From @CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Mon Jun 27 16:52:11 1994 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.4/8.6.5) with ESMTP id QAA06714 for ; Mon, 27 Jun 1994 16:52:09 -0700 Received: from CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (cunyvm.cuny.edu [128.228.1.2]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.7/8.6.5) with SMTP id QAA29428 for ; Mon, 27 Jun 1994 16:16:05 -0700 Message-Id: <199406272316.QAA29428@nova.unix.portal.com> Received: from SNYNEWVM.BITNET by CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (IBM VM SMTP V2R2) with BSMTP id 6502; Mon, 27 Jun 94 19:14:12 EDT Received: from SNYNEWVM (GROSSBOJ) by SNYNEWVM.BITNET (Mailer R2.07) with BSMTP id 1264; Mon, 27 Jun 94 19:11:37 EDT Date: Mon, 27 Jun 94 19:10:11 EDT From: John Grossbohlin Subject: File Transfer To: Jeff Chan Status: R Jeff, Following is the text of one of Don Kates' files. John ************* JOHN [Grossbohlin]: THIS IS A DECLARATION CREATED FOR MY LA CCW CASE. IT IS NOT COPYRIGHTED AND I SEE NO REASON WHY YOU CAN'T USE IT! [Don B. Kates, Jr.] I, DAVID J. BORDUA, declare and say: I am a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois in Champagne- Urbana, a position I have held for the past 28 years, 25 as full professor, 3 as associate professor. One of my primary areas of study has been the criminology of firearms and the sociology of firearms ownership in the United States. My principal published works on these subjects include: "Firearms Ownership and Violent Crime: A Comparison of Illinois Counties", in J. Byrne and R. Sampson (ed.) THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF CRIME (1986); "Gun Control and Opinion Measurement", 5 LAW & POLICY Q. 345 (1983); Lizotte and Bordua, "Firearms Ownership for Sport and Protection: Two Divergent Models", 45 AM. SOC. REV. 229 (1980); Lizotte, Bordua and White, "Firearms Ownership for Sport and Protection: Two Not So Divergent Models", 46 AM. SOC. REV. 499 (1981); Bordua and Lizotte, "Patterns of Legal Firearms Ownership: A Cultural and Situational Analysis of Illinois Counties" 1 LAW & POLICY Q. 147 (1979). In addition, the Department of Sociology, University of Illinois has published two of my monographs: Bordua, Beeman, and Kelley, "Operation and Effects of Firearm Owner Identification and Waiting Period Regulation in Illinois" (1985) and "Firearms Ownership in Illinois: An Informational Report" (1988). Based on my study in the area, if called as an expert witness I would testify as follows: 1. This declaration represents only my own sincere scholarly opinion -- for which I receive no remuneration. I have not asked for, been paid or promised any emolument whatever for executing this declaration or in any other connection with this case. 2. I have reviewed the following which I understand to be an official policy statement by the Board of Police Commissioners of the City of Los Angeles: By operation of California law, Penal Code Section 12050, the Board of Police Commissioners has the discretionary authority to issue a license to carry a concealed weapon to a resident of the county provided that the person is of good moral character and that good cause exists for issuance of the license. However, experience has revealed that concealed firearms carried for protection not only provide a false sense of security but further that the licensee is often a victim of his own weapon or the subject of a civil or criminal case stemming from an improper use of the weapon. It is the Board's considered judgment that utilization of standard commercial security practices furnishes a security which is both more safe and more sure than that which obtains from the carrying of a concealed weapon. This judgment is in accord with the view of the California Peace Officers Association -- expressed formally on two occasions in 1968 and 1973 "that all licenses to carry concealed weapons by private individuals in the State of California be revoked and that the legislation authorizing the issuance of such licenses be repealed." For these reasons, considering the dangers to society resulting from possession and use of concealed weapons, it is the policy of this Board that "good cause" for the issuance of any concealed weapons license would exist only in the most extreme and aggravated circumstances. 