This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

President's Gun Control Panel Report Surprises Many

What happens when a president wanting greater gun control gets a report he requested that does not support his gun control agenda?

What happens when a president wanting greater gun control gets a report he requested that does not support his gun control agenda? We might soon find out.  

In January, in the wake of the Newtown massacre, President Obama issued an executive order requesting research on gun violence as a public health issue. The initial report from that effort came in about three weeks ago and this might be a case of “be careful what you wish for” for the President and other gun prohibition advocates. 

Many gun-prohibition advocates have been asking for more research to be done on gun violence in the firm belief that it would bolster their case that guns are evil and a public menace. These advocates have complained for years, with some merit, that the NRA and other gun-rights supporters have prevented the CDC and other government bodies from researching the matter. Make no mistake, the civilian disarmament lobby were convinced that further research would surely bolster their arguments for even greater gun restrictions. Uh, not so fast.

And before anyone is ready to reflexively dismiss these findings thinking  they come from some “right wing, gun goon” researchers, this report was conducted by the National Academy, specifically the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council. Certainly, not entities one could credibly suggest are shills for the NRA.

When measured on balance between what most interest parties “knew” on the matter and what some “thought” on the matter, for the gun-prohibitionists, this might be a case of BE CAREFUL FOR WHAT YOU WISH FOR.

As reported by Slate, a liberal-leaning supporter of gun restrictions, a new report provides a mixed bag of findings. In my opinion, reading the findings will be far less enjoyable for those seeking to restrict gun-rights than those supporting them. From Slate: 

Rethinking Gun Control

Surprising findings from a comprehensive report on gun violence.

The gun control debate is certainly worth reopening. But if we’re going to reopen it, let’s not just rethink the politics. Let’s take another look at the facts. Earlier this year, President Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the existing research on gun violence and recommend future studies. That report, prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is now complete. Its findings won’t entirely please the Obama administration or the NRA, but all of us should consider them.

Find out what's happening in Wiltonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

Given this is my forum for opinion, I am going to list Slate’s selected “10 most salient and surprising takeaways” below with some of Slate’s text (in italics) and my comments:

Find out what's happening in Wiltonwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

 

1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem.

According to the report, “the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.”

TP: There is no denying this and few gun-rights supporters would argue with this as a statement. What we would argue with is whether this is a “problem” centered on legal gun ownership or illegal gun ownership. Organizations like Mayors Against Gun Violence might find a more receptive audience among gun owners were the organization called Mayors Against ILLEGAL Gun Violence and actually called for a focus on illegal guns rather than the law-abiding gun owners.

 

2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse. “Overall crime rates have declined in the past decade, and violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past 5 years,” the report notes. “Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent victimizations remained generally stable.” Meanwhile, “firearm-related death rates for youth ages 15 to 19 declined from 1994 to 2009.” Accidents are down, too: “Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.”

 

TP: This is one of those facts that the gun-prohibition lobby would prefer the general public not know or understand – CRIME AND GUN VIOLENCE RATES ARE DECREASING. What this report fails to recognize is that these declines in crime and violence rates have come during periods where the total number of firearms in civilian hands has skyrocketed. So while the rates account for population growth, there is no commensurate adjustment for the firearm penetration rate across the country.

 

3. We have 300 million firearms, but only 100 million are handguns. According to the report, “In 2007, one estimate placed the total number of firearms in the country at 294 million: ‘106 million handguns, 105 million rifles, and 83 million shotguns.’ ” This translates to nearly nine guns for every 10 people, a per capita ownership rate nearly 50 percent higher than the next most armed country. But American gun ownership is concentrated, not universal: In a December 2012 Gallup poll, “43 percent of those surveyed reported having a gun in the home.”

 

TP: For those who have done their research, none of this is a surprise, except for the Gallup result. The gun-prohibition advocates use a other surveys or polls to suggest that gun ownership is one the wane and gun ownership is becoming “less popular”. The meme they have developed is that ownership is in the low 30%s have been cut in half from the 1970s. Well, declines over the past 40 years are no surprise given the US population has become more focused on cities and suburbs, especially when much of the population growth has been in those areas. But the 43% figure does fly in the face of the low 30%s being tossed around by prohibitionists.

