underclass in France is better off than the underclass in Detroit);It is common knowledge that European (and Canadian) social spending is significantly higher than US social spending.Of course, it is possible that French society is as racist towards Muslims as US society is towards blacks.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
PART TWO OF TWOOn (2): As best as I can tell, Freeman’s argument is that there is no difference between USA and Canada murder rates, and his explanation for the difference that he hsa just denied is in rural/urban murder rates. I can’t see how this helps his case: maybe gun control works better in an urban environment, so Canadian urban murder rates are comparable to Canadian rural and not USA urban. Mind you, I’m not putting that forward as my argument without much more research. I’m simply saying it’s consistent with the data. What’s not consistent with the data is his claim “And we have other states where the murder rate is significantly less, which is inconsistent with the ‘gun control works’ hypothesis”. Compare to “We have other games where the Tampa Bay Devil Rays outscored the New York Yankees, which is inconsistent with the ‘Yankees are a better team’ hypothesis.” The overall picture is clear.On (3): By disguising your observation that blacks have a higher murder rate than whites in the pejorative reference to third world subcultures with a TV, you showed you are a bigot. You managed to be both offensive and disingenuous by adopting phrasing that only hinted at what you meant. I also refer to the old Google post, where your interlocutor showed that your emphasis on the number of blacks in Seattle vs Vancouver failed to explain the difference in the murder rates. He simply used Vancouver rates with the ethnic breakdown of Seattle to refute you. I submit that your over-estimation of the significance of blacks in Seattle is another sign of prejudice and racism. (Table was as follows:)Seattle’s homicide rate was 11.3. Vancouver’s was 6.9.I did the calculation you suggested: white Asian black Hispanic native% of Seattle’s population 79.2 7.4 9.5 2.6 1.3Homicide rate in Vancouver 6.4 4.1 9.5 7.9 71.3The weighted average of the rates is 7.4.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
BTW – Since Lazarus has called me a racist, I think that he should support his accusation or apologise.It’s possible that he thinks that pointing out that blacks in America have it bad, as I, like almost everyone else, have, is racist. However, I suspect that he meant something else.I’ve written a lot on the subject so if the evidence exists, Google has it.
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
PART ONE OF TWOMr Freeman features (1) claims with no data whatsoever (notice there isn’t any link for his claim that the underclass in France is better off than the underclass in Detroit); (2) claims where he willfully distorts his statistical analysis (using the fact that SOME US/CA border states have a lower murder rate than Canadian provinces as a fake-refutation of the fact that OVERALL the US border states rate is much higher); and (3) a bigoted, racist, and factually inaccurate claim that the difference in murder rates is primarily attributable to a subculture of Third Worlders with TV in the United States, by which he means black Americans.Details on (1). Seine St-Denis, just north of Paris, is the most violent departement in France. La Courneuve, where Hamza’s company is headquartered above a nearly deserted mini-mall, is one of the bleaker corners of it. Seine St-Denis is marked by immigration (it’s one-third Muslim), unemployment (30 percent in La Courneuve), and underclass violence (the area not only has a high murder rate but has also been a launching pad for anti-Jewish violence and vandalism in recent months). But what marks Seine St-Denis more than anything else is bureaucratized indifference. Until the late 1990s, decades after the region’s factories had closed, computerless schools were teaching metal shop to their male students. This is a place where even the natives refer to their neighborhoods by their departmental postal codes. (“Come visit me in 93.” . . . “Be careful walking around 95 after dark.”) …
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
Thank you, Mr Simutis. We have that the four most populous US border states (WA, MN, MI, NY) have higher murder rates than any Canadian province, in some cases more than double.I’ll entertain suggestions that gun control is not the cause of this difference–what a great argument for single-payer health care! But the difference certainly exists.Incidentally, Mr Freeman has been pushing the idea that the presence of blacks in the United States is what makes the difference for a long time. Google showed me the following ten-year-old refutation of his early version of this claim:
Date: 10/15/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> You might check that out before your next KKK-approved posting about third-world subcultures being unique to the USA as a “developed” country.Cool – I win. Lazarus is the first to bring up the KKK. And, true to form, he did so while misrepresenting what I wrote. And, he invented data to support his argument. It’s a trifecta!Yes, there’s an underclass in every developed country. However, the underclass in France is considerably better off than the underclass in, say, Detroit.
