From: [s--e--t] at [as.arizona.edu] (Steve West) Newsgroups: talk.politics.guns Subject: Another Review of Point Blank Date: 9 Jun 93 15:59:05 GMT I have noticed that someone posted a review of the book by Gary Kleck "Point-Blank: Guns and violence in America". Here, I offer my own review of the book by writing down some of the more interesting facts I encountered while reading the book. Where possible, I put the reference to the page number before each statement. As the astute reader will see, I have interjected my own comments here and there as well as other facts I have found here and there. I have only touched the tip of the iceberg on this book, and I STRONGLY recommend that everyone interested in preserving our 2nd amendment rights go out and purchase this book. Perhaps we can even get Kleck to have a soft-bound edition printed so us mortals can afford to have it in our personal libraries. Finally, let me say that gun owners as whole (and the NRA in particular) should be developing some kind of fact sheet that could be distributed in times of trouble in grocery stores, etc. Because once the media is forced to report the facts, and the politicians forced to accept them, the anti-gunners won't have a leg to stand on. I would volunteer myself as a caretaker of facts that people know, and will put them all down and redisturbute if you like. Please though, only send facts that have a reference to a journal or other traceable source and note that source. Don't send things that you have just heard over the grapevine. If I have misrepresented what Kleck has said or otherwise messed up, let me know. Anyone that can fill in facts from Dave Kopel's book would be great as that helps fill in the international perspective. Steve West. (I'm a gun-toting liberal, but NO longer a member of the democratic party!). ------------------------------------------------------------------- Fatal Gun Accidents (FGAs) Fact and Comments National Safety Council 1991 statistics show 93,500 accidental deaths: 46,300=motor vehicle, 12,400=falls, 6,500=poisoning, 5,700=drowning, 4,300=fires, 3,200=choking, 1,400=firearms of which 146=hunting. (Compare to 30,000 deaths/year due to firearms and over 600,000 reported successful personal defensive uses of guns/year with a con- servative estimate of 70 million+ gun owners.!) Accidents expressed as a fraction of the total items in existence and compared to FGAs: - You are 29 times more likely to be killed in an auto accident. - Although guns far outnumber swimming pools and motocycles, there are twice as many deaths due to each of the latter in a given year. Further, in 1984, it is estimated that there were over 93,000 medical mal practice deaths in the US (extrapolated rate from the 6895 short term, non-psychiatric hospital patients who died due to negligent medical practice in NY state). 1, 122 Of the 1400 FGAs in 1987, 2% resulted in the shooting of a family member mistaken for an intruder. Additionally, only 1% of all defensive gun uses result in the citizen having the gun taken away by the intruder. 2, Only about 10% of guns kept loaded for self defense are long guns (i.e. rifles and shot- guns), yet they account for over 50% of FGAs. Another example is Australia where handguns are largely unavailable and long guns account for virtually all personal ownership and the crime rates are far lower--there is double the FGA rate relative to the US. 2, If handguns were banned and long guns substituted, the estimated FGA rate per year in the US would rise from 1400 to roughly 6900. 2, Long guns result in higher accident rates because: - they are harder to hide from curious children. - they are much easier for small children to fire. - they are more prone to accidental discharge if dropped. - long gun discharges are more deadly than handguns. 1, 306 2, From 1933-1987: gun ownership rose from less than 381 per 1,000 to 816:1,000 and all FGAs decreased from 3014 to 1440 per year. Therefore gun ownership has dou- bled while fatal accidents have halved. Education, improvements in medical technology and a drastically higher proportion of handgun ownership are responsible for the decrease. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gun Ownership 1,23 Gun ownership is opposite crime: ownership is significantly higher among: - whites than blacks - middle aged than young. - married than unmarried. - rich than poor. - rural and small towns than urban areas. 1, 306 From 1933-1987: gun ownership <381:1,000 to 816:1,000 and all accidents went from 3014 to 1440. Therefore gun ownership has doubled while fatal accidents have halved. 1, 110 A 1989 survey showed that gun owners own guns for an average of 23.4 years during their lives. 1, In 1980, 1.3 million people (7% of all hunters) used handguns (10.7 million days of handgun hunting participation). --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Defensive Uses of Guns and Homocide Rates 1, 20 1920-1926: 72% of all homocides were commited with guns. In 1989, 62% were commited with guns. 1,42 In 1985, 31,600 people killed with guns: 55%=suicides, 37%=criminal homocides, 5%=accidents, and 1.5% were due to legal intervention (i.e. police officer shooting a criminal). 1, 121 The National Crime Survey shows that 83% of all Americans will, sometime over the span of their life, be a victim of violent crime. The most common confrontation will be in or near the victims home. 1, 44 Relative to # of guns, the # of gun crimes is small: 0.3% of all guns are used to further crimes. Expressed as a fraction of handguns (0.9%) and as a fraction of long guns (0.09%). 1, 105- 106 From 1985-1990, 4% of the population has used a gun in self-defense and 2% have used one for protection from an animal. 1, During the last few years, there were over 600,000 personal defensive uses of guns/year (compared to the 30,000 gun deaths/year and over 70 million gun owners). 1, 127 In fact, the number of successful self defense uses of guns are severly underestimated according to the results of the National Crime Survey. It was found that only 24% of incidents with no injury or propery loss were actually reported to the police whereas 72% of incidents with either were reported. By definition, the former are successful self defense uses and are largely invisible to police who are mainly exposed to incidents that result in failure. 1, 112 FBI statistics overrestimates the number of criminal homocides each year because many civilian justifiable homocides are permanently classified in the former class because thats how the investigation starts. 