To: Los Altos Town Crier Editor From: Jeff Chan Subject: Gun Control "Facts" Still Wrong X-Reference: http://www.losaltosonline.com/latc/arch/2000/06/Comment/1letters/1letters.html [short version:] Editor, Gary Cavalli's May 17, 2000 "facts" opposing self-defense rights once again do not agree with reality. Consider the National Center for Health Statistics' latest 1997 mortality data [1]. Of the 32,436 deaths attributable to firearms, 981 were the result of accidents, 17,566 suicide, 13,252 homicide and legal intervention, and 637 undetermined or other. Of the 981 fatal firearms acidents in 1997, 122 or 12% were by children ages 5-14. While these accidents are tragic, during the same period 449 children of similar age accidentally drowned, 277 died in fires, 1,864 died in motor vehicle accidents, and 138 suffocated accidentally. I leave it to the readers to evaluate the relative risks for themselves. [The firearm accident fatality rate reported by NCHS has fallen about 90% over the past century, and continues to fall, thanks in part to firearms safety training classes taught by members of the National Rifle Association. The firearms accident trend is falling despite an approximate four-fold increase in the number of firearms owners over the same period.] Given that on average, every other home has a gun owner, the scare tactics against gun ownership ring false. Even anti-gun researcher Philip Cook agrees that firearms are used at least 400,000 times a year to stop crimes, with a shot rarely fired. Mr. Cavalli seems to consider only cases where a criminal is killed to be relevant defensive uses of firearms. Clearly this is a flawed assumption. Guns are 400 times more likely to be used to stop a crime than be used in a fatal accident, and they are more than 40 times more likely to stop a crime than be used in a homicide. These are strongly positive social benefits. Stopping a murder, rape or robbery is a tremendous benefit to the potential victim too. Regarding Columbine, recall that violent crime and mass shootings are both falling according to the FBI. Yale Law School economist and criminologist John Lott's research about mass shootings finds that "the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws." [2] In other words the only significant way to stop these crimes is to allow the potential victims to defend themselves. This is exactly what happened when Assistant Principal Joel Myrick used a personally owned pistol to stop a student's shooting rampage at his high school in Pearl, Mississippi. [3] In stopping this mass shooting and saving lives Principal Myrick was in technical violation of the Federal Gun Free School Zone Act, which did nothing to stop the criminal. Other incidents of ordinary citizens using firearms to stop mass shootings have occurred recently, but like the incident in Mississippi they are almost never reported. It's worth noting that the Israeli solution to public shootings, arming citizens including teachers, has effectively halted them. 1. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvs47_19.pdf 2. http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_ID=161637 3. http://rkba.org/users/myrick.txt Jeff Chan Los Altos webmaster@rkba.org __ [long version:] Editor, Once again the supposed "facts" in Gary Cavalli's May 17, 2000 letter opposing self-defense rights do not agree with reality. Rather than relying on the severely flawed and politicized "research" from the New England Journal of Medicine, consider the National Center for Health Statistics' mortality data for 1997 [1], the most recent complete year available. Of the 32,436 deaths attributable to firearms that year, 981 were the result of accidents, 17,566 suicide, 13,252 homicide and legal intervention, and 637 undetermined or other. (Legal intervention includes justifiable homicide such as a woman shooting a rapist.) Of the 981 fatal firearms acidents in 1997, 122 or 12% were by children ages 5-14. While these accidents are of course tragic, during the same period 449 children of similar age accidentally drowned, 277 died in fires, 1,864 died in motor vehicle accidents, and 138 suffocated accidentally. I leave it to the readers to evaluate the relative risks for themselves. The firearm accident fatality rate reported by NCHS has fallen about 90% over the past century, and continues to fall, thanks in part to firearms safety training classes taught by members of the National Rifle Association, who by the way are not the source of any of these data. The firearms accident trend is falling despite an approximate four-fold increase in the number of firearms owners over the same period. Given that on average, every other home has a gun owner, the scare tactics used to argue against gun ownership are hollow at best. Even extremely anti-gun researcher Philip Cook agrees that firearms are used at least 400,000 times a year to stop crimes, most of the time without a shot fired. (Other estimates put the number of defensive firearm uses at over 1 million per year.) Mr. Cavalli seems to consider only cases where a criminal is killed to be relevant defensive uses of firearms. Clearly this is a flawed assumption. Comparing more than 400,000 defensive uses to about 1,000 accidents means guns are 400 times more likely to be used to stop a crime than be used in a fatal accident, and they are more than 40 times more likely to stop a crime than be used in a homicide. These defensive firearms uses are strongly positive social benefits. Stopping a murder, rape or robbery obviously is a tremendous personal benefit to the potential victim also. Restricting legitimate access to firearms is restricting access to safe and effective self-defense. So-called "gun control" has little impact on criminals since the U.S. Department of Justice's National Institute of Justice has releatedly proven that more than 90% of felons get their guns illegally. Regarding Columbine, recall that like the overall violent crime rate, mass shootings are actually falling according to the FBI. Yale Law School economist and criminologist John Lott has spent tens of thousands of hours pouring over one of the largest collections of crime data yet attempted, and he found that "states with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes." [2] Not one anti-self-defense researcher has produced legitimate scientific evidence to counter Lott's rigorous and thorough findings. Lott's research about mass shootings [3] also finds that "the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws." In other words the only significant way to stop these crimes is to allow the potential victims to defend themselves. This is exactly what happened when Assistant Principal Joel Myrick used a personally owned pistol to stop a student's shooting rampage in Pearl, Mississippi. [4] In stopping this mass shooting and saving lives Principal Myrick was in technical violation of the Federal Gun Free School Zone Act, which of course did nothing to stop the criminal. Other similar incidents of ordinary citizens using personal firearms to stop mass shootings have also occurred recently, but like the incident in Mississippi they are almost never reported. It's worth noting that the Israeli solution to public shootings, arming citizens including teachers, has effectively halted them. 1. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvs47_19.pdf 2. http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html 3. http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?ABSTRACT_ID=161637 4. http://rkba.org/users/myrick.txt Jeff Chan Los Altos webmaster@rkba.org