The Bias Against Guns

Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

John R. Lott

• Publisher: Regnery
• Year: 2003
• ISBN:
  9781596986695
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Arms Control
• Index: Politics & International Relations

"If you want the truth the anti–gunners don't want you to know…you need a copy of The Bias Against Guns " —Sean Hannity of Fox News Channel's Hannity & Colmes

PART I

THE PERVASIVE BIAS

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INTRODUCTION

WHY ALMOST EVERYTHING YOU’VE EVER HEARD ABOUT GUN CONTROL CONTAINS BIAS

In the aftermath of September 11, 2001, some surveys indicated that over ten million adults were seriously considering buying a gun for the first time.¹ Actual sales soared. During the following six months, 470,000 more people bought handguns and at least 130,000 more background checks were conducted for concealed handgun permits than during the same six-month period a year earlier.² Many people viewed this increase with alarm. With so many more people having access to deadly weapons, wouldn’t incidents of deadly violence increase?

In 1998, I published a book filled with statistics concluding just the opposite. Its title was More Guns, Less Crime. Using various comparisons of changing gun ownership and concealed handgun laws, I examined how crime rates changed in states over time. I found that gun control disarmed law-abiding citizens more than criminals, which meant that criminals had less to fear from potential victims.

Guns not only make it easier for people to harm others, guns also make it easier for people to protect themselves and prevent criminal acts from happening in the first place. But one rarely hears this argument. This book seeks to explain why.

With gun control, there are many trade-offs that deserve serious consideration. On one side, rules governing gun use can hinder people’s ability to deter or stop criminal attacks. But on the other, these same rules have the potential to prevent the harm that guns cause. Every gun law faces this trade-off.

For example, waiting periods provide a cooling-off period, but they can also prevent would-be victims from obtaining a gun to defend themselves if needed. Likewise, banning relatively inexpensive guns (so-called Saturday night specials) would prevent some criminals from obtaining weapons. But it would also discourage would-be victims—especially those with modest incomes—from purchasing guns to defend themselves. Registration laws may help the police solve crimes involving guns by providing them access to ownership records, but they drain police resources away from other law enforcement activities—such as patroling streets and catching criminals. And besides, few criminals register their weapons.

The debate over gun control is skewed in favor of stricter laws because we almost never discuss the positive effects of guns: that they often save innocent lives. Everyone agrees that rules taking guns away from criminals ought to reduce crime. But do laws that take guns away primarily from law-abiding citizens also reduce crime?

This book is written for a much broader audience than was More Guns, Less Crime, because I am convinced that even many pro-gun people fail to understand the essential lessons evident in patterns of defensive gun use in the United States and abroad. Though not always intentionally, the media and government have so utterly skewed the debate over gun control that many people have a hard time believing that defensive gun use occurs—let alone that it is common or desirable.

Yet, as I will show, there is compelling evidence indicating that guns make us safer. In any society where law-abiding citizens greatly outnumber criminals, this stands to reason. Even in the most totalitarian countries, criminals find ways to get guns. Police are extremely important in deterring crime, but, unfortunately, they almost always arrive on the scene after the crime has been committed. Studies show simply telling people to behave passively turns out not to be very good advice, so it is important that gun laws allow would-be victims to defend themselves.

Because the statistics on defensive gun use were so striking, my earlier book received a great deal of attention. Yet, it basically presented the current state of research, and did not attempt to answer many questions that swirl in public debates. Some readers found the evidence compelling, but many others dismissed the argument out of hand. No matter what the numbers indicate, many people simply react negatively to the idea of concealed handguns or firearms in the home. America may have a long tradition of gun sportsmanship and gun ownership, but even avid gun owners have a hard time arguing against the media and the government’s campaigns for “gun-free” schools and other idyllic notions.

A well-known bumper sticker reads: “If you outlaw guns, only outlaws will have guns.” This lies at the heart of the problem of gun control: Those who would turn in their guns—if a government were to outlaw them—would be the law-abiding citizens of a society. Less dramatic restrictions than an outright ban on all guns also reduce gun ownership among law-abiding citizens relative to criminals, as this book will explain. And that can increase violent crime.

Recent civil suits brought by cities such as Chicago and Boston against gun manufacturers also show how the debate is biased. The cities’ suits are based upon the notion that there are no benefits from guns—only costs. These suits charge that gun makers specifically design their weapons to make them attractive to gang members and other criminals, and thus they should be held legally liable for any costs that arise from the guns. What characteristics of these guns make them attractive to criminals? Low price, easy concealability (small size and light weight), corrosion resistance, accurate firing, and high firepower.

Yet, while all these characteristics are undoubtedly desired by criminals, citizens who use guns defensively also desire them. If one has to fire a gun, accuracy is always a benefit. High firepower translates into greater stopping power, which could be crucial if an attacker is charging at someone. Lightweight, concealable guns help criminals, but they also help protect law-abiding citizens and lower crime rates in the forty-three states that allow concealed handguns. Women, especially, benefit from easier-to-use, smaller, lightweight guns.

In 1999 Chicago’s city officials made much of a statement attributed to a gun store clerk recommending that an undercover police officer buy a particular type of bullet because it was less likely to travel through the human target and hit unintended victims, such as “a little girl on the next block.”³ Mayor Richard Daley interpreted this to be “code” designed to appeal to gang members concerned about accidentally shooting one of their own group. But it seems just as likely that a law-abiding citizen defending his home or defending himself in public also doesn’t want a bullet he fires at an attacker to accidentally strike someone else. (Ironically, the clerk who allegedly offered this advice was actually an undercover agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.)⁴

In 2002 one state senator in California advocated taxing bullets because “Bullets cause injuries that are expensive to treat, and generally speaking, the public is footing the bill.”⁵ Indeed, most of those harmed by bullets are criminals (frequently gang members) without health insurance.⁶ But using this kind of logic, if bullets also allow people to defend themselves and prevent injuries and deaths, shouldn’t they receive a tax subsidy?

