Date: Tue, 27 Feb 1996 01:43:16 -0800 From: Jeff Chan To: firearms-alert Subject: CA: DIPR Press Release - AB638 Concealed Carry in CA (generally useful!) From: EdgarSuter@aol.com Date: Sun, 25 Feb 1996 16:09:48 -0500 To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com Subject: DIPR Press Release - AB638 Concealed Carry in CA Press Release Doctors for Integrity in Policy Research, Inc Edgar A. Suter MD, National Chair 5201 Norris Canyon Road #220 San Ramon CA 94526 USA e-mail EdgarSuter@aol.com For Immediate Release (3 pages) February 25, 1996 Doctors Treat Assemblyman's Unfounded Fears with Facts (San Francisco, CA) - Like a child who fears monsters under the bed at night, California Assemblyman Louis Caldera has an irrational and unjustifiable fear of good citizens with guns. He and his allies in the anti-self-defense lobby have ignored or defamed the mountain of research that shows guns in the hands of good citizens have an enormous public safety benefit --- as many as 2.5 million lives protected annually.[1] They have ignored or defamed the research showing the public safety benefits of reforming concealed weapon licensing as California's AB 638 would do. It is unfortunate that Assemblyman Caldera has joined in the public health "Pandemic of Propaganda" to deceive Californians.[1,2] Fortunately there is a cure --- a large dose of truth. There are fourteen studies[3] that show guns are used 1 to 2.5 million times each year for protection. As of 1994, the most recent year for which full data is available, one-third of Americans live in the 22 progressive states that have reformed laws to allow good citizens to readily protect themselves outside their homes, openly or concealed as AB638 would do.[4] In those states crime rates are lower for every category of crime indexed by the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.[5] Homicide, assault, and overall violent crime are each 40% lower, armed robbery is 50% lower, rape is 30% lower, and property crimes are 10% lower.[5] The reasonable reform of concealed weapon laws resulted in none of the mayhem prophesied by the anti-self-defense lobby. Guns are used to save lives, prevent injuries, avert medical costs (because lives are saved and injuries are prevented), and protect property. The most recent and most comprehensive of these studies, Kleck & Gertz' National Self-Defense Survey, finds 2.5 million annual defensive gun uses.[6] Assemblyman Caldera and his allies in the anti-self-defense lobby routinely portray good citizens with guns as inept and dangerous, but good citizens use guns about seven to ten times as frequently as the police to repel crime and apprehend criminals[7] and they do it with a better safety record than the police. About 11% of police shootings kill an innocent person - about 2% of shootings by citizens kill an innocent person. The odds of a defensive gun user killing an innocent person are less than 1 in 26,000.[4] Citizens intervening in crime are less likely to be wounded than the police.[4] We can explain why the citizen record is better than the police (the police usually come upon a scene in progress where it may not be clear who is attacker and who is defender; also, the police, unlike defenders, must close to handcuff the arrestee), but the simple truth remains: citizens have an excellent record of protecting themselves, their families, and their communities. In California, as in Florida and other states where they have opposed reform, the anti-self-defense lobby predict that blood would run in the streets, that inconsequential family arguments and traffic disputes "could" lead to murder and mayhem and that many innocent people "might" be killed[4] --- but we do not have to rely on irrational propaganda or political histrionics about what "might" or "could" happen. We can examine the data that show what has actually happened. As of April 30, 1994, Florida had issued 233,870 licenses and not one innocent person had been killed or injured by a concealed weapon licensee in the 7 years post-reform.[4] Of the nearly quarter-million licenses, 22 (1/100th of 1%) were revoked for misuse of the firearm. Not one of those revocations were associated with any injury whatsoever.[4] This is a rate of crime by licensees lower than the general population! In opposing reform, fear is often expressed that "everyone would be packing guns," but, after reform, most states have licensed fewer than 2% (and in no state more than 4%) of qualified citizens.[4] A recent flurry of advance publicity highlighted a paper by critics of reform, David MacDowall, Colin Loftin, and Brian Wiersema of the University of Maryland Violence Research Group.[8] These researchers are best known for their 1989 paper in the New England Journal of Medicine[9] that, in the face of a tripled homicide rate, claimed that Washington DC's 1976 handgun freeze had lowered homicide.