2. The following erroneous opinions appear to be asserted or implied in this policy statement: a) that guns kept or carried by citizens of "good moral character" have little value for defense or the prevention of crime; b) that, in a violent confrontation, guns kept for defense are frequently taken away by the criminal and turned on the defender with more hazardous results for him/her than if s/he did not have a gun for defense; and c) that defensive guns possessed by civilians of "good moral character" are a danger to society and are frequently misused by those citizens. None of these assertions or implications comport with, or find support in, the empirical evidence on gun ownership and use in the United States. Rather, they are largely contradicted by that evidence. DANGER TO INNOCENT FELLOW-CITIZENS 3. Beyond the vague reference to "improper use of the weapon", the statement does not indicate what is meant by "the dangers to society resulting from [legal] possession and use of concealed weapons" by citizens of "good moral character". I shall address all the dangers commonly discussed, starting with the danger that even a citizen with "good moral character", might misidentify innocent persons as criminal attackers or use a gun against a criminal when such force would be excessive or unwarranted. 4. Obviously, such evils are at least theoretically possible, so long as either police or civilians possess firearms. However, the only direct study of the subject found incidence of such mistaken, unwarranted or excessive force by civilians to be negligible. Kates, "The Value of Civilian Arms Possession as Deterrent to Crime or Defense Against Crime", 18 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW 113, 130 (1991). This is confirmed by available national data on accidental woundings which result in death. The total number of guns in the United States exceeds 200 million with one in every two households possessing at least one; 25% of all households possesses a handgun. Yet incidents in which householders misidentify and shoot family members in the mistaken belief that they are burglars or intruders are extremely rare. Such incidents account for less than two per cent of all fatal gun accidents. As fatal gun accidents number about 1,400 annually, less than 28 per year involve such circumstances. 5. It is also noteworthy that law-abiding civilians may obtain CCW permits, or carry concealed firearms, as a matter of right in the states of Pennsylvania, Florida, Oregon, Vermont, Georgia, Indiana and Washington. If excessive, unwarranted or misidentification gun use by such civilians were more than a negligible problem, it would presumably be most evident in these states. But I am aware of no data documenting or suggesting any such problem there. On the contrary, the data available for the period during which Florida has had a mandatory concealed carry permit law support the conclusion of negligible incidence of such shootings by law-abiding civilians: the Florida Department of State Division of Licensing indicates that 129,049 licenses were issued to civilians for concealed handgun carry from October 1, 1987 through July 31, 1991 -- of which only fifteen (.01%) have been revoked for a crime involving a firearm. Presumably this included crimes that did not involve the permit, e.g. crimes committed by the permit-holder in his own home or office. THE GOOD CITIZEN AS MURDERER 7. Another supposed danger to society posed by gun-carrying by civilians of "good moral character" is the belief that murder is largely a matter of good citizens killing each other in a fit of passion. No one seem to argue that possessing or carrying guns would cause good citizens to become rapists or robbers. But it is sometimes suggested that many or most murders are committed by good citizens who kill acquaintances, relatives or intimates in a fit of passion. The unlikelihood of that suggestion is confirmed by the Florida figures cited above as to the very low instance of gun misuse by good citizens carrying guns under permit. That suggestion is further contradicted by innumerable studies of homicide, both national and local. 8. Criminological studies uniformly indicate that murderers are not ordinary or good citizens but tend to be violent aberrants with life-long histories of violence (mostly directed against relatives and acquaintances), felony, mental imbalance, substance abuse and firearm and car accidents. National data show 67-78% of arrested murderers having prior records for a violent felony or burglary. They averaged four major prior felonies over a prior criminal career of at least six years. Of domestic homicide offenders, 70-75% have prior records. A National Institute of Justice-sponsored survey among 2,000 inmates of 10 state prisons found those who sporadically or regularly used guns in crime to be the "hardest" felons. Per capita they had committed both more violent crimes (including ones with weapons other than firearms) than other prison inmates and more crimes of all kinds. J. Wright & P. Rossi, ARMED AND DANGEROUS: A SURVEY OF FELONS AND THEIR FIREARMS 65-77 (1986). 9. Such records (which don't even include juvenile arrests) are only the visible part of the iceberg. Murderers often have life histories of violence which never resulted in charges, having been directed against family and friends. The extent of such violence within a relatively short time frame is indicated by police records in Detroit and Kansas City: In 90% of domestic homicides, police had had to be called to the residence at least once in the two years prior; in 54% of the cases, they had been called five or more times. Typical "acquaintance homicides" are mutual killings among rival gang members, drug dealers or organized crime figures, and abusive husbands killing their wives. As the leading authority on domestic homicide has commented, "The day-to-day reality is that most family murders are preceded by a long history of assaults...." Studies "indicate that intrafamily homicide is typically just one episode in a long standing syndrome of violence." 