Date: 10/14/2002 00:00:00 AM
The Centerwall data referred to earlier is Brandon Centerwall “Homicide and the prevalence of Handguns;-Canada and the United States 1976-1980” and published in the Dec 1st 1991(Vol 134) of the American Journal of Epidemiology. Many webdocuments cite it, but I don’t find it on line.To update Mr. Lazarus’s figures…Using 2000 figures from http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/00cius.htm,table 5, p 76″Index of Crime by State” and the StatsCanada figures for 2000States listed west-to-east.US state rate/100,000 Canadian province rate/100,000Washington State 3.3 British Columbia 2.1Idaho 1.2 British Columbia 2.1Montana 1.8 Saskatchewan 2.5 Alberta 1.9North Dakota 0.6 Manitoba 2.6Minnesota 3.1 Ontario 1.3Michigan 6.7 Ontario 1.3New York 5.0 Ontario 1.3 Quebec 2.0New Hampshire 1.8 Quebec 2.0Vermont 1.5 Quebec 2.0Maine 1.2 New Brunswick 1.3 Quebec 2.0Washington, D.C. is not related to Canadian homicide rates; it doesserve as an example of a spectacular failure of a gun ban to reduce crime.It is bordered on the north by Maryland, on the south by Virginia, and theseparations are bridges and street signs marking the district lines.Maryland’s 2000 homicide rate is 8.1/100,000. Virginia’s is 5.7. Washington D.C.’s rate is 41.8.
Date: 10/11/2002 00:00:00 AM
Sorry, that should be “ten times” not “twenty times” in the previous post.
Date: 10/11/2002 00:00:00 AM
Mr Freeman,Are you aware of (to pick one example) how many residents of France are unemployed Arab or African immigrants? I believe the Muslim immigrant population there is now over 10% and their economic condition (and for that matter their overall crime rate) is probably comparable to the worst urban American ghettoes. You might check that out before your next KKK-approved posting about third-world subcultures being unique to the USA as a “developed” country.I can’t, BTW,imagine where you got Canadian homicide statistics to back up your claim. I’ve found them, and I’m posting them in the following comment.
Date: 10/11/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> I get kinda worried by people who think a gun permit conveys Spidey-Sense, too. They’re gonna be shooting up mailmen and paperboys. an oft voiced canard, however, an example of a real world confluence of paperboy and carrying can be found here:http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/1034068519249760.xml
Date: 10/10/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> Most and perhaps all of the nations which have “always” had a lower murder rate than the US have ALSO “always” had stricter gun laws, and less gun onwership, than the US. Except that that’s not true. A lot of countries have NOT always had gun control. They’re the ones that demonstrate the gun control doesn’t provide the promised benefits.What would it take to convince folks that gun control doesn’t work? If there isn’t any possible evidence that would change their minds, it’s absurd for them to claim that their position is based on evidence or actual benefits.I don’t much care what ghod you believe in, as long as your religion doesn’t threaten to put me in jail. That’s relevant because if gun control is not falsifiable, it is just another religion.
Date: 10/10/2002 00:00:00 AM
T. Hardin:I am not advocating for stricter US gunb laws. I am arguing against the idea that places with easy gun ownership are safer than places where gun-ownership is restricted. Most and perhaps all of the nations which have “always” had a lower murder rate than the US have ALSO “always” had stricter gun laws, and less gun onwership, than the US.Finally, gun ownership is easier in the US than in almost any other developed nation (with the possible exception of Switzerland). So we should be the safest people in the world, right? But we aren’t. Far from it. The rule of law is not incompatible with widespread gun ownership. However, many arguments for concealed carry etc. essentially are based on the idea that the rule of law has broken down and that we must therefore be able to defend ourselves. There are places without widespread gun ownership where people are safer than here. these are places which rely on rule of law alone, and not at all on individual gunb ownership. That is the point I am trying to make.
