Drizzt
March 5, 2003, 05:47 PM
Saint Paul Pioneer Press
March 5, 2003 Wednesday
SECTION: MAIN; Pg. 10A
LENGTH: 841 words
HEADLINE: Opponents of new gun law are slinging smaller caliber arguments
BYLINE: D.J. TICE; Editorial Writer
BODY:
I was recently reading a rival editorial page -- an influential voice in these parts that has long opposed any liberalization of Minnesota's rules for giving citizens permits to carry concealed pistols.
I was not surprised to find those editorialists again taking aim at "hidden gun" legislation. A bill under consideration at the Legislature -- for the third or fourth time -- would basically guarantee a concealed firearm permit to any Minnesotan who has no record of crime or mental illness.
What did surprise me and intrigue me was what the rival editorialists revealed about the latest scientific research on gun laws. A recent Brookings Institution study, they wrote, "found that concealed carry laws do not reduce crime and may even increase it."
I had to read that sentence several times. More guns "don't reduce crime"? More guns "may even increase" crime?
These struck me as startlingly small claims -- compared with what we've routinely heard in recent years.
Opponents of concealed carry reform have in the past predicted a massacre if more Minnesotans are allowed to carry guns. Life in our state will become one long "shootout at the OK Corral," we have been repeatedly told. Traffic disputes will be settled by an exchange of lead rather than an exchange of dirty looks.
As for the argument of concealed carry proponents that a better-armed population can deter criminals and actually reduce violence -- well, it has gotten less respect than a Sunday driver in the fast lane.
You think I exaggerate? Just two years ago, the same prominent editorialists quoted above raised a much more dramatic alarm, explaining that guns have a way of coming out of pockets ...
"... In the middle of arguments, in moments of groundless fear, in times of fleeting despair. They leap from the handbags of wary women into the hands of their unarmed attackers, into the hands of irked partners, into the hands of children."
Has something happened to undermine the confidence of concealed carry opponents?
Two years ago, guns were jumping out of purses at the slightest provocation, putting deadly force in the hands of the homicidally "irked." Now, gun opponents merely insist that more guns don't make society safer.
All this interests me because for years I have responded to the concealed carry debate by searching for sound evidence supporting the doomsday predictions of anti-gun advocates. I am no gunslinger myself. I have never owned a firearm and have no wish for one. Instinctively, emotionally, I don't much like the idea of more people packing heat.
Yet the notion that law-abiding citizens have a right to arm themselves for self-defense if they choose has justice in it -- unless there is real evidence that a relaxed permitting law would have broadly harmful effects.
I haven't been able to find solid evidence of guns leaping from handbags. The new Brookings Institution study noted above apparently won't provide it.
It seems legal scholars from Stanford and Yale have compared crime rates in states with and without liberalized concealed-carry laws. Their calculations contradict the much discussed work of researcher John Lott, who has claimed for years that concealed carry laws lead to a drop in crime.
The new study says Lott was wrong. But one report notes that Stanford professor John Donahue "credits Lott ... for demonstrating that concealed carry laws 'have not led to [a] massive bloodbath ... ' "
Elsewhere, Donahue is quoted as saying: "If somebody had to say which way is the evidence stronger, I'd say that it's probably stronger that the [concealed-carry] laws are increasing crime, rather than decreasing crime. But the stronger thing I could say is that I don't see any strong evidence that they are reducing crime."
What's really "strong" in all this is the aroma of ambiguity -- and no wonder. Crime is an immensely complex social phenomenon. Crime is caused (and prevented) by more social, legal, economic and moral factors than we could ever measure. For that reason, the claim that more guns can be proven to reduce crime rates has always seemed overconfident.
But statistics aren't the whole of life. No one carries a gun in order to reduce statistical crime rates. People carry guns to protect themselves and those around them. A more open permitting process could allow many people to feel more secure in their daily lives, and could equip a few to actually defend themselves in the unlikely event of an attack -- even though there was no provable effect (one way or another) on crime statistics.
It's also true that some innocent people might get shot who otherwise wouldn't because of more guns in society -- even though, once again, there was no measurable change in crime statistics.
This issue may come down to whether the few victims concealed carry reform could produce are more important than the few would-be victims it might protect.
Meanwhile, evidence remains elusive that concealed carry laws lead to "massive bloodbaths."
