Politics is inherently controversial because human beings are passionately attached to their opinions by interests that have nothing to do with the truth.

Harry V. Jaffa (Distinguished Fellow, Claremont Institute)

The Gun Control Debate in the United States – Few Straight Lines in the Data –

(… and it’s not about the data anyway) – Gregg Lee Carter –

Professor of Sociology Bryant University

First Unitarian Church of Providence

October 18th, 2013 (Gun rights supporters recite the Pledge of Allegiance a rally at the steps of the capitol in Jefferson City, Missouri – Sept. 2013)

Worldwide:* 1,000 people a day are killed by small arms (handguns; rifles; shotguns)* Five times as many are seriously wounded* 875 million small arms in the world today, with 8 million new guns added to the stockpile each year (Note: guns don’t wear out)* International trade in small arms (and ammunition) is a $7 billion+ industry

(Source: Gunpolicy.org; http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/)

Sept. 16, 2013Washington Navy Yard

13 dead

January 8, 2011Tucson, Arizona

U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in the head, though she survived, 6 others were killed,

including 9 year-old Christina-Taylor Green

June 20, 2012Aurora, Colorado (midnight premier of Dark Knight Rises)

12 killed, including 6-year old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, with 82 wounded (highest number of victims ever in U.S. history)

December 14, 2012Newton, Connecticut (Sandy Hook Elementary School)

20 children (all in the 1st grade) killed, 6 school staff members killed, + the shooter and his mother

The FBI defines a mass shooting as involving 3 or more homicide victims, of which there are hundreds every year– many being related to narcotics, alcohol, and gangs (overall, about 10% of murder situations involve multiple victims).

However, the kind of shootings that have been grabbing public attention and concern are what law enforcement officials deem “Active Shooter Incidents” – that is, those involving “spree shootings” at a mall or a school or a business. The shootings given earlier would be classic examples.

Criminologists began carefully monitoring these incidents after the tragedy at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, when 2 students murdered one of their teachers and 12 of their fellow students.

And, overall, there does seem to be a trend of an increasing number and

an increasing level of destructiveness of ‘mass shootings’ –

a la those we saw in Washington D.C., Aurora Colorado, Tucson

Arizona, andNew Town Connecticut …

Number of Spree Shooting Incidents by 5-year Periods over the past 3 Decadeswith Selected Massacres Highlighted

(Raw data source: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data)

Gun control advocates also like to point out some other important facts – each year, we lose between 30 and 32 thousand lives where a gunshot is the cause of

death; here is the breakdown for the 31,076 deaths in 2010 – the most recent year for which data are available (Raw data from:   http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html)

Regarding the previous graphic:

* the 19,392 suicides by firearm represent about half of the total number of suicides (38,364);

* note that 87% of these firearm suicides are by males

More regarding the previous graphic:* Race & gender are strong predictors of homicide victims: 

44% are white (though fully 72% of the U.S. population is white)

53% are black (though just 13% of the population is black )

78% of all homicide victims are males (and 90% of the offenders are male!)

Looking at the two together:  43% of all homicide victims are black males (though they are only about 6% of the population) … as with all homicide victims, most

are between the ages of 17 and 39

Of the approximately 14 to 15 thousand murders in the U.S. that we’ve experienced in recent years:• About 2/3 of the homicides are committed by firearm (about

8,900 in 2012); and

• About 3/4 of the firearm homicides, according to the UCR, are committed with a handgun (about 6,400);

• Rifles, including military-style “assault rifles,” account for a little over 300 murders per year.

(The second most common weapon is a knife, which accounts for about 1,600 homicides a year.)

(Raw data from the FBI’s expanded homicide tables: :http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-

enforcement/expanded-homicide/expandhomicidemain)

More regarding the previous graphic: 

• Regarding ‘accidental’ shooting deaths, the New York Times recently completed an investigative report indicating that the number of accidental shootings is seriously under-reported, the situation is aggravated when counting shootings involving children – most of which involve a young boy shooting a sibling or friend.

• How can this be? The standard CDC-approved death certificate has 5 options for a coroner or medical examiner to chose regarding cause of death:

• Homicide• Accidental• Suicide• Natural, or• Undetermined ….

AND most examiners/coroners simply call any death in which one person shoots another a “homicide.”