 

4. Handguns are the problem. Despite being outnumbered by long guns, “Handguns are used in more than 87 percent of violent crimes,” the report notes. In 2011, “handguns comprised 72.5 percent of the firearms used in murder and non-negligent manslaughter incidents.” Why do criminals prefer handguns? One reason, according to surveys of felons, is that they’re “easily concealable.”

 

TP: Again, this is widely known by anyone who has studied the statistics and trends. Even the folks at Connecticut Against Gun Violence (CAGV) acknowledge that over 85% of gun violence can be traced to illegal handguns being used by those who possess them illegally. AND, this is the reason that so many gun owners and gun-rights supporters become quite discouraged when they see the efforts of the gun restriction lobby focusing on rifles (not used by criminals) and magazine capacity limits (ignored by unlawful gun possessors).

 

5. Mass shootings aren’t the problem. “The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths,” says the report. “Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.” Compare that with the 335,000 gun deaths between 2000 and 2010 alone.

 

TP: Again, known by anyone who has sought the information but not known by the public, partly due to extensive wall-to-wall coverage by the Media and a heightened focus by those in the gun prohibition lobby. Whether you call such events mass, spree or rampage killings (I won’t call them shootings), they inevitably draw much attention and are tragic given the loss of innocent life, especially when children are victims. But statistically, such events are relatively rare and amount to a infinitesimally small fraction of all gun homicides. Yet, gun prohibition efforts in Connecticut, New York, California and Washington DC all seem to focus further gun restrictions on preventing the next rampage killing event. Again, this is why gun owners and gun-rights supporters react so strongly to such efforts, we know they will not make a difference in the real world or even statistically. BTW, not that the report and Slate’s article uses “gun deaths” (which include suicides) as a featured statistic, not gun-related homicides. IMO, this is an attempt at conflation is an attempt

 

6. Gun suicide is a bigger killer than gun homicide. From 2000 to 2010, “firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearm-related violence in the United States,” says the report. Firearm sales are often a warning: Two studies found that “a small but significant fraction of gun suicides are committed within days to weeks after the purchase of a handgun, and both also indicate that gun purchasers have an elevated risk of suicide for many years after the purchase of the gun.”

 

TP: Again, this is known for those interested in this area but largely unknown by the general public. This statistic is sadder when considered relative to #2 above because as non-suicide gun violence declines, the rate of gun-suicide has not. If anything, the economic and other difficulties of the recent past have driven the number of suicides by any cause higher. As for whether firearm sales represent a warning or not, I have no way of judging that without further information on the timing of firearm sales vs a suicide attempt with the firearm. Could better integration of existing background check systems with mental health databases prevent the purchase of firearms by those with suicide risk? Possibly, but that depends on whether any mental health database can adequately and fairly flag someone as being a risk for suicide. How do we do that? Does a private psychologist have to report a suicidal client to a central database? My issue with the gun restriction lobby’s use of suicide statistics is that they rarely offer a thoughtful explanation as to how enhanced background checks are going to stop the suicidal from procuring a firearm.

As an aside, what you rarely read when gun-related suicides are mentioned is the demographics of gun suicides. You can easily find suicide statistics and they will all tell you that, based on totals, white males are the most likely to take their own lives with a firearm. Depending on the dataset used, you will find that white males make up 75-80% of all gun-related suicides (white males make up 60-70% of suicide by all methods). Most interesting, the group with the highest rate of suicide (per 100,000 population) are white men older than 85 years of age at six times the national average. Yet, when advocates of greater gun restrictions use suicide as a reason, you rarely hear calls for better mental health access to address preventing suicide before it gets to the point of someone seeking an implement/method of taking their life. Maybe some prevention might be a better use of funding and the public’s attention.

 

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. “Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year … in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” says the report. The three million figure is probably high, “based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.” But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, “because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.” Furthermore, “Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was 'used' by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies.”