Write Tice at dtice@pioneerpress.com
March 5, 2003 Wednesday
SECTION: MAIN; Pg. 10A
LENGTH: 841 words
HEADLINE: Opponents of new gun law are slinging smaller caliber arguments
BYLINE: D.J. TICE; Editorial Writer
BODY:
I was recently reading a rival editorial page -- an influential voice in these parts that has long opposed any liberalization of Minnesota's rules for giving citizens permits to carry concealed pistols.
I was not surprised to find those editorialists again taking aim at "hidden gun" legislation. A bill under consideration at the Legislature -- for the third or fourth time -- would basically guarantee a concealed firearm permit to any Minnesotan who has no record of crime or mental illness.
What did surprise me and intrigue me was what the rival editorialists revealed about the latest scientific research on gun laws. A recent Brookings Institution study, they wrote, "found that concealed carry laws do not reduce crime and may even increase it."
I had to read that sentence several times. More guns "don't reduce crime"? More guns "may even increase" crime?
These struck me as startlingly small claims -- compared with what we've routinely heard in recent years.
Opponents of concealed carry reform have in the past predicted a massacre if more Minnesotans are allowed to carry guns. Life in our state will become one long "shootout at the OK Corral," we have been repeatedly told. Traffic disputes will be settled by an exchange of lead rather than an exchange of dirty looks.
As for the argument of concealed carry proponents that a better-armed population can deter criminals and actually reduce violence -- well, it has gotten less respect than a Sunday driver in the fast lane.
You think I exaggerate? Just two years ago, the same prominent editorialists quoted above raised a much more dramatic alarm, explaining that guns have a way of coming out of pockets ...
"... In the middle of arguments, in moments of groundless fear, in times of fleeting despair. They leap from the handbags of wary women into the hands of their unarmed attackers, into the hands of irked partners, into the hands of children."
Has something happened to undermine the confidence of concealed carry opponents?
Two years ago, guns were jumping out of purses at the slightest provocation, putting deadly force in the hands of the homicidally "irked." Now, gun opponents merely insist that more guns don't make society safer.
All this interests me because for years I have responded to the concealed carry debate by searching for sound evidence supporting the doomsday predictions of anti-gun advocates. I am no gunslinger myself. I have never owned a firearm and have no wish for one. Instinctively, emotionally, I don't much like the idea of more people packing heat.
Yet the notion that law-abiding citizens have a right to arm themselves for self-defense if they choose has justice in it -- unless there is real evidence that a relaxed permitting law would have broadly harmful effects.
I haven't been able to find solid evidence of guns leaping from handbags. The new Brookings Institution study noted above apparently won't provide it.
It seems legal scholars from Stanford and Yale have compared crime rates in states with and without liberalized concealed-carry laws. Their calculations contradict the much discussed work of researcher John Lott, who has claimed for years that concealed carry laws lead to a drop in crime.
The new study says Lott was wrong. But one report notes that Stanford professor John Donahue "credits Lott ... for demonstrating that concealed carry laws 'have not led to [a] massive bloodbath ... ' "
Elsewhere, Donahue is quoted as saying: "If somebody had to say which way is the evidence stronger, I'd say that it's probably stronger that the [concealed-carry] laws are increasing crime, rather than decreasing crime. But the stronger thing I could say is that I don't see any strong evidence that they are reducing crime."
What's really "strong" in all this is the aroma of ambiguity -- and no wonder. Crime is an immensely complex social phenomenon. Crime is caused (and prevented) by more social, legal, economic and moral factors than we could ever measure. For that reason, the claim that more guns can be proven to reduce crime rates has always seemed overconfident.
But statistics aren't the whole of life. No one carries a gun in order to reduce statistical crime rates. People carry guns to protect themselves and those around them. A more open permitting process could allow many people to feel more secure in their daily lives, and could equip a few to actually defend themselves in the unlikely event of an attack -- even though there was no provable effect (one way or another) on crime statistics.
It's also true that some innocent people might get shot who otherwise wouldn't because of more guns in society -- even though, once again, there was no measurable change in crime statistics.
This issue may come down to whether the few victims concealed carry reform could produce are more important than the few would-be victims it might protect.
Meanwhile, evidence remains elusive that concealed carry laws lead to "massive bloodbaths."
Write Tice at dtice@pioneerpress.com