10. The same kinds of criminal and irresponsible behavior, substance abuse, etc. tend to characterize the life histories of fatal gun accident perpetrators (including those who irresponsibly leave firearms accessible to children). G. Kleck, POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA (1991) ch. 7. The research does not support the supposed dangers of proper licensure of civilians of "good moral character" to carry concealed firearms for self-defense. The Board's fears seem baseless in light of my own, and many other, studies which find no positive correlation between gun ownership and crime rates or a negative correlation, i.e., that cities and counties with high gun ownership suffer less violence than demographically comparable areas with lower gun ownership. DEFENSIVE VALUE OF GOOD CITIZENS' FIREARMS POSSESSION 11. The Board's concern that good citizens may be injured if they use a gun to resist crime is also highly exaggerated. The major source of empirical data as to injury rates of gun-armed victims who defend against crime is an analysis of a decade of national victim surveys which were conducted under the auspices of the National Institute of Justice Department. Though 12.1-17.4% of victims who resist with a gun are injured, this is only half the percentage of injury suffered by victims who do not resist at all, but rather surrender themselves to the mercy of rapists or robbers. Victims who resist with guns are also far less likely to suffer robbery or rape. 12. Ironically, the Board's concern about victim injury is most justified not as to victims who have access to guns but as to those who do not. Victims who don't have guns but resist with some other weapon, or their bare hands, are four times more likely to be injured than those who resist with a gun. Resisters who don't have guns are about twice as likely to be injured as those who submit, but, once again, are much less likely to be robbed or raped. Kates, "The Value of Civilian Arms Possession as Deterrent to Crime or Defense Against Crime", 18 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW 113, table at 166 indicating the following injury percentages: 12.1% of those who used a gun to resist assault and 17.4% of those who used a gun to resist robbery were injured while 24.7% and 27.3% of those who submitted to assault and robbery (respectively) were injured; 40.3% and 29.5% (respectively) of those who resisted with a knife and 50.8% and 52.1% (respectively) of those resisted with bare hands were injured. Gun-armed resisters succeeded in driving off, capturing or killing their attackers in 83-4% of the cases. Id. at 143. 13. The Board's concern that "often" a licensee will have his gun taken away and used against him is also misplaced in light of national statistics on the subject. Analysis of National Crime Survey data collected under the auspices of the National Institute of Justice for the years 1979- 85 has revealed that that occurred in less than 1% of cases involving defensive gun use. Note that that figure includes instances in which the gun was not taken from the victim's hand or person, but rather was found by a burglar in the victim's premises and then used to injure the victim. DETERRENT VALUE OF DEFENSIVE GUN POSSESSION 14. Finally, if criminals perceive that defensive firearms ownership is particularly widespread in an area, that perception may deter robbery, rape, burglary against occupied premises and other confrontation crime. In 1982 the Atlanta suburb of Kennesaw, enacted a widely publicized ordinance requiring that a firearm be kept for self-defense in every household. Though this was apparently just a reaction to, and symbolic rejection of, the 1982 ordinance banning handguns in Morton Grove, Illinois, the resulting publicity coincided with an 89% reduction in residential burglary in Kennesaw compared with the period immediately preceding the ordinance. This virtual cessation of residential burglary continues to this day. Kleck, POINT BLANK, supra, Kates, supra at 153- 5. 