“A homicide just means they died at the hands of another,” reports Dr. Randy L. Hanzlick, the chief medical examiner for Fulton County, Ga. “It doesn’t really connote there’s an intent to kill.”

(Note: Just 19 states have “Child Access Prevention” laws – whereby a gun owner is required to safely store his or her weapons and ammunition …. To prevent access by children or mentally impaired adults; CAP laws make stealing guns more difficult– a

critical issue in the gun control debate: CT, MA, and RI are among the 19)

(This 2011 photograph was evidence in a negligent homicide trial of the father after his son shot himself this gun; source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?_r=0)

Source: New York Times (9-28-2013) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?_r=0

More regarding the previous graphic:

The CDC estimates that the economic cost of suicide death in the U.S. is $34 billion annually (so about $17 billion

connected to guns). Because the majority of suicides involve adults of

working age, the cost to the economy results in large part from lost wages and work productivity. …. And ….

More generally…In their often quoted and now classic Oxford University Press book, The Real Costs of Gun Violence, economists Philip J.

Cook and Jens Ludwig do a sophisticated, multifaceted analysis – involving the medical

and economic costs of gun violence (the 31,000 deaths, plus another 75,000 who report to

emergency rooms with gunshot wounds) and come up with the figure of

$100 billion dollars annually … (and) …

And when we add in the emotional costs of a gun-filled society, which encompasses not just victims but potential victims and those who are linked to those potential victims …

The majority of Americans suffer from of gun violence.

Setting the context for the next set of facts that those supporting stronger gun control want you to know …

The U.S. murder rate is high, but when we consider the nations of the world, there are certainly dozens upon dozens that are a lot nastier places to live regarding fear-of-crime and actual violent crime when compared to the U.S.

For example, in the U.S., our murder rate is currently 4.7 murders per 100,000 people … but consider:

Honduras 61.3Jamaica 59.5Venezuela 52.0El Salvador 51.9Guatemala 46.0Trinidad & Tobago 41.1South Africa 36.8Colombia 35.9Dominican Republic 24.8Brazil 22.8

For the year 2008, the last good year for making cross-national comparisons, the U.S. ranked 45th of the 113 nations for which the UN was able to gather homicide statistics …

HOWEVER, of the 44 countries with a higher murder rate, almost all are “developing countries” … and the few “developed” countries ahead of the U.S. are found in the relatively poor nations of Eastern Europe (Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Georgia, Belarus, and the Ukraine) …

(see United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html)

AND, thus, when we compare the U.S. to its peer nations –

that is, economically developed democracies, including Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and those of Western and Northern Europe,the U.S. sticks out like a sore thumb in a number of ways regarding guns,

gun control, and gun violence…

First, let’s look at the murder rate (2008): The U.S. rate of 5.4 homicides per 100,000 people is nearly 5 times the rate of our average peer nation (where the average is 1.1)

Raw data source: United Nations: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html

It is important to note that we are not talking about crime in general, and not even street crime like

theft or even violent crime, like assault – indeed:

Sweden (915.5 assaults per 100,000 population), Belgium (719.2), Finland (654.2), Germany (628.7), The Netherlands (419.5), Australia

(316.2), France (302.6), and New Zealand (279.3)

all have rates of assault well above that of the U.S. (276.6).

Crime is Not the Problem in the U. S. – rather it is lethal violence

Keep in mind the graphic just shown where the bar for the United States’ murder rate extended far above the bars of our peer nations. Now compare this bar chart, where we look at the rate of

homicides due to firearms

The U.S. rate of 3.6 gun homicides per 100,000 population is nearly fifteen times the rate of our average peer nation (where rate averages out a 0.37)

Keep in mind the 2 graphics just shown where the bars for the United States’ murder rates (overall and by gun) extend far above the bars of our peer nations. Now compare this bar chart, where we

look at the rate of civilian gun possession (the number of guns per 100 population)

The U.S. rate of 101.1 guns per 100 civilians is five times the rate of our average peer nation (where the rate averages out a 20.2) [raw data from gunpolicy.org]

And given the very similar shapes of all the preceding bar graphs, it is not surprising to see that the correlation is very strong between rate of civilian gun possession and both

the overall murder rate and the murder-by-gun rate (see next 2 scatterplots, with selected countries highlighted):

(r = .72, p.<.0001)

(r = .75, p.<.0001)

And, moreover, we see that the murder-by-gun rate drives the overall murder rate in these economically developed societies (selected countries shown):

(r = .89, p.<.0001)

So, this is the essence of the narrative of strong gun control advocates thus far:

Gun are destructive to human life and welfare …

And thus we need either to: Reduce the number of guns (currently

310,000,000 in the hands of the U.S. civilian population) … or …

Strengthen the regulations governing their possession and use.