The issue with guns isn’t whether there are benefits or costs. Clearly both exist. Rather, the question is which of these two effects is greater. And rarely—if ever—are the benefits of guns considered by the media or in government studies.

Concerns over terrorist threats now focus people’s attention on the costs and benefits of guns. Issues such as the “gun show loophole” or “assault weapons” take on new meaning as the media and gun control groups raise fears about terrorists possibly acquiring weapons at gun shows or using certain firearms that are described as being more lethal than others. Newspaper articles in prominent publications such as the Washington Post stress quotes such as “It’s understandable that in times of stress people want to protect their families. They incorrectly think getting a gun allows them to do that, when in fact they are putting their families at risk by having a gun in the home.”⁷

Others complain that it’s a “very cynical exercise” to encourage more people to own guns as a result of September 11,⁸ that “gun manufacturers have continued to prey upon the public’s fears with their campaign to sell guns to Americans frightened by the terrorist attacks,”⁹ and that “our desire to defend ourselves from terrorism by buying firearms will mean, almost certainly, that thousands more Americans will die in the years ahead from gunfire.”¹⁰

But Americans are not the first to experience terrorism. Israelis have borne this burden since their country’s inception. Israelis also have the highest gun possession rate in the world.¹¹ The issues involving guns and terrorism are closely related to guns and crime. Guns might make terrorism easier, but they also make it easier for people to defend themselves against terrorist attacks. Many of the issues debated in the U.S. have been discussed for decades in Israel.

For example, will armed citizens create more problems than they solve? Will increasing the number of guns possessed by citizens make it easier for terrorists to get access to guns? The terrorist attacks suffered by Israel even provide potential lessons for the multiple victim public shootings in the U.S.

Two stories probably put the trade-off of guns in the starkest terms. All too typical in the media are the gut-wrenching stories about the harm caused by guns, such as this one:

DeKalb police said the 10-year-old boy found a loaded 12-gauge shotgun under his older brother’s bed and showed it to Netwian. The boys were playing inside Matthew’s home. The shotgun went off and a single round hit Netwian in the head, killing the Chapel Hill Elementary School student instantly, police said. No charges have been filed against the 10-year-old boy or his 20-year-old brother.¹²

But there are also dramatic stories in which guns save lives—even cases where access to guns by young children have made a difference. Take this one:

When Tony D. Murry held a box cutter to Sue Gay’s neck Monday night, Gay’s 11-year-old adopted son ran upstairs at the home at 1348 N. Huey St. and grabbed a gun. “He hit the bottom of the stairs with the .45 and stood ready stance with the gun,” said Gay with feet spread apart and her hands outstretched as if holding a handgun. The boy shot one round and hit Murry, 27, in the chest, even though the man was shielding himself with Gay. “I don’t know how he did that. One shot and he got him. He’s my little hero,” Gay said of the grandson she adopted. The fifth-grader may not have been just a lucky shot. This is a family that knows guns. “Before his dad died, they’d go target shooting. He knows they’re not toys and not something to mess with,” Gay said.¹³

People’s horrified reactions to tragic stories such as the one about young Netwian are to be expected. Some people respond by getting rid of their guns; others by locking them up. But are these the safest courses of action for a family?¹⁴ Perhaps in some cases they are. But unfortunately, too often the debate is played out in the media with only anecdotal stories as evidence against guns. Many press accounts start out with a tragedy to illustrate the need for some gun law. Surely the stories help galvanize emotions, but the real issue should be the net effect that guns have on safety. How frequently are guns used by children to harm other children? How frequently are guns used to save lives? Will requiring guns to be locked up save lives or cost lives?

Many other areas of the gun debate take place without any reference to evidence. Take the debate over the “gun show loophole” that dominated much of the 2000 elections. The word “loophole” gives the impression that there are different rules for buying a gun at a gun show than there are for buying one elsewhere. That is not the case, as we shall later see.¹⁵ But the outcry against “loopholes” has pressured many legislatures to “do something.” Despite seventeen states regulating the private transfers of weapons between individuals at gun shows, no evidence supports the conclusion that these regulations actually lower crime.

GUNS’ DETERRENT EFFECT ON VIOLENCE

“Apparently it was a female suicide bomber,” Jerusalem police chief Mickey Levy told reporters at the scene of the blast. “The female terrorist, based on her appearance and what I saw from her face, her crushed skull, was a young woman.” Levy said it appeared her target was the bustling Mahane Yehuda open-air market where crowds of Israelis were doing last minute shopping before the start of the Jewish Sabbath at sundown. He said she apparently changed course at the sight of police guarding the market’s entrance. “She did not succeed at getting into the market and set off her bomb at a bus stop when a bus came to let off passengers,” Levy said. “She set off a very powerful bomb.”¹⁶

In the attack on the Jewish community center in Los Angeles that left 5 people wounded, the killer had “scouted three prominent Jewish institutions in Los Angeles as he looked for places to kill Jews, but found security too tight. He then stumbled on the lesser-known No...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Dedication
• PART I - THE PERVASIVE BIAS
• PART II - EXAMINING THE EVIDENCE
• APPENDIX 1 - SOME RECENT EVIDENCE ON GUNS AND CRIME
• APPENDIX 2 - OTHER MEASURES OF GUN OWNERSHIP
• APPENDIX 3 - SUPPLEMENTAL TABLES FOR CHAPTERS 6, 7, and 8
• NOTES
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Acknowledgements
• INDEX
• Copyright Page