1, 117 A 1985 survey showed that 5% of US adults regularly carry guns with them. That is about 7.5 million people and at most 1.5 million of these are law enforcement. Even if one asymmetrically attributes a disproportionate number of crimes to these people, the worst case scenario means that over 90% of gun carriers do so without intent to commit crimes. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2.0 Historical Policy Making 1, 11 Temperance movement advocated responsible alcohol consumption was turned into prohibition by a series of small steps. 1, Issues and arguements havent changed since Outlawing the Pistol in 1926. 1, 354- 355 The Sullivan Law is an example of what can happen when the gun lobby lets its guard down. It was amended scores of times in increasing severity until in 1950, it called for an all-out ban on handguns in NY city. This parallels gun regulation policy of Great Britain. 1, 335 In 1990, the Soviet Union ordered all lithuanians to turn in their arms--gun registration provided the list of gun owners. 1, 335 Registrations were used for mass confiscations in Greece, Bermuda, and the Irish Republic. NRA In New Zealand, gun control has historical foundation the oppression of certain groups of people. At the turn of the centruy it was the suppression of indians and in the 60s, it was the suppression of communism. NRA In 17th centruy England, King Charles II banned guns among the lower classes to stop them hunting in order to preserve game for the elite, and to preclude the defeat of the feudal system by effectively prohibiting revolt. --------------------------------------------------------------------- 3.0 Prohibition Policy Problems 1, 65 Gun ownership is commonplace (1 in 2 households have guns), therefore legislators that propose strict gun laws offend a large # of voters. Instead legislators target relatively rare guns, but problems with this policy are: - rare guns in the general population are rare among criminals. - Technical characteristics that make a gun useful for crime make it useful for self defense. - Successful restrictions encourage the substitution of a more deadly weapon (i.e. long guns for handguns or bombs for guns). 1, Prohibition policy falls mainly on the law abiding majority, therefore most of the regulation is wasted on people who dont need to be controlled. Additonally prohibition only works on violent criminals who are willing to break laws prohibiting murder, rape, robbery, etc., yet who will obey gun control laws! 1, 345 There is little benefit and considerable cost in denying guns to people who will never misuse them. The fact remains that each year, thousands of victims use guns in self defense to avoid injury or property loss. Prohibition reduces guns disproportionately among the law abiding thereby greatly limiting their ability to defend themselves. 1, 354 Unjust prohibition laws cause widespread disrespect for law making and law enforcement and stimulate the creation of black markets. 1, 76 In 1989, the % of gun types among criminals exactly reflected the % of types bought by the law abiding public: If semi-automatic weapons were a significant advantage to criminals, it would be disproportionate! 1, Extensive studies in the 60s, 70s and 80s have proven that gun owners do not have any significant characteristic differences from non-gun owners. 1, 91 Handgun prohibition would lead to long gun substitutions the latter of which are 2 to 5 times more deadly (just try to shoot something at 50 yards with your pistol and then try with a hunting rifle!) In fact, 54-80% of shootings in the 1980s occured in situations where a long gun could have easily been substituted and the result would have been sig- nificantly higher homocide rates. 1, 94 Handgun control is only political convenience. It would have very serious consequences if long guns were substituted. 1, 78-79 Semi-automatics: - Revolvers can fire 6 rounds in 3 secs with no user training; semis can fire 6 rounds in 1.5 secs with substantial training to avoid malfunctions and recoil inaccuracies. - Semi-auto bans should therefore relate to # of homocides committed where you have an advantage in firing 6 rounds in 1/2 the time (very rare). And only a very small fraction of people are well enough trained to take advantage of this characteristic of the semi-auto. - Vast majority of crimes involve only 1-3 rounds and mass killings are very rare: therefore large capacity magazines are NOT statistically relevant. 1, 77-81 Assault Rifles (ARs): - Military definition of an assault rifle is a small caliber gun DESIGNED NOT TO KILL in order to force enemy to maximize resources in caring for the wounded and to allow infantry men to carry larger # of rounds. - Military AR ammo is significantly less lethal than hollowpoints or hunting ammo, and ARs are not easily converted to fully automatic fire. - ARs have limited concealability and therefore are less attractive to criminals. - Actual shooting statistics throughout the 70s and 80s show that assault weapons are rarely used by criminals in general or by drug dealers and juveniles in particular, and are almost never used to kill police officers. Prohibition of assualt rifles is based only on a percieved threat to police officers and has no basis in fact. It is called the police chief's falacy in honor of chief McNamara of California. --------------------------------------------------------------- Other stuff: 1, 103 Vigilantism and criminal justice are forms of retribution and not self protection. 1, 102 If civilian gun ownership deters crime, than its reduction removes an important source of crime control. 1, 104 Gun ownership costs less than an alarm system, buying and maintaining a dog, hiring a security guard, or putting a police officer in every house, and therefore it is an impor- tant form of self protection for the poor. 4.0 Bibliography Citation 1 Gary Kleck (Professor of Criminology at Florida State University) 1991, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America, Aldine de Gruyter Publ. Co., 200 Saw Mill River Road, Hawthorne NY 10532. Each citation about contains a page number which in turn references refereed publications in criminology and sociology journals. 2 Don B. Kates Jr., (1984) Firearms and Violence: Issues of Public Policy. _____________, Handgun Prohibition and the Original Understanding of the 2nd Amendment Kates is an SF criminologist, civil liberties lawyer, and former professor of constitu- tional law. 3 Dave Kopel, The Samurai, Mountie, and Cowboy: Should America adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies?, NRA booksevice (800) 336-7402. Item PB1N7938.