Guns, Murders, and the Rule of Law: Running the Numbers
When I was eighteen years old, I went down to the government office in Olympia, Washington with my friend Steve (no, not that Steve) and signed as the character witness on his application for a concealed carry permit for his handgun. I was probably stoned at the time; I often was back then. (FYI, I grew up with guns in my house — stored in the gun locker up in the attic, but we took them out and shot targets now and then, cleaned them, took care of them. I went hunting several times as a kid.)
Steve and I are still buds, and he still carries. He even stays at my place sometimes when he’s working up here in Seattle, but he leaves the heat in his car. I guess he doesn’t feel the need to scare off the dangerous girl gangs that are forever threatening to invade my houseboat and have their way with us. (Yeah: wildest dreams.)
You won’t be surprised to hear that Steve and I have been going at it on Facebook since the Newtown horror (cordially, if you can believe that). I point to the numbers — less guns, less murders — and he points to countries like Mexico, which have gun control laws but still have high levels of gun homicide. I point out: those countries don’t have strong rule of law; corruption and criminal intimidation is rampant in the police, the judiciary, and the legislatures.
Those countries’ problem is not that they don’t (try to) control guns. It’s that they can’t control guns.
Curious as always, this led me to wonder: in countries like ours that do have a strong, well-institutionalized rule of law — countries that can control guns if they choose to — do less guns mean less gun killings?
Short answer, Yes:
CL is Chile. MK is Macedonia. FI is Finland. You know what US stands for.
The WJP index looked like a good measure among those I found on the web; you can choose others if you wish. I used .55 as the cutoff because it’s the line above which all European countries are included, and the resulting list seemed to consist of countries that (at least in aggregate) are fairly comparable to ours. Here’s the list:
Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Macedonia, Malaysia, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Singapore, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay.
The firearms and homicide data is from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, but it’s laid out in a conveniently sortable table with a linked Google spreadsheet at this Guardian page.
Steve also pointed me toward a blog that includes, among other things, a time-series analysis of gun violence and gun restrictions in the UK. I’ll simply say: if you live in the U.S. instead of the U.K., you are 43 times as likely to die of a gunshot.
So are your children.
Cross-posted at Asymptosis.
the problem is the cat is out of the bag.and as you pointed out mexico can not control guns. even if the U.S. banned all guns retroactive they would be brought in from mexico ,just like all the drugs.unregulated fully automatic.and make the drug lords even richer,and more people would die.lets do that,that would be really smart ,and under obamas justice department with eric holder running guns we could fix the trade imbalance.
@David-This is a bit of a straw man. Our home land security, border control, and justice system is not a complete failure. Nor is it resistant to improvement. Instead of being sour grape how about suggesting a possible solution. Because regardless of how you feel our country does have a gun problem which this data suggests. Most guns are bought by law abiding citizens. Are you suggesting that a substantial amount of law abiding citizens would turn towards the black market? It would not be the same as the prohibition of drugs and alchohol (except for ammo) because guns are not consumed. I am in now way calling for a complete ban on guns. We as a nation can easily restrict them and hold the black market at bay. Of course that would be much easier if gun nuts didn’t go on a shopping spree every time they think the government is coming after them.
Would you consider writing a bit more on this subject? Maybe considering overall rates of homicide (not just gun related homicide) with regard to gun availability and the effectiveness of gun control at lowering rates of homicide?
It’s never surprising to me that more guns would result in more gun related crime. If you’re going to murder someone or attempt to intimidate them into submission during a crime, a gun is obviously a great choice. I’m more curious in the overall rates of homicide compared to gun availability because as the slogan goes “guns don’t kill people…”
My assumption has always been that fewer guns would result in fewer overall murders because many murders are committed in the heat of the moment, and if the perpetrator didn’t have access to a gun the victim may be more likely to survive.
Gun rights advocates often argue that if a criminal is going to kill someone they’ll do it with or without a gun. And unfortunately when I look at the statistics of overall murder rates in countries that have passed gun control it doesn’t seem clear to me that gun control actually achieves the desired result. Which leads me to wonder if maybe most murders are premeditated? Or maybe holding an object knowing it has that much killing power makes the person think twice before firing, a second thought they might not have if they were using a baseball bat or their bare hands?