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
I agree that, keeping in mind data collection and reportingdifferences, murder rates are probably the best comparative statisticavailable.Centers for Disease Control Injury Mortality data athttp://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/mortrate10.html shows, for 1999, afirearms homicide rate of 3.97/100K, and a non-firearms rate of2.22/100K.The British Home Office hase some European comparative data athttp://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/hosbpubs1.html.Look at the tables associated with “5/02 International comparisons ofcriminal justice statistics 2000”.Using the 1999 rates for murder/100k, the total US rate is seventhworst, just better than Latvia (6.31) and quite a bit worse thanFinland (2.77).If one subtracts the US gun homicide rate and resorts, the US drops tosixteenth, just better than Turkey (2.31) and just worse than Sweden(2.12). Romania, Australia, Northern Ireland, Poland, Canada,Belgium, France, Italy, Greece, Netherlands, England and Wales,Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ireland, Germany, Japan, Denmark,Norway, Austria, Luxembourg and Cyprus all have lower totalhomicide rates than the US non-firearm murder rate.Conclusion? I think it means that the US is culturally (orsub-culturally) more violent than the European nations, regardless ofthe gun laws. International comparisons are therefore rather weak arguments if applied to US gun laws.
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
>>I think that, in talking about reducing crime, we should look at the success stories — the countries that have low crime rates. I don’t see how this can be called a red herring. Zizka, the difficulty comes when, in the context of gun control, you point to a country that has always had a low rate of violent crime regardless of its gun laws, and say that its current gun laws are the reason for its low crime rate. The available data on the effect of introducing strict gun control indicates that it either does not affect the amount of violent crime (Australia) or is correlated with an increase in violent crime (including gun crime)(England). Do you have any success stories, where the introduction of strict gun control is associated with a reduction in violent crime?>>The question **I** am trying to raise is just the social one: is widespread gun ownership an effective way to ensure personal safety? I say that it is not, and that the rule of law, with or without gun ownership, is far superior. First, the rule of law is completely consistent with widespread gun ownership – you wouldn’t want to imply that this is an either-or situation, I’m sure. In the U.S., where we have the rule of law, the question is whether weare safer with the rule of law and widespread gun ownership, or with the rule of law and without widespread gun ownership. There is a good-sized body of evidence that high rates of gun ownership and concealed carry are associated with low rates of violent crime in the United States. Second, as a matter of fact, a law-abiding, trained citizen is safer with a gun than without. So there is a significant class of people for which your supposition is clearly wrong. Further, the people who benefit most from gun ownership are women, the elderly, and the disabled – those who stand no chance in a fistfight with a young male criminal, and for whom a gun is there only real chance to defend themselves.How can a defenseless person be more safe than a person with the means to defend themselves?
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
T Hartin:Apologies, you’re exactly right, I should have said violent crime. I’ll watch that in the future.You also make the points I was going to, in that each side seems to be selecting the dataset that best supports their argument (homicide v. violent crime), and that the real indicator was doubtless the rates of change of each.A.L.
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
A few more observations:Relying only on murder rates as an index of violent crime is a chancy business. First, of course, is it reeks of data mining – why limit your data that way unless you don’t like the outcome with all violent crime? This is kind of like saying that you will look only at SUV crashes as an index of highway safety.Second, not everyone reports them the same. You may not like it, but some countries go to great lengths to cook their numbers and keep them low, while in others the law enforcement agencies bend every rule to keep them high and the funding coming in. The U.S. is one of the latter, by the way, and the Brits are one of the former.The real question, in the real world, isn’t “are gunless societies safer than armed societies.” The data on that is all over the map, frankly, and there really is no correlation across cultures between the prevalence of guns and personal safety. The real question is whether trying implement strict gun control makes a country safer or not.Holding up the relatively low homicide rates of countries that always had relatively low homicide rates regardless of their gun laws (e.g. England) does not answer this question. Rather, you need to look at what happened to crime rates after strict gun control was implemented, or conversely after gun control was relieved. We know that the imposition of strict gun control is correlated with higher crime in England and arguably Australia, and I know of no counterexamples where the imposition of strict gun control is correlated with lower crime. We also know that shall-issue concealed carry and overall higher rates of gun ownership are correlated with lower crime in the U.S. These correlations are not arguable – causation may be, as a lot of factors are in play with crime rates, but the correlations I cite are not.The whole “the Euros are safer and they are disarmed” thing is a red herring – you have to look at whether they were safer before or after they were disarmed.
