Don B. Kates: WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?

[gun-fucious]

(c) Don B. Kates 2003

WOULD BANNING FIREARMS REDUCE MURDER AND SUICIDE?: A REVIEW OF INTERNATIONAL EVIDENCE


--------------------------------By Don B. Kates*

__________________________________________

* Don B. Kates (Ll.B., Yale, 1966) is an American criminologist and
constitutional lawyer associated with the Pacific Research Institute,
San Francisco. He may be contacted at [email protected]; 360-666-2688;
22608 N.E. 269th Ave., Battle Ground WS 98604

I gratefully acknowledge the generous contributions of: of Professor
Thomas B. Cole (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Social
Medicine and Epidemiology); Chief Superintendent Colin Greenwood (West
Yorkshire Constabulary, ret.); C.B. Kates; Abigail Kohn (University of
Sydney, Law); David B. Kopel (Independence Institute); Prof. Timothy D.
Lytton (Albany Law School): Prof. William Alex Pridemore--(University of
Oklahoma, Sociology); Prof. Randolph Roth (Ohio State University,
History), Prof. Thomas Velk (McGill University, Economics and Chairman
of the North American Studies Program); Robert Weisberg (Edwin E. Huddleson,
Jr. Professor of Law - Stanford University), and John Whitley
(University of Adelaide, Economics). Any merits this paper has reflect
their advice and contributions, but for errors the responsibility is
mine alone.


TABLE OF CONTENTS


INTRODUCTION


ASKING THE WRONG QUESTION


DO ORDINARY PEOPLE MURDER?


GEOGRAPHIC, HISTORICAL AND DEMOGRAPHIC PATTERNS

--------1. Demographic Patterns

--------2. Macro-Historical Evidence: From the Medieval Period to the 20th Century

--------3. Late and More Specific Macro-Historical Evidence

--------4. Geographic Patterns within Nations

--------5. Recent Experience in English Commonwealth Nations

--------6. Geographic Comparisons, European Gun Ownership and Homicide Rate Comparisons

--------7. Geographic Comparisons, European Gun Ownership and Suicide Rates


CONCLUSION


TABLES

Table 1: Intentional Deaths: U.S. v. Continental Europe Rates

Table 2: European Gun/Handgun Violent Deaths

Table 2 European Firearms - Violent Deaths


--------------------------------INTRODUCTION

Do patterns of suicide, murder and/or violent crime reflect basic
socio-economic and/or cultural factors to which the mere availability of
any particular form of weaponry is largely irrelevant? Or is widespread
firearms ownership a vital--factor in exacerbating these social evils?
International evidence and comparisons have long been a staple of the
mantra that more guns = more death/fewer guns = less death.
Unfortunately these discussions have all too often--been problematic -
afflicted by fact errors, misconceptions, and focus on comparisons that
are unrepresentative.

--------It may be useful--to begin with a few examples of such problems. One
lies in the--oft-seen compound assertion that: (a) guns are uniquely
available in the U,S, compared--to other modern developed nations,
wherefore (b) the U.S. has by far the highest murder rate. But--b) is
simply false and a) is substantially so. Reference to Tables 2 and 3
infra shows a number of other developed nations--(e.g., Norway,
Switzerland, Sweden, France) with high gun availability but whose murder
rates are as low or lower than those of nations where guns are few
and/or illegal. And the mythology of the U.S. having the industrialized
world's highest murder rate is an artifact of politically motivated
fictionalization by Soviet Russia stretching back to at least the 1960s.
For many decades Russia has had an extremely restrictive gun control
policy which was effectuated by a police state apparatus providing for
uniquely stringent enforcement.--So successful was that regime that few
Russian civilians have firearms and very few murders involve them.--Yet
figures that have only recently become available show that Russia has
long--had the developed world's highest murder rate. In the 1960s and
early '70s, gun-less Russia's murder rates closely paralleled those of
gun-ridden America. Thereafter, as American--rates first stabilized and
then steeply declined, murder in Russia--increased--so drastically that
by the early 1990s the Russian rate was three times higher. As of
1998-2001 the U.S. rate had so steadily declined that the--Russian rate
was four times higher. The Ukraine, Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania,
and various other now-independent European parts of the former U.S.S.R.
also have distinctly higher murder rates than the U.S. has ever had.

--------Another common misconception is that Western Europe's low homicide
rates are attributable to stringent gun control. That cannot be true for
murder in Western Europe was at an all-time low before the gun controls
were enacted. For instance, the only English gun control during the 19th
and early 20th Centuries was that police were to patrol without guns.
During this period stringent gun control was pioneered--not England or
Europe but in certain American states which nevertheless had - and
continued to have - murder rates that were very high and rising.