(…or … better yet … even do both)

The final three pieces of the puzzle to put together the argument of those advocating for more gun control in the contemporary debate over guns and gun violence in the

United States:(1st) What is especially frustrating to these advocates is that our peer

nations have gun regulations that are much stricter than we have – they require, at the national level:

licensing of gun owners, registration of guns, universal background checks, safe storage, and generally ban or highly restrict the possession of

handguns and military-style assault rifles (“modern sporting rifles” in the parlance of the NRA and of the gun industry),

as well as the carrying of concealed weapons.

(2nd) And even more frustrating to gun control advocates is that they believe the

generally strong impulse for gun control in the U.S. is being thwarted by the American

political system that allows a committed minority, the NRA and its ally organizations,

to control the legislative agenda of gun regulation.

“Would you favor oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit

before he or she could buy a gun?” (from the General Social Survey, 2012)

Part 1 of 2 (GUNLAW): “Would you favor oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun?”

Part 2 of 2 (GUNLAW): “Would you favor oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun?”

(3rd) And, finally, gun control advocates point out that even though we have the highest rate of civilian gun possession, we

are NOT the stereotype that the rest of the world sees as:

Gun Toting, Wild-West-Cowboy-Mentality Crazies

Indeed, despite the huge rise in the absolute number of firearms, gun ownership has been going down for decades (1973 – 2012, for the “yes”

response to the General Social Survey item “OWNGUN – Do you happen to have in your home [if house: or garage] any guns or revolvers?”)

(Footnote on HANDGUNS: And, extremely stable, ever since the GSS has been gathering data in the early 1970s to the present:  About 1 in 5 households report having a pistol in the home [21.9% in 2012].)

On the Other Side of the Debate ….

Are those who advocate strongly for “gun rights,” and on the basis of defending these rights, are generally strongly

opposed to all forms of gun regulation, save those intended to keep guns out of the hands of convicted

felons and the severely mentally disabled (as determined by both a physician and a judge)

If you want the clearest statements on the positions of gun control advocates, you can go to the homepages of

BradyCampaign.org and GunPolicy.org…

On the other hand, if you want the clearest statements on the positions of gun rights advocates, you can go to the NRA.org homepage (following 3 images were from 10-18-

2013.

I could present as many slides as I did for the gun control side,

but most of them would be a variant of the previous slide from

the NRA website (with more exact details found at this URL:

http://www.nraila.org/news-issues/fact-sheets/2013/firearm-safety-in-america-2013.aspx?s=&st=&ps

=)

…. And can be captured with these following three graphics…

… While at the same time the number of guns has skyrocketed …

So, this is the essence of the narrative of strong gun rights is:

The evidence shows that a rise in the number of guns and a relaxation in gun laws and an increase in the rights of gun

owners have not conspired to produce more destruction to human life and welfare, but less …

And thus we need to:

Continue to expand gun rights through national legislation to reinforce what dozens of U.S. states have already done regarding:

Concealed Carry Laws;

Stand-Your-Ground Laws;

Open Carry Laws;

Preemption Laws; and

Allowing guns in increasing numbers of public places, including college campuses …

AND ….

… Ditto regarding the U.S. Supreme Court,

which has defended the “individual right” to “bear and possess” firearms (as opposed to the traditional federal-court interpretation of the Second Amendment, that it guaranteed the collective right of the people to form well regulated militias)…2nd Amendment, A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

And both sides contend:

“L’avenir peut être à nous.”*

(The future can be ours.)SEE SLIDES 35 & 36! (the percentages favoring ‘gunlaw’ for gender, hunter,

immigrant – all indicate that the demographics of the near future [next decade] favor the control side of the debate, with hunting still on the decline, immigration

maintaining strong rates, and with women continuing to grow in political power, as indicated by their continued growth in holding legislative and executive offices)