Date: 10/09/2002 00:00:00 AM
“Data-mining” — as I said, murder is the most consistently reported crime, and also the most serious. It’s not as if I took bicycle theft or shoplifting as my index.The question **I** am trying to raise is just the social one: is widespread gun ownership an effective way to ensure personal safety? I say that it is not, and that the rule of law, with or without gun ownership, is far superior. To T. Hartin this is not “the real question”, but it’s the question I raised and the one I want to talk about. Because many gun-ownership advocates believe, and claim, that widespread gun ownership makes people safer, whereas I deny this. As to whether serious gun control is possible in the US, or whether it would do any good, I don’t know. Gun ownership is institutionally and culturally embedded in US society and there are lots of guns already out there.I think that, in talking about reducing crime, we should look at the success stories — the countries that have low crime rates. I don’t see how this can be called a red herring. Many of the European countries which have always had low murder rates have also always had a degree, usually a high degree, of gun control too. I am not completely sure about Switzerland but as I understand even they have stricter provisions for monitoring and licensing guns than we do (and the required militia weapon is strictly monitored).
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Why don’t you check instead? I see a lot of assertions about data in all these posts, but no actual data. Tomake you happy, I looked at European data by country. Some countries do have significantly higher rates of violent crime than the US: UK, Sweden, Finland. Some are much lower: France, Spain, Germany, Italy, Denmark. Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands are a little higher, Norway a little lower.Bear in mind the following:1. Definitions and reporting rates vary across countries. These figures are not necessarily comparable.2. Homicide rates, because of reasonably uniform definitions and a very high reporting rate are not only themost accurate crime figures, they are often considered the best overall index of violent crime.3. The figures I came up with hardly support the statement that major European cities are “as dangerous or more so than major cities in the U.S. right now.”
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Mr Yomtov: thanks for backing up my thoughts about European cities.Mr Simutis: thanks for supplying the statistics. Of course, the 40% “street/illegal source” is a big hole. One must recurse to find out how that gun ended up on the street in the first place (theft, lawful purchase resold by related criminal, etc.).Auto insurance companies get upset if you have a family member with a suspended drivers license. Any ideas on how to cut down on the Friends and Family plan (other than retroactive prosecution)?
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
I’ve been on the second amendment debate circuit in various capacities for some time. So what I say isn’t necessarily keyed to particular posts. (I would like to ask Mr. Feeman, though, what he means when he says that the US is not really a developed country. I suspect I know what he means, but I would be accused of political correctness if I said what i think. The 2nd amendment, like the death penalty, brings out all kinds).The main points about the 2nd amendment argument that I zero in on are: #1, the social-political question of whether societies in which everyone is armed for self-protection are safer than in law-abiding societies in which few are armed. My conviction is that people are safer in the latter societies. Until someone gives me some pretty hard evidence, I will agree with Mr. Yomtov, and will continue to use the murder rate as the index of violence. This has nothing to do with the question of whether an individual in a given situation should arm for self-protection. #2, the hard-line anti-gun control 2nd-amendment absolutists are much more fanatical and much more effective than the very few anti-gun absolutists. I deny the parity. the reason people believe that Democrats want to take away their .22’s is that the 2nd Amendment absolutists are hysterics spreading falsehoods. The people I call “second-amendment absolutists” (which I differentiate from 2nd-amendment advocates) includes a fair number of people who are frightening and irrational. These people cannot be appeased and Democrats shouldn’t try. #3.Widespread gun ownership and intense belief in gun ownership are a cultural given in the US. Thus, it is not realistic to promote strong gun control programs. Gun control is for me a second or third-tier issue, so i f I were a political candidate I would vote my district or fudge the issue. But in this forum I would just like to assert my conviction that, socially, widespread gun ownership does not improve safety, even though in given situations individual gun ownership does. #4. The whole question of “causation” is, in the nature of things, pretty muddy in sociopolitical affairs. This argument cuts both ways (against both gun-control advocates and against second-amendment advocates). Both sides frequently use simple-minded notions of causation to refute their opponents.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> Maybe we should do more to prosecute strawman purchasers as accessories before the fact. “more” is the correct term, as they can be prosecuted. They rarely are.In fact, the spouse is almost always an accessory (even without supplying a gun), yet is rarely prosecuted.Note that this change can happen without changing a single law….