Or maybe my I’m just terrible at interpreting graphed data because I have to admit I don’t feel I am knowledgeable enough in economics or statistics to really judge the merit of studies on this subject. However when I see people pointing specifically and only to gun related homicides I can’t help but feel it’s a point made more for its convenience than its value or insight because I would hope that the end goal here is to reduce rates of homicide, not just rates of homicide by firearm…
@ Mars I think you bring up an interesting point. Obviously the availability of guns directly correlates to gun violence. If there were no cars there would be no car accidents. It is the same thing with our troop surges in Afghanistan and Iraq. People were outraged that the surge brought on more troop deaths and then claimed it was all a failure. But it is obvious that an increase in troops would also increase the opportunities for deaths or wounded.
But I think gun rights advocates are missing a point. The aim is not to eliminate guns nor is it to elminiate gun violence (that would be great but impossible). The aim is to MITIGATE and decrease the tragically high amount of deaths overall. It is obvious that we have a high gun homicide rate so let’s focus on that and stop diverting our attention to conspiracies.
That’s the point, “mitigate and decrease the tragically high amounts of deaths overall.” I have never heard of any effort to infringe on the right to have a hunting rifle or even a pistol for that matter. It’s the guns used as weapons of mass destruction that is the focus of most debates regarding gun control. I’ll repeat myself from the earlier thread having to do with the killing of the four Lakewood police officers.
“Most police work, especially on the beat, is reactionary. Modern semi-automatic weapons do not allow those targeted to react in time for the purpose of self defence. That is the problem.
But……
Read the second paragraph of Scalia’s written opinion:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/search/display.html?terms=heller&url=/supct/html/07-290.ZS.html
“2. Like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to keep and carry any weapon whatsoever in any manner whatsoever and for whatever purpose: For example, concealed weapons prohibitions have been upheld under the Amendment or state analogues. The Court’s opinion should not be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms. Miller’s holding that the sorts of weapons protected are those “in common use at the time” finds support in the historical tradition of prohibiting the carrying of dangerous and unusual weapons. Pp. 54–56.”
“That last sentence is illuminating. It clearly points out that laws limiting the ownership of “dangerous and unusual weapons” are supported by historical tradition as noted by Miller’s decision. And Scalia seems to be specifically focused on the types of arms that are protected, “those in common use at the time.” Flint lock, muzzle loaders were the common and only guns at that time.”
Not even Scalia, as the voice of the majority, was suggesting that we are all free to have and hold any gun we so choose.
Mars, Jack, Jason,
This is my first Angry Bear comment. Love the blog; have been visiting it and sharing on FaceBook for years.
You raise interesting questions. Look at this site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentional_homicide_rate
It looks like the US does pretty poorly on the intentional homicide question. Besides Greenland, which seems to be an outlier for some reason, we do poorly in comparison to Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Middle East. Only South America, Africa, et al. (i.e., what we used to call “Third World”) and former Soviet places do worse than us.
Needless to say Baltimore has a gun murder problem and has for decades. It also has a drug problem. There are two parts to this problem. One, it is economic people deal drugs as they are not employable. 1 of 4 males in Baltimore is a felon.
Two, there historically were very lenient penalties for using a gun illegally. If you want tough gun control, be prepared to put people in prison for a long time. Otherwise it is just babble.
Needless to say, Baltimore is tougher on gun crime, and the homicide rate has been declining. They have also employed better policing practices – e.g. running rear flashing lights on police cruisers.
http://northbaltimore.patch.com/articles/mayor-touts-sentencing-increases-for-gun-crimes
The average sentencing for gun crimes increased during 2011 in Baltimore’s state courts, according to the city’s GunStat initiative.
The average sentence for illegally carrying, wearing or transporting a firearm increased to 13 months, a four-month increase from the past several years, according to a news release.
Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake’s office also touted an increase in the average sentence for those who committed felony gun crimes. The average sentence increased to 63 months compared to 32 months in 2009.
Yes MM, we all know that in high crime areas, plagued with poverty as they generally are, there is lots of killing with fire arms as well as all manner of weaponry. Check the post by Steve Roth, above. The entire south has MD beat by a wide margin when it comes to gun deaths per hundred thousand. Crime leads to violence. That’s a no brainer. The issue is how to deal with the wide spread distribution of semi-automatic guns of mass destruction. The mass killings would be far less enabled when such crazies, and no we don’t know yet how to determine who those crazies are likely to be, can no longer get their hands on military style weaponry.