Perhaps not surprisingly, my previous blog post sparked several interesting discussions with my Polish friends who took a more decisive view of the social costs of firearm ownership, or who saw the Second Amendment as a barbaric construct with no place in today's world. Their opinions reminded me of my own attitude some ten years ago; in this brief follow-up, I wanted to share several data points that convinced me to take a more measured stance.
Let's start with the basics: most estimates place the number of guns in the United States at 300 million - that's roughly one firearm per every single resident. In Gallup polls, roughly 40-50% of all households report having a gun, frequently more than one. The demographics of firearm ownership are surprisingly uniform; there is some variance across regions, political affiliations, and genders - but it tends to fall within fairly narrow bands.
An overwhelming majority of gun owners cite personal safety as the leading motive for purchasing a firearm; hunting and recreation activities come strong second. The defensive aspect of firearm ownership is of special note, because it can potentially provide an argument for protecting the right to bear arms even when it comes at an elevated cost to the society as a whole.
The self-defense argument is sometimes dismissed as pure fantasy - and it's only fair to ask for evidence that goes beyond the anecdotes about Katrina or other catastrophic events. There is no precise data about the frequency with which firearms are routinely used to deter threats; the results of scientific polls are open to interpretation and vary significantly depending on sampling methods and questions asked. That said, a recent meta-analysis from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provided some general bounds:
"Defensive use of guns by crime victims is a common occurrence, although the exact number remains disputed (Cook and Ludwig, 1996; Kleck, 2001a). Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million."
The study also goes on to say:
"A different issue is whether defensive uses of guns, however numerous or rare they may be, are effective in preventing injury to the gun-wielding crime victim. Studies that directly assessed the effect of actual defensive uses of guns (i.e., incidents in which a gun was “used” by the crime victim in the sense of attacking or threatening an offender) have found consistently lower injury rates among gun-using crime victims compared with victims who used other self-protective strategies."
An argument can be made that the availability of firearms translates to higher rates of violent crime, thus elevating the likelihood of encounters where a defensive firearm would be useful. That said, such an effect does not seem to be particularly evident. For example, the United States comes out favorably in statistics related to assault, rape, and robbery - that is, compared to other OECD countries with far lower firearm ownership rates.
The area where the United States clearly falls behind other developed countries are homicides; the per-capita figures are almost three times as high as in much of the European Union. And indeed, the bulk of intentional homicides - some 11 thousand deaths a year - trace back to firearms.
That said, the origins of this tragic situation may be more elusive than they at first appear. For one, no clear pattern emerges when comparing homicide rates across states with permissive and restrictive gun ownership laws. Some of the lowest per-capita homicide figures can be found in extremely gun-friendly states such as Idaho, Utah, or Vermont; whereas highly-regulated Washington D.C., Maryland, Illinois, and California all rank pretty high. It is likely that factors such as population density, urban poverty, and drug-related gang activities play a far more significant role, compared to the ease with which law-abiding citizens may purchase or bear arms. One CDC study on the topic concluded with:
"The Task Force found insufficient evidence to determine the effectiveness of any of the firearms laws or combinations of laws reviewed on violent outcomes."
This does not imply that legislative approaches are necessarily ineffective; for example, it seems pretty reasonable to assume that background checks or waiting periods do save lives. But for the hundreds of sometimes far-fetched gun control proposals introduced every year on federal and state level, emotions often take place of real data, poisoning the debate around gun laws and ultimately bringing little or no public benefit. Some of the recent oddball legislation includes attempts to mandate costly liability insurance or ammunition purchase permits, and to ban ammo purchases over the Internet.
Meanwhile, with sharp declines in crime continuing for the past 20 years, the public opinion is increasingly in favor of broad, reasonably policed gun ownership; for example, more than 70% respondents to one Gallup poll are against the restrictive handgun bans of the sort attempted in Chicago, San Francisco, or Washington D.C.; and in a recent Rasmussen poll, only 22% say that they would feel safer in a neighborhood where people are not allowed to keep guns. Even the National Rifle Association - a staunchly conservative organization vilified by gun control advocates and liberal pundits - enjoys a pretty reasonable approval rating across many demographics: 54% overall and 71% in households with a gun.
America's attitude to guns is a choice, not a necessity. It is also true that gun violence is a devastating problem; its emotional horror and lasting social impact can't be possibly captured in any cold, dry statistic alone. But there is also nuance and reason to the gun control debate that is sometimes hard for newcomers from more firearm-averse parts of the world to see.
[ To proceed to the next article in the series, click here. ]