Gun sales up; gun crimes down

[steelerdude99]

http://www.freelancestar.com/2013-08-05/articles/14672/gun-sales-up-gun-crimes-down/

This article appeared in my local paper. The article originated in Richmond via AP. In it a VCU professor, Thomas Baker, is confused by his own bias by stating that if there were tougher gun laws, that crime would be even lower. Does he not realize why crime took a general downward trend? Later in the same article, a quote from director of the anti-gun group “Coalition to Stop Gun Violence” goes on and blames Virginia’s lack of background checks on getting a more accurate statistical picture. Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, brought a little sanity to those who won’t believe the numbers.

“It’s a quite interesting trend given the current rhetoric about strengthening gun laws and the presumed effect it would have on violent crimes,” Baker told the newspaper. “While you can’t conclude from this that tougher laws wouldn’t reduce crime even more, it really makes you question if making it harder for law-abiding people to buy a gun would have any effect on crime.”​

AND

Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, said that the real question is how many guns are sold without a background check.

“In other words, if people who buy those guns and have a background check, and keep those guns and don’t sell them, then you would not expect that those guns would affect the crime rate,” Horwitz told the newspaper. “The important analysis is not the total number of guns sold with a background check, but rather the number of guns sold without a background check.”​

What bothers me most about this article is that the press feeds this type of false information to the public and many who are not knowable fall for it.

Chuck

 

[BaltimoreBoy]

Well, in fairness the statement "one can't conclude from this that tougher laws wouldn't reduce crime even more" is literally true in this instance. There is simply not sufficient data in this particular story/observation. Now if one is well informed about the history of gun regulation in the last 100 years one could conclude that tougher laws wouldn't reduce crime.

As far as Horwitz goes "...important analysis is not the total number of guns sold with a background check, but rather the number of guns sold without a background check" is also true, but incomplete. What he really should say is "guns sold to criminals on the black market". He won't because once he goes that far, people will realize that gun regulations with respect to criminals can't be any more effective than marijuana laws.

If press coverage were as fair as this particular piece, we wouldn't be working at much of a disadvantage.

 

[steelerdude99]

Well, in fairness the statement "one can't conclude from this that tougher laws wouldn't reduce crime even more" is literally true in this instance. There is simply not sufficient data in this particular story/observation. Now if one is well informed about the history of gun regulation in the last 100 years one could conclude that tougher laws wouldn't reduce crime.

...

I see Baker's hypothesis as "gun crime would be reduced even further by tougher gun control", he just can't prove it. Was that the question? An unbiased statistical conclusion would be the reduction in crime may or may not be from more guns (i.e conceal carry and more homes having guns for defense). That is why I am calling him out as biased. He changed the whole thing around to be "crime was going down anyhow, if we only had more gun control ... crime would not exist at all.".

chuck