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
“The plural of anecdote isn?t fact; you have to dig into the real numbers somewhat, and the reality is that major cities in Europe are as dangerous or more so than major cities in the U.S. right now.”Let’s digHomicides per 100,000 population (2000)London 2.59Brussels 2.71Prague 3.3Paris 4.1Berlin 2.2Amsterdam 4.0Madrid 3.5Stockholm 2.0New York 8.7Dallas 20.0San Francisco 7.7DC 41.2Total US (1999) 5.7
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
In response to Bernard Yomtov’s listing of comparative homicide rates:Mr. Yomtov, no one (least of all me) claims that the U.S. doesn’t have a high homicide rate. However, “safety” is not limited to your probability of being killed. Go back and check the rates of robbery, assault, “hot” burglary (while occupants are present) and rape – so-called “contact crimes.” You’ll find that the U.S. comes in well down the list in crimes of this nature. You run a much greater risk of being mugged in London than in New York.And your mugger in London is just as likely to have a handgun (banned nationwide there) as you do in New York. Your assailant just isn’t as likely to pull the trigger.Right now.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
“strawman purchasers as accessories before the fact”.That might punish, but I don’t think it would prevent many purchases; perhaps I am overly skeptical of the deterrant effect here.Bureau of Justice Statistics has a report at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/fuo.htm. The tables are in the PDF version.An adaptation:1997 data: Source of Guns Used by Offenders, %40.8 Street/illegal source33.8 Friends or family 0.6 Gun show 1.3 Flea market 4.2 Pawnshop14.7 Retail storeNote in passing the effect of the “gun show loophole” – 0.6% of guns used by the surveyed group of offenders.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> You know, it may be just as likely that civilians with guns would have shot at the criminal, missed, and killed innocent bystanders.This is a curious usage of “just as likely”, one that is inconsistent with actual experience.In other words, we have a lot of experience with with-gun self-defense in the US. Things like the above don’t happen often enough to worry about.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Maybe we should do more to prosecute strawman purchasers as accessories before the fact.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
>> I get kinda worried by people who think a gun permit conveys Spidey-Sense, too. They’re gonna be shooting up mailmen and paperboys. Maybe even themselves.If that was a reasonable fear, it would have already happened.Yet, somehow the ignorance that “prediction” demonstrates when combined with condescension is supposed to be clever.It’s not. It pisses off the very people whose support you need. It argues that you don’t have a substantive contribution to make to the discussion.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Without meaning to tread on Armed’s turf…Andrew asks “(1) Do you have an opinion on laws requiring submission of samples so that crime-scene bullets or shell casings can be matched up? “I do. There’s no point in such a system. Handguns and to a lesser extent long guns are routinely re-barreled; barrels are not considered ‘firearms’ and are not numbered as firearm receivers must be. Ordinary wear from shooting the weapon will change the marks left. An abrasive applied to bullets, or a file, or a steel brush all will change the marks, if a person has a need to deliberately do that.As to “(3A) To the extent that gun crimes are perpetrated by felons who already aren’t allowed to have guns, do you have any ideas where they get their weapons and how to choke their access off? “Theft, strawman puchase, and corrupt licensed dealers are the three largest sources from which ineligible persons get firearms.BATF is supposed to work on dealers, and they do – arrest, prosecute, and punish if convicted is the answer.Secure storage – at home, in a safe – is probably the answer to theft, and might further decrease accidents.Strawman purchase, where a legally eligible person buys for an ineligible person, essentially cannot be stopped; we cannot deny purchase based on blood relationship or association.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
