Stricter Gun Control does NOT lead to lower violence rates: (old) HARVARD journal

[MLeake]

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...Crime-Violence

This could be a handy little tidbit, next time an "intellectual" starts spouting off about Gun Control.

I thought it was interesting when a Harvard researcher (who is anti-gun) conceded the possibility of 100,000 to 250,000 legitimate defensive gun uses per year in the US. This report leaves that previous concession in the dust.

Edit: Should have read more carefully, this was an older paper that has resurfaced for some reason.

[tekarra]

Interesting, thanks for posting.

[TXAZ]

More ammo.

[TXAZ]

I love these two quotes from the study:

In 2004, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences released its evaluation from a review of 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some original empirical research. It failed to identify any gun control that had reduced violent crime, suicide, or gun accidents.15 The same conclusion was reached in 2003 by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control’s review of then‐ extant studies.16"

D. Geographic Patterns within Nations
Once again, if more guns equal more death and fewer guns equal less death, areas within nations with higher gun owner‐ ship should in general have more murders than those with less gun ownership in a similar area. But, in fact, the reverse pattern prevails in Canada,128 “England, America, and Swit‐ zerland, [where the areas] with the highest rates of gun own‐ ership were in fact those with the lowest rates of violence.

So next time our favorite Sinators speak up on the subject, these would be really good references for them, ironically two that they have oversight of.

[Kimio]

An interesting read, would have liked to have seen a link to those studies and so on.

[Dan F]

Interesting that Breitbart does a piece on a study 10 years old as if it is news... not that I mind the dissemination of such good information.

You can find links to the Kates/Mauser study and a number of others over in L&CR here, if you're interested in having more ammo for your arguments (it's all rumour-piercing, but the libs have real thick heads).

[2damnold4this]

It's not a Harvard study but it is good to read.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

1. It is an older study - those in game have known about it for a fairly long time. That is not to say that it isn't a good study.

2. It is not a Harvard study but published in one of their journals.

3. Gary Mauser is a great guy. I know him quite well and he didn't start out as a Canadian. But that is irrelevant as there are Canadians who are strongly progun.

4. Kates, Gary and I have broken bread together and shared research work. Gary and I have shot in various places in the USA as well as sharing a Wolfgang Puck's pizza.

The comment about libs is silly. You really don't know the politics of these guys. So as said repeatedly, keep off that. Many of our strongest academic progun advocates have liberal politics.

[Tom Servo]

MLeake, were you perhaps referring to the recent CDC study?

That one is recent, and the conclusions are very much in line with what we've been saying for years. Defensive gun uses number 500,000 to 3 million, far outstripping criminal uses. Injury rates are lower among victims who resist with a gun, and gun homicide rates (including mass shootings) are down.

Furthermore, "whether gun restrictions reduce firearm-related violence is an unresolved issue.” On gun buybacks: "There is empirical evidence that gun turn in programs are ineffective (...) guns recovered in the buy-back were not the same guns as those most often used in homicides and suicides."

[MLeake]

Tom Servo, I had been referring to David Hemenway, whose estimates were lower than the CDC numbers yet still in six figures - and radically higher than numbers of unjustified homicides.

[44 AMP]

Studies can appear to show any point of view, depending on where one sets the parameters for their "research".

Studies supporting my point of view are nice, those that don't are irritating. But to me, the bottom line is easily demonstrated, without any need for a study of any kind. It's so simple and so often overlooked, by everyone. I do wonder why, sometimes....

Anytime someone brings up the idea of guns being a factor in violence, avoid the studies BS, and just get to the heart of the matter.

They: More guns means more violence!
Me: So, no guns means no violence?
They: Yes! we need to ban them all!
Me: What about prisons? No guns there. Why aren't they the safest places?
They: Well..uh..because they are full of criminals!
Me: Exactly!


To paraphrase an already horribly overused quote,
"it's not the guns, stupid!"

[TDL]

Studies can appear to show any point of view, depending on where one sets the parameters for their "research".

My favorite is the studies showing gun owning homes are much more dangerous to the gun owners and other family members/occupants.


