Circling the Cuckoo's Nest: Research + Common Sense Supports Gun Control Laws

In case I ever wondered whether anyone reads this musings of mine, I quickly learned the answer when I wrote this piece about the number of handguns used in Dallas homicides and argued that is was evidence that more stringent gun control laws, perhaps a banning of handguns, was needed. Boy, the gun nuts are out there. The problem, however, is that they use arguments that they did not (because they could not) support with statistical evidence. I'm surprised they didn't drag out the tired old Second Amendment issue that has already been decided against gun advocates in the courts (Stevens v. U.S., United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, 1971; Quilici v. Village of Morton Grove, U.S. Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, 1982).

The big argument of the pro-gun people, judging from the responses I had were (1) Texans should have the right to defend themselves against bad guys and (2) the tired old "if guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns" (a theory brilliantly and hilariously debunked by Dallas author Richard Condon in his novel The Venerable Bead.)

One person wanted to know how many of those handgun victims were suicides, as though suicides shouldn't count. Well, they don't count as homicides so the direct answer to this person's question is "none," but, still, a suicide victim is another life tragically lost. According to Arthur L. Kellermann, MD, MPH; Frederick P. Rivara, MD, MPH; Grant Somes, PhD; Donald T. Reay, MD; Jerry Francisco, MD; Joyce Gillentine Banton, MS; Janice Prodzinski, BA; Corinne Fligner, MD; and Bela B. Hackman, MD, in their study, Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership, appearing in The New England Journal of Medicine, Vol. 327, No. 7, August 13, 1992, pp. 467-472, residents of homes in which a gun is present is FIVE TIMES more likely to experience a suicide than residents without guns.

What about the self defense argument? Well, according to Arthur Kellermann and Donald Reay. "Protection or Peril? An Analysis of Firearm Related Deaths in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, vol. 314, no. 24, June 1986, pp. 1557-60, a gun kept in a home is 43 times more likely to kill another member of that household or a friend of someone in the household than it is an intruder. Another study (FE Zimring, Firearms, violence, and public policy, Scientific American, vol. 265, 1991, p. 48), proves that the use of a firearm to fend off an assault actually increases the victim's risk and injury and death. This study also examined 743 gunshot deaths in a city comparable to Dallas during one year and discovered only two of them involved an intruder in a home and only nine others were determined by the police and courts to be "justified." An astounding 624 of these homicides were the result of arguments among family members. According to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, only 1.02 percent of shooting deaths each year are the result of someone defending themselves. Research by Dr. Arthur Kellerman (Arthur Kellermann et. al., "Gun Ownership as a Risk Factor for Homicide in the Home," The New England Journal of Medicine, October 7, 1993, pp. 1084-1091) has shown that keeping a gun in the home carries a murder risk 2.7 times greater than not keeping one. That is, excluding many other factors such as previous history of violence, class, race, etc., a household with a gun is 2.7 times more likely to experience a murder than a household without one, even while there was no significant increase in the risk of non-gun homicides.

As for the argument that when guns are outlawed only outlaws will have guns, according to FBI statistics, at least 340,000 handguns are stolen each year from those who purchased them legally. That's they way outlaws get the guns -- they steal them from those who purchased them for foolish notions like self-defense. If these guns were never owned in the first place, that would be 340,000 handguns per year that would not fall into the hands of the outlaws. The reason outlaws have so many guns is because they are sold first legally, then stolen. Yes, there will be ways to get guns illegally, if they are banned, but when they become illegal, availability goes way, way down and the prices go way, way up.

As for the argument of a handgun being the great equalizer for a woman against a male attacker, that's an argument that's probably best handled by women. And it already has been. The following organizations have come out with public endorsements of gun control legislation: American Medical Women's Association, General Federation of Women's Clubs, International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union, League of Women Voters of the United States, National Council of Jewish Women, National Organization for Women, Women's National Democratic Club, Women Strike for Peace, Women's Action for New Directions, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and the YWCA.

In the headline I alluded to a common sense argument. Here it is: In this country, in order to own and operate an automobile, the automobile in question must be registered and the driver must have a license. Each year that car must be inspected and re-registered and the driver must pass a series of tests to obtain a license. Doesn't it make sense, at a minimum, to require the same of gun owners? We desperately need a national system for registering guns and ammunition and licensing gun owners. Background checks should be conducted on everyone wishing to purchase a gun and anyone convicted of a felony should be prohibited from owning one, as well as those committing certain misdemeanors and juvenile crimes. One thing I agree with the National Rifle Association about is that there should be much stiffer sentences for those committing crimes involving guns.

So, yes, all of you who still adhere to the frontier ethic of vigilante justice and taking the law into your own hands, I've heard your arguments, but the statistics don't support them.

Finally, there was one responder who asked shouldn't I be more concerned about the number of abortions performed each year versus the number of people killed by handguns. I don't want to change the subject into why I support a woman's right to chose whether to have a medical procedure performed -- that's for another day -- but let me tell this person what I am really concerned about. I remember while working as a reporter for United Press International coming across a police story in which a 6-year-old boy accidentally killed his 3-year-old brother. It seems the children were playing in their parents bedroom where the father kept pistol in a holster slung over the bedpost. That story broke my heart. So if you want to know who I'm really concerned about, who I really want to protect, it's that 3-year-old boy whose life was wasted and the 6-year-old whose life was shattered because of a gun. Think about that for a while and then come back to me with your pro-gun arguments.