[1] Fortunately, the outrageous lengths to which MacDowall and his colleagues tortured their data were exposed immediately by Northwestern University Law School Professor Daniel Polsby's study published in the same journal in which MacDowall's paper appeared.[10] In the face of data showing statewide reductions in homicide rates in many states that have adopted reforms (particularly impressive when compared to concurrent national trends),[4] these researchers now claim that progressive reform of concealed weapons laws has raised homicide rates. To contrive such a "day is night" conclusion, Prof. Polsby noted that MacDowall and his colleagues ignored national trends and rejected the statewide benefits of statewide laws without credible analysis. Instead they simply hand-picked the few exceptions, the few urban areas and irregular, hand-picked time periods that could be contrived to show a homicide increase. Furthermore, if FBI data is used instead of the researchers' National Center for Health Statistics data (FBI data culls at least a fraction of lawful self-defense homicides), MacDowall and his colleagues' claim collapses.[1] The anti-self-defense lobby has claimed that violent crime rose 19% in Florida following reform, but they fail to note that violent crime rose 23% nationally. Additionally, the data became more difficult to interpret because the accounting of violent crimes except homicide changed during this period. So, the observed homicide rate reductions are the best available indicator of the effectiveness of reform. Following reform, Florida's homicide rate fell from 36% above the national average to 4% below the national average and remains below the national average to this day.[1,4] Guns save lives, prevent injuries, avert medical costs, and protect property as many as 2.5 million times annually. Americans use guns to protect themselves, their families, and their livelihoods. These are savings with which we can live . Those who advocate restricting gun rights often justify their proposals "if it saves only one life...." There have been matched state pair analyses, crime trend studies, and county-by-county research[4 ] demonstrating that licensing good, mentally-competent adults to carry concealed weapons for protection outside their homes saves many lives, so gun prohibitionists should support such reforms, if saving lives is truly their motivation. [1] Suter EA Waters WC 4th Murray GB Hopkins CB Asiaf J Moore JB Fackler M Cowan DN Eckenhoff RG Singer TR et al. "Violence in America - Effective solutions." J Med Assoc Ga June 1995; 84(6):253-263. [2] Kates D, Schaffer HE, Lattimer JK, Murray GB, and Cassem EW. "Guns and Public Health: Epidemic of Violence or Pandemic of Propaganda?" Tennessee Law Review. Spring 1995; 62(3): 513-596. [3] Field Institute, Tabulations of the Findings of a Study of Handgun Ownership and Access Among a Cross Section of the California Adult Public (1976); Bordua et al. Illinois Law Enforcement Commission, Patterns of Firearms Ownership, Regulation and Use in Illinois (1979); Cambridge Reports, Inc. An Analysis of Public Attitudes Towards Handgun Control (1978); DMI (Decision/Making/Information), Attitudes of the American Electorate Toward Gun Control (1979) [two studies]; Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc. Violence in America Survey (1981); The Ohio Statistical Analysis Center, Ohio Citizen Attitudes Concerning Crime and Criminal Justice (1982); H. Quinley memorandum reporting results from Time/CNN opinion poll of gun owners (February 6, 1990) [available on DIALOG Public Opinion online]; Gary Mauser, Firearms and Self-Defense: The Canadian Case, presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Society of Criminology (October 28, 1993); Gallup poll (1991); Gallup poll (1993); LA Times poll (1994); Tarrance poll (1994); and Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz, Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun, Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Vol. 86(1) 1995, 150-187. [4] Cramer CE and Kopel DB. "'Shall Issue': The New Wave of Concealed Handgun Permit Laws." Tennessee Law Review. Spring 1995; 62(3): 679-757. [5] Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice. Uniform crime reports: crime in the United States 1993. Washington DC: US Government Printing Office. 1994. Table 5. [6] Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense with a Gun." Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Vol. 86(1) 1995, 150-187. [7] Kleck G. Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. 1991. [8] McDowall D, Loftin C, and Wiersema B. "Easing Concealed Firearms Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three States.." Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Vol. 86(1) 1995, 193-206. [9] Loftin C, McDowall D, Wiersema B, and Cottey TJ. Effects of Restrictive Licensing of Handguns on Homicide and Suicide in the District of Columbia. N. Engl J Med 1991; 325:1615-20. [10]Polsby D. "Firearms Costs, Firearms Benefits, and the Limits of Knowledge." Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology, Vol. 86(1) 1995, 207-212. [end]