That canard relies on three massive problems with the data:
a) aggregating active criminal "gun owners" with law abiding gun owners. By including gangbangers and their family members killed by other gangs; and including drug dealers working out of there homes killed by addicts or rival drug dealers, and hosts of other active criminals the "researchers" are able to make such an assertion. None of those studies even try to apply the available data on proportion of already criminal or active criminal victims (known to be ~80 to 85% of gun murder victims.

b) the studies all include suicide. Gun availability and suicide studies show only a tiny proportion of elevated suicide risk is due to gun availability. Suicide by gun is elevate. But almost all those suicides would have been committed by other means in the absence of available guns.

c) those studies only include firing of the guns as defensive use, which likely excludes virtually all of the hundreds of thousands of defensive uses that don't include firing.


So A is about 1/4 of the home gun deaths and is 80% irrelevant to non active criminal gun owners. And B is slightly less than 3/4 of gun deaths, and is in the range of >95% irrelevant. The remainder is a mall number of accidents. Gun ownership, like skiing, playing contact sports, etc does have some inherent accident dangers.

[TDL]

Defensive gun uses number 500,000 to 3 million, far outstripping criminal uses.

Anti-gun people frequently state those estimates are not valid because they are estimates. Interestingly in doing so, they channel exactly the anti-vaccine nuts' who also focus on harm from vaccines and reject the broad estimates on benefit.

Hemingway himself is quite flat earth with his low estimates.

[Tom Servo]

Anti-gun people frequently state those estimates are not valid because they are estimates.

Of course, they love to throw around their own, ahem, estimates. Consider the completely unprovable claim that 40% of guns are purchased without background checks, or Kellerman's infamous 43:1 ratio.

[TDL]

Exactly. The 40% of sales/purchases claim provided clarity on the Obama administration position: clarity that he was being consciously mendacious.


It is exactly that type of claim that leads a lot us, who as a matter of daily business and personal habit happily compromise all the time, to take the position that no compromise whatsoever should be made by our side on this issue.


There is also a second major issue beyond the bad science of the anti gun research. To wit, even if gun ownership and the second amendment could be established to be a net danger (and they are not): which of the important bill of rights liberties is not? Due process, juries, Miranda, warrant requirements, protection against self incrimination, prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment, etc could each and all be shown to cause "harm." Any President could sit there, surrounded by kids, and tell us about children who are killed by persons who had been on the streets because of one of the above protections. Even the First Amendment does not escape.

[44 AMP]

My favorite is the studies showing gun owning homes are much more dangerous to the gun owners and other family members/occupants.

The only thing that seem to live forever (besides temporary govt measures) is flawed BS anti gun data. The old "43 times more likely to be killed by your own gun than kill an intruder" is still being parroted (though they do change the percentage number sometimes), from the Kellerman study that was debunked as flawed decades ago.

You are entirely correct about the amount of risk guns pose to non-criminal gun owners and users. But those numbers don't scare people, and in fact, work against the anti gunner's agenda, so you only hear them from our side of the issue.

[Glenn E. Meyer]

Yes, a big wig started spouting Kellerman to me when we were discussing campus carry. Didn't appreciate a factual reply.

Scholars are supposed to do lit searches but not when it comes up with evidence contrary to their social position.

[Tom Servo]

Yes, a big wig started spouting Kellerman to me when we were discussing campus carry.

Unfortunately, that number has been ingrained into the collective memory, and we're forced to refute it individually. I fear the 40% myth (like the 75/78% myth about sources of Mexican crime guns) is starting to gain a similar foothold.

Just like Marshall & Sanow, who I still get quoted at me on a daily basis.