My family in Fargo worries about crime too. It’s a big issue. Nonetheless, there’s almost no crime in Fargo. What’s the murder rate in Paris? Approaching the American? Worse?I don’t understand your reiterated point about armed confrontations. If I have a gun and so do you, and I want to kill you and you know that, in what sense are you safe? Please explain your point without talking about “OK let’s do better” and “waving hands in the air” and “strong rhetorical positions”. You really have to make your point explicit and not say “trust me”. At this point I am almost ready to retire from the field, because I am not a hard-line gun prohibitionist. And I’m not an anti-prohibitionist either. In the context of American politics I am a gun-control moderate. BUT that is not really a possible position, because the issue is so intense — mostly, in my opinion, because of the second-amendment absolutists. As I have seen the issue develop, the gun-control issue consists of incremental proposals of small limitations or regulations or registration of gun ownership, every single one of which is attacked bitterly and voluminously as a nullification of the whole Constitution by the absolutists. There are individuals in government who are handgun abolitionists, but they are certainly not in a position to put their plans into effect. I really do not think that the “equally irrational abolitionists on the other side” have the importance that the second-amendment absolutists do. And as always, I note that the worst that you can say is that certains sorts of crime in gun-controlled Europe are on a par with the same crimes in the US. Shouldn’t they be much worse, according to your paradigm?
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
There is an astonishing resistance to observable fact amongst those who believe that severely restricting or denying an individual’s right to self-defense leads to a safer society. The facts are not hard to find:When England embarked on this road, its rate of all vilent crimes skyrocketed, including gun crimes. For every category of violent crime except murder, England is now less safe than the U.S.. For murder, England has always had a much lower rate, regardless of gun crimes, but in recent years has been catching up.Australia’s experience with confiscatory gun control is much more ambiguous, partly because their crime rates tend to be pretty low to begin with, but cannot be read as a success – at best the previous rate of decline has resumed, after a few years of increase.In the U.S., there is no positive correlation between the availability of guns (read either as total ownership or shall-issue concealed carry) and violent crime; in many places the correlation is between higher availability and lower crime, whether read geographically or over time.Quite simply – both the armed self-defense model and its opposite have been tried and tested, and while we can cavil about other factors and postulate individual scenarios, on the whole the facts do not support the proposition that severely limiting the right to own a gun and use it in self-defense leads to a safer society.As for how concealed carry would impact on a mass shooting – it is odd, isn’t it, that these shootings almost invariably occur in states that do not allow concealed carry?
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
I think T Hartin’s getting closer: gun ownership seems to be surprisingly weaky correlated with gun crime. We do, I think, disagree on which direction the weak correlation runs. (BTW, I have the same feeling about the surpisingly minimal influence of capital punishment–which I oppose–on crime.) It would be nice to figure out reasons besides guns that Denmark and Switzerland seem so much safer. Maybe some of those reasons are more highly correlated and would offer better bang for the buck? (Puns intended) And this weak correlation means that there isn’t a terrible price to pay for getting on the wrong side of a “right to self-defense”–just as some people can’t get it through their heads that the USA doesn’t pay a price for its absence of a State Religion.And although I’m not as lucky as Armed Liberal to have free places to stay in Europe, I’ve been there extensively in the last four years. One rough measure of safety is whether I see women walking alone after dark. By this standard, even Canada (and Europe) is still ahead of the USA, and the USA now is way ahead of where it was 15 years ago.
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Part 3:6. In a single incident, if the other guy has a gun too, I’m better off with a gun, but my gun doesn’t make me safe. In abstract it’s 50-50, varying with relative skills, the power of surprise, etc. However, if I’m known to have a gun, I agree that I’m less likely to be a target of even an armed bad guy (score one for you). Ziska, trust me on this; you don’t know what you’re talking about in regards to armed confrontations, and taking strong rhetorical positions that aren’t based in fact probably aren’t going to win the argument. OK, we can both do better. Let’s go gather some more facts and see over the next day or so how things play out. A.L.