--------Concomitantly, imposition of stringent gun controls in England and
Western Europe in the pre-WWII period did not prevent those areas from
succumbing to the industrialized world's general post-WWII trend toward
ever-growing violent crime.--In the definitive study on English gun control
Joyce Lee Malcolm summarizes the 19th and 20th Century experience as follows:
The peacefulness England used to enjoy was not the result of strict gun
laws. When it had no firearms restrictions England had little violent
crime, while the present extraordinarily stringent gun controls have not
stopped the increase in violence or even the increase in armed
violence....

Armed crime, never a problem in England, has now become one. Handguns
are banned but the kingdom has millions of illegal firearms. Criminals
have no trouble finding them and exhibit a new willingness to use them.
In the decade after 1957 the use of guns in serious crime increased a
hundredfold.

In the late 1990s England had moved from stringent controls to a
complete ban on handguns and many types of long guns. Hundreds of
thousands were confiscated from owners law abiding enough to turn them
in. Without suggesting the handgun ban directly caused this,--its
ineffectiveness was such that by year 2000 violence so increased that
England--had attained--the developed world's highest violent crime rate,
far surpassing even the U.S.--Today English news media headline violent
crime in the kind of doleful, melodramatic reports that for so long
characterized American news reporting.

Startling as these facts--may seem, they represent the international
norm, not some--bizarre departure from it. If it is true that more guns
= more death/fewer guns = less death it would seem that broadly based
cross-national comparisons should show nations that have higher gun
ownership rates per capita to have more death. But, contrary to the
limited, if not selected, statistics offered by advocates, broad-based
international studies show no such correlation. Nations with higher per
capital gun ownership do not have higher murder (or suicide)--rates than
do those with lower gun ownership. Thus a comparison of "homicide and
suicide--mortality data for thirty-six nations (including the United
States) for the period 1990-1995" to gun ownership levels showed "no
significant (at the 5% level) association between gun ownership and the
total homicide rate." Confirming this is a later European analysis of
data from 21 nations in which--"no significant correlations [of gun
ownership levels] with total suicide or homicide--rates were found."

This article will proceed to examine a broad range of international
data that bear on whether widespread firearm access is an important
contributing factor in murder and/or suicide. In general, the conclusion
following from these data is that--suicide, murder and/or violent crime
rates are determined by basic social, economic and/or cultural factors
to which the availability of any--mere form of weaponry is largely
irrelevant.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Prima facie, no.

 

[Bruce H]

Solid research with decent statistics backed up with sites to the original information. This will be dismissed as folly by the noisy ignorant ones.

 

[Preacherman]

For the benefit of those who don't want to scroll through the whole thing:

CONCLUSION

This article has reviewed a goodly amount of evidence from a wide variety of international sources. Each individual portion of evidence is subject to cavil, at the very least the general objection that the persuasiveness of social scientific evidence cannot remotely approach the persuasiveness of conclusions in the physical sciences. Nevertheless the burden of proof rests on the proponents of the "more guns = more death/fewer guns = less death" mantra, especially since they propose public policy ought to be based on that mantra. To bear that burden would at the very least require showing--that a large number of nations with more guns have more death and that nations which imposed stringent gun controls achieved substantial reductions in criminal violence (or suicide). But those things are precisely what is not demonstrated when a large number of nations are compared across the world.

Over a decade ago University of Washington public health professor Brandon Centerwall undertook an extensive, statistically sophisticated study comparing areas in the U.S. and Canada to determine whether Canada's much more restrictive policies had better contained criminal violence. When he published his results it was with the admonition: "If you are surprised by my findings, so am I. I did not begin this research with any intent to "exonerate" handguns, but there it is - a negative finding, to be sure, but a negative finding is nevertheless a positive contribution. It directs us where NOT to aim public health resources."

 

[GSB]

Good paper, but ultimately, it doesn't matter whether there would be less violence sans guns. In the end it comes down to a simple equation liberty == risk. The safest place to spend one's life is in a straightjacket in a padded cell being fed applesauce with a plastic spoon.

However, it's not how most of us would want to spend our lives. Personally, I think that liberty is worth the risks. People who come down on the other end of the spectrum have plenty of nanny states they can move to in this world. Unfortunately, they'd rather turn the U.S. into one instead (and have, to a large extent).

 

[Ol' Badger]

Nope. Douches will still go out and murder folks for what ever reason. Hell, sometimes they don't even need one. I'm keeping my guns no matter what. I need them, because I have this Howard Hugh thing about touching other people.