[Andy Blozinski]

I read the full article. It's full of rhetoric that paints the author as lacking objectivity. The UK is brought up as a prime example to make a point in text, but the UK is mysteriously left off all data tables that are used to make comparisons that are the key to the point of the article. I immediately wondered if they're making suppositions and then cherry picking data and leaving things out of the presentation that don't agree with a possible biased view. There are no links to any of the studies to follow up trying to verify any of the data and see just why they left off the UK.
I do not see this as a useful tool to make a point to try and sway someone or at least support my beliefs. If it were a similar document that reflected views I did not agree with and someone tried to sway me with it from an opposite political view, I would so easily shoot it full of holes as not being something reliable.
Whenever you try to use a source to make your point, you really should try and take that perspective. Don't use something just because it agrees with your views.

[TDL]

Unfortunately, that number has been ingrained into the collective memory, and we're forced to refute it individually.

Tom, 44, Glenn,
That is the problem. The slogans on the anti gun side, combined with the biased "scholarship" is very sticky. Easy to insert into the debate and hard to push out due to the valid response being often too sophisticated to insert into soundbite dominated political is course.


We need some studies of our own.
For the law abiding armed home safety issue we need to be able to say: "yeah that number is all criminals"

A decent study simply applying the FBI averages for illegal guns and prior arrest perpetrators (and prior arrest victims) in murders within the home is needed to back up the retort. I bet that number rises to at least 80% of the base data of murder of homeowner or household members.


AS far as suicides it would be good to have some average of estimates of elevated overall suicide risk attributed gun accessibility.

EI:
If gun suicides are 20,000 we are going to keep seeing that number thrown about or added to "death from gun violence"

We know there are several numbers. there is the 20,000. If we implement massive gun control the number of gun suicides will drop but what we need is the projected drop overall suicide by any means. It is likely something like 19,000 or more per year of current gun suicides will kill themselves by other means absent an available gun. (Japan, S Korea, and indeed the assisted suicide movement show other means.)

Tertiarily we would be well served to also subtract terminally ill gun suicides since (and ironically this often comes from the political/cultural left) suicide for terminally ill is no longer considered a social ill by many.


So need our own research which gives us the real number for debate: elevated risk to "at-risk" potential suicides (eg depressed young people) form guns.

My guess is that number is 200-400 in population of 340,000,000 persons. We would not say it is trivial but we could deride the other sides grossly exaggerated and non scientific assertions. We also could retort by being in strong support of programs that intervene in that at-risk population to reduce their risk of suicide by any and all means. IE we codl say the gun control people are demoguing and just want to shift blame, divert from real causes and real solutions.

[Tom Servo]

We need some studies of our own.

I disagree. The CDC provided us with a great study this year, which largely confirmed what we've been saying. The sources for "what we've been saying?" FBI and DOJ reports on crime.

A study funded by the NRA would be met with derision by the mainstream media.

If gun suicides are 20,000 we are going to keep seeing that number thrown about or added to "death from gun violence"

Suicide is a form of violence. That said, it rarely harms anyone other than the perpetrator, and despite the fact that more Americans use guns to carry it out, our overall suicide rate is lower than much of the rest of the world.

[TDL]

Suicide is a form of violence.

Respectfully then many first world democracies have the same level "violence" as the US.
Including it in the gun debate currently means gun suicide which massively (by a factor of 3x) increases "gun violence" death.
The target would be a quick and easy way of parsing it out of the debate due to the fact that the method of suicide should not be relevant.

The issue I bring up what suicide is that ant gun rights people, in effect, successfully posit into the debate that a gun suicide accrues to violent deaths but the same suicide by pills does not. to me that is sophistry.

The CDC provided us with a great study this year, which largely confirmed what we've been saying. The sources for "what we've been saying?" FBI and DOJ reports on crime. A study funded by the NRA would be met with derision by the mainstream media.

I disagree. We are relying on OUR informal non peer reviewed application of FBI and DOJ reports ratios to the peer reviewed material. That is my point about the assertion of increased danger in homes. Some of those are peer reviewed, ilcudin g ones that assert greatly increased danger. there is NO FBI, DOJ, CDC or peer reviewed work that do what is needed: parse the RATIO of criminal and/or illegal weapons deaths in homes from firearms vs legal gun owners.

By the way other civil rights/civil liberties groups, eg ACLU, EFF, NACCP, ACLU DO provide support for academic studies