15. Similar results appeared from a highly publicized 1966 program in which 3,000 civilian women received defensive handgun training from Orlando, Fl. police. Based on the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 1967, reported rape attacks in the city itself declined 88.2%, while aggravated assault and burglary declined by about 25% (respectively). No explanation other than the firearms program credibly accounts for this phenomenon. The rest of the surrounding Standard Metropolitan Area experienced only an 8.7% decline in rape which may itself have represented a spill-over from the Orlando city program; rape actually increased by 5% in Florida overall that year and by 7% in the United States overall. Nor was the effect in Orlando limited to that year. Though rape gradually increased again after the program ended, five years later the rate was still 13% below the pre-program level. In contrast, during that five year period the national rape rate increased 64% and the Florida rate increased 96.1%. During the same five year period rape increased by 308% in the surrounding Standard Metropolitan Area. Similar results have been reported from programs in Detroit, Highland Park, MI. and New Orleans, Kleck, POINT BLANK, supra, Kates, supra at 153-5. CAVEAT: these local data suggesting deterrence involve limited time frames. The deterrent result might not obtain over a longer period. FELON SURVEY 16. The foregoing evidence as to both the defensive value of firearms and the deterrent they pose to confrontation crime is confirmed by a National Institute of Justice survey of 2,000 imprisoned felons in ten state prisons across the nation: 34% had been "scared off, shot at, wounded or captured by an armed victim," and 69% knew at least one other criminal who had also. Answering two other questions: 34% of the felons said that when thinking about doing a crime they either "often" or "regularly" worried that they "Might get shot at by the victim"; and 57% agreed that "Most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed victim than they are about running into the police." J. Wright & P. Rossi, ARMED AND DANGEROUS: A SURVEY OF FELONS AND THEIR FIREARMS 154-7 (1986). VERIFICATION I, David J. Bordua, certify and declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the State of California that the foregoing is a true and correct statement of my opinions and of the criminological and sociological evidence known to me and upon which my opinions are based. Executed this _____ day of August, 1992 at the University of Illinois, Urbana. ________________________________________ 1. See generally D. Mulvihill, et al. CRIMES OF VIOLENCE: REPORT OF THE TASK FORCE ON INDIVIDUAL ACTS OF VIOLENCE (Washington, D.C., Gov't. Printing Office, 1969), table at 532; F.B.I., UNIFORM CRIME REPORT-1971 at 38 (1972); R. Narloch, CRIMINAL HOMICIDE IN CALIFORNIA at 53-54 (Cal. Bur. of Crim. Stats., 1973); A. Swersey and E. Enloe, HOMICIDE IN HARLEM 17 (Rand, 1975); FBI, UNIFORM CRIME REPORT-1975 at 42ff. (1976); other local studies reviewed in Kleck "Capital Punishment, Gun Ownership and Homicide", 84 AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY 882, 893 (1979); SENATE SUB- COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE JUVENILE DELINQUENCY, 19th CONGRESS, HEARINGS, SECOND SESSION 75-6; Chicago Police Department, MURDER ANALYSIS (mimeo volumes for the years 1987-91 showing that 74.68% of Chicago murderers in that five year period had priors). 2. Straus, "Domestic Violence and Homicide Antecedents", 62 BULLETIN OF THE N.Y. ACADEMY OF MEDICINE 446, 454, 457 (1986) and Straus, "Medical Care Costs of Intrafamily Assault and Homicide", 62 N.Y. ACAD. OF MED. 556, 557 fn. (1986); see also Zahn, "Homicide in the Twentieth Century: Trends, Types and Causes", 1 T. Gurr, VIOLENCE IN AMERICA (1989). 3. Murray, "Handguns, Gun Control Law and Firearm Violence", 23 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 81 (1975); Bordua and Lizotte, "Patterns of Legal Firearms Ownership: A Cultural and Situational Analysis of Illinois Counties" 1 LAW & POLICY Q. 147 (1979); Lizotte and Bordua, "Firearms Ownership for Sport and Protection: Two Divergent Models", 45 AM. SOC. REV. 229 (1980); Kleck, "The Relationship between Gun Ownership Levels and Rates of Violence in the United States" in D. Kates (ed.) FIREARMS AND VIOLENCE (1984); McDowall, Gun Availability and Robbery Rates: A Panel Study of Large U.S. Cities, 1974-1978, 8 LAW & POLICY Q. 135 (1986); Bordua, "Firearms Ownership and Violent Crime: A Comparison of Illinois Counties" in J. Byrne and R. Sampson (ed.) THE SOCIAL ECOLOGY OF CRIME (1986); Kleck & Patterson, "The Impact of Gun Control and Gun Ownership Levels on City Violence Rates", a paper presented to the 1989 Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology (available from the authors at Florida State University School of Criminology). See also Eskridge, "Zero-Order Inverse Correlations between Crimes of Violence and Hunting Licenses in the United States", 71 SOCIOLOGY & SOCIAL RESEARCH 55 (1986). 4. Kleck, "Guns and Self defense: Crime Control Through the Private Use of Armed Force", 35 SOCIAL PROBLEMS 1 (1987), G. Kleck, POINT BLANK: GUNS AND VIOLENCE IN AMERICA, ch. 4 (1991). John A. Grossbohlin SUNY at New Paltz - Business Administrtion Dept GROSSBOJ@NPVM.NEWPALTZ.EDU SUNY at Albany - Organizational Studies Ph.D. Program JG7831@UACSC2.ALBANY.EDU