Date: 10/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
1. There are rational 2nd amendment advocates, but there are LOTS of irrational 2nd amendment absolutists, which is why I used the word absolutist to refer to them. I meet them in my personal life, and they are a factor in American politics. Not a figment.2. For violence index I use murder rate, partly because it is most consistently reported. The American murder rate is 3 to 10 times higher than any other developed country. I frankly question your facts. As I said, I know that there are a lot of statistics floating around, but as far as I know your point is not well-grounded. 3. What I said is that gun control advocates take American violence as given and arm against it. As a short-term personal choice this is fine and I might do it myself if I feel the need. I think that there are things that could be done to reduce the violence of American life, though politically-speaking they won’t be; essentially we’ve given up. I guess I’m just saying that a lot of second amendment types don’t realize how much has been given up in that regard. Again, I’m distunguishing the individual practical choice and the long-term political choice. 4. The only people I’ve met who feel safer (or as safe) in the US than in their homeland are from Bosnia, Serbia, Somalia, etc. I have never heard a Western European or Australian say so, and many say the opposite. A friend of mine lived in Japan for ten years and said there was only a single time during those years when he had the feeling that violence was about to break out (it didn’t). 5. The rule of law is preferable to armed self-defense. The guy I was arguing with said that armed self defence is always the only basis of personal safety. That’s what I disagreed with.6. In a single incident, if the other guy has a gun too, I’m better off with a gun, but my gun doesn’t make me safe. In abstract it’s 50-50, varying with relative skills, the power of surprise, etc. However, if I’m known to have a gun, I agree that I’m less likely to be a target of even an armed bad guy (score one for you).
Date: 10/08/2002 00:00:00 AM
Part 1:1. There are rational 2nd amendment advocates, but there are LOTS of irrational 2nd amendment absolutists, which is why I used the word absolutist to refer to them. I meet them in my personal life, and they are a factor in American politics. Not a figment. I never said they were; just that there are equally irrational absolutists on the other side, and that they have been driving the legislative agenda for some time. 2. For violence index I use murder rate, partly because it is most consistently reported. The American murder rate is 3 to 10 times higher than any other developed country. I frankly question your facts. As I said, I know that there are a lot of statistics floating around, but as far as I know your point is not well-grounded. Ziska, I have family in Paris, London, and Geneva. Topic #1 in the current round of elections?? Crime. Read the local press. I’ll dig up some comparitive stats in the next few days, but I’ve seen some that suggest that assault, rape, and strong-arm robbery are on a par with U.S. cities. Let’s wait for the numbers on this. –to be continued
Date: 10/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
Well, I;ll try to be civil. And, Armed, if you tell me that your best guess is that 3 or 6 or 18 of the victims in San Ysidro would have died anyway, based on your experience of how long it takes to use your own gun in self-defense, I’ll take your word on it. Because you are using the type of calculation that makes sense to me, and you can give an educated guess (and I can’t). What I don’t respect is a calculation based on a belief that wider distribution of guns will create a Zeitgeist that somehow prevents or mitigates gun crime by suicidal nutcases. This all sounds like the logic of proselytizers thinking the human nature will transform if everyone converts to their favorite religion.Interestingly enough, I live in one of those cities where (like NY), the violent crime rate dropped significantly during the 1990s, enough to help revive the downtown area. So I’m actually less worried about gun crime than I used to be. [comment continued in another post for length limits]
Date: 10/07/2002 00:00:00 AM
Not to pick nits, but this kind of statement always bothers me:Yeah, I?ll agree. I don?t think San Ysidro would have been prevented by the presence of an armed civilian. But it might have been mitigated. And how many of the 19 people who dies in San Ysidro would have had to survive before you?d consider that a positive result? You know, it may be just as likely that civilians with guns would have shot at the criminal, missed, and killed innocent bystanders. All of the arguments along the lines of “well, if someone had had a gun …” assume perfect marksmenship. That probably would not have happened.This isn’t really an argument one way or the other (I am an odd ball in this debate – the 2nd amendment is an individual right, but the text clearly allows for extensive regulation), but you cannot introduce a factor into an equation and count the benefit of the best case scenario without looking at the cost of the worst case scenario.