 

TP: OK, this is the one that the gun prohibition lobby would prefer not become widely known because if blows up the meme that “no one really needs a self-defense firearm in our modern society”. Well, if you read the paragraph above, it suggests that there are hundreds of thousands of defensive gun uses (DGU) every year. That is tens of thousands every month and more than a thousand a day. Why do people find this hard to believe? Well, mostly because a DGU without a shot being fired or property lost or destroyed does not lead to a police report and is hence not a data point. Also, the Media very rarely covers stories of defensive gun use and I will let the reader think about why that might be. Yes, we get reports every now and then of the nine year old that held off a home invader with his 22 caliber rifle but not the adult carrying a legal concealed handgun who scares off a mugger without a shot being fired. If the Media does not see it supporting their long-time narrative, it gets ignored.

 

8. Carrying guns for self-defense is an arms race. The prevalence of firearm violence near “drug markets … could be a consequence of drug dealers carrying guns for self-defense against thieves or other adversaries who are likely to be armed,” says the report. In these communities, “individuals not involved in the drug markets have similar incentives for possessing guns.” According to a Pew Foundation report, “the vast majority of gun owners say that having a gun makes them feel safer. And far more today than in 1999 cite protection—rather than hunting or other activities—as the major reason for why they own guns.”

 

TP: Interesting use of “arms race” here as to make it sound somewhat undesirable or nefarious. And in the case of the lawless arming themselves, it is a problem. However, note the comment on non-criminal gun ownership increasing because of a more widespread feeling of a need for personal protection. This is real and helps explain the explosion in the sale of smaller, more easily concealed semi-automatic pistols over the past decade.

 

9. Denying guns to people under restraining orders saves lives. “Two-thirds of homicides of ex- and current spouses were committed [with] firearms,” the report observes. “In locations where individuals under restraining orders to stay away from current or ex-partners are prohibited from access to firearms, female partner homicide is reduced by 7 percent.”

 

TP: I agree with this and support efforts to prevent those who are a bona fide risk from getting possession of a firearm.

 

10. It isn’t true that most gun acquisitions by criminals can be blamed on a few bad dealers. The report concedes that in 1998, “1,020 of 83,272 federally licensed retailers (1.2 percent) accounted for 57.4 percent of all guns traced by the ATF.” However, “Gun sales are also relatively concentrated; approximately 15 percent of retailers request 80 percent of background checks on gun buyers conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.” Researchers have found that “the share of crime gun traces attributed to these few dealers only slightly exceeded their share of handgun sales, which are almost equally concentrated among a few dealers.” Volume, not laxity, drives the number of ill-fated sales.

 

TP: I need to see more data on this one. If the assertion is correct and the problem is NOT a small percentage of dealer, then this blows up all the arguments of the gun prohibition lobby of making change to reign in “rogue dealers”. CAGV has made this argument for year as an excuse for a full gun ownership database as well as invasive powers granted to the BATFE to inspect all dealers. That latter argument has always struck me as an excuse to get otherwise compliant and above-board dealers in trouble for some innocent documentation misses. That said, I am in favor of reigning in dealers who skirt the laws knowingly or through lax documentation, etc. I am also all for heavy penalties for “straw buyers” who buy firearms in their name knowing they will only hold them for a short time before giving or selling them to someone else who is not eligible to make a legal purchase. However, I would like to see more information on the large volume retailers mentioned above. Given the size and geographic reach of outdoor sports retailers like Cabelas, Gender Mountain, Bass Pro Shops, Dicks and other firms, it is likely that these “retailers” will dominate the national gun sale statistics. But does that make them any more likely to sell firearms that wind up in criminal hands? I don’t know but would like to learn more.

 

As Slate concludes:

 

These conclusions don’t line up perfectly with either side’s agenda. That’s a good reason to take them seriously—and to fund additional data collection and research that have been blocked by Congress over politics. Yes, the facts will surprise you. That’s why you should embrace them.

 

Facts are the best cure against misinformation, emotion-driven reform efforts and views based purely on ideology. And I say that meaning it cuts both ways with facts often dispelling the misinformation on the gun-rights side as well. HOWEVER, there is far more misinformation put forth, creative statistical analysis and manipulation of emotions with “data” by the gun prohibition lobby than by the gun-right lobby. Sadly, large swaths of the Media have a personal narrative supporting gun restrictions or a deeper ideological bent that leans in such a direction making it difficult for the general public to become educated and factually informed.

Full Slate article here 

Further information regarding the National Academy’s reports can be found at these links: 

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here

The views expressed in this post are the author's own. Want to post on Patch?