Skip to comments.Firearm Deaths Lower Where Gun Laws Strong
Posted on 03/07/2013 4:43:21 AM PST by Pharmboy
The study found that a higher number of firearm laws in a state is associated with a lower rate of firearm fatalities in the state, overall and for suicides and homicides individually.
However the study could not determine cause-and-effect relationships because of limitations inherent in the study design.
States with more intensive regulation of gun ownership, sales, and storage tended to have lower rates of gun-related fatalities, researchers said.
With state-level gun laws from 2007 to 2010 rated on a "legislative strength" scale, states in the top quartile had gun-related fatality rates more than 40% lower than states in the bottom quartile (adjusted incidence rate ratio 0.58, 95% CI 0.37 to 0.92), according to Eric Fleegler, MD, MPH, of Boston Children's Hospital, and colleagues.
The lower rates applied both to homicides and suicides, they reported online in JAMA Internal Medicine.
However, the researchers cautioned that their "ecological and cross-sectional" study design cannot establish a cause-and-effect relationship between gun regulation and deaths.
"Further studies are necessary to define the nature of this association," they wrote.
In an accompanying commentary, Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, of the University of California Davis, also stressed the study's methodological limitations.
"Ecological studies of association are inherently weak ... [and] correlation does not imply causation," he wrote. He also pointed to other flaws in the study design, including its reliance on anti-gun organizations for data on state gun legislation.
"In the end, [the study authors] provide no firm guidance," wrote Wintemute. "Do the laws work, or not? If so, which ones? Should policymakers enact the entire package? Some part? Which part?"
(Excerpt) Read more at medpagetoday.com ...
Well, there you have it.
I believe that studies conducted by John Lott directly refute this article, but someone should take a closer look.
Another thing might be that state gun laws differ GREATLY from the big cities in most states, e.g., Illinois and Chicago or NY and NYC, so that would skew the data.
The study is refuted simply by its use of the propaganda metric “firearm deaths”. It is overall deaths that are important, not how they occur.
As an example, millions die each year in hospitals. We can eliminate all hospital deaths by banning hospitals.
See how this is false logic?
This happened once before. However, deaths from overwork, disease, starvation and zklyon B increased significantly.
Moreover, the study does not account for the effect of concealed carry laws, which significantly reduce violent crime. In a back of the envelope analysis I did as to Florida, I found that official crime statistics suggested that, after Florida adopted concealed carry, the rate of violent crime declined by a about a third more than the general national rate of decline.
Studies of the effect of concealed-carry laws in numerous states (beginning with Florida, IIRC) certainly refute this article.
Just the state of Chicago refutes this article.
What do the good citizens of Chicago have to say?
Not to mention the city of Illinois.
People - don't get sucked into arguing these kinds of things.
Statistics don't matter. Polls don't matter, sob stories don't matter.
Our right to firearms is absolute and not negotiable.
If you accept an argument like this, then the only place to go is what number is "acceptable".
Don't go there.
They all share something else that is clearly a greater factor in rates of gun crime, that these objective scientists seemed to overlook.
This study is flawed simply on the basis it was done by a supposed Doctor who is pro gun control. End of story.
REMEMBER THE LEFT LIES. ALL THE TIME. ABOUT EVERYTHING.
WE LIVE IN AN EVOLVING STALINIST VERSION OF THE US WHERE THERE IS NO TRUTH FROM THE GOVERNMENT OR THE MEDIA OR THE SCHOOL OR ANY OTHER ORGANIZATION THAT BACKS OR IS SUPPORTED BY THE GOVERNMENT.
More Guns, Less Crime? John R. Lott, Jr
I read it, good well-researched book.
R. Lott, Jr.: States with the largest increases in gun ownership also have the largest drops in violent crimes. Thirty-one states now have such lawscalled shall-issue laws. These laws allow adults the right to carry concealed handguns if they do not have a criminal record or a history of significant mental illness.
Question: It just seems to defy common sense that crimes likely to involve guns would be reduced by allowing more people to carry guns. How do you explain the results?
Lott: Criminals are deterred by higher penalties. Just as higher arrest and conviction rates deter crime, so does the risk that someone committing a crime will confront someone able to defend him or herself. There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rateas more people obtain permits there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent, and robberies by over 2 percent.
Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime for two reasons. First, they reduce the number of attempted crimes because criminals are uncertain which potential victims can defend themselves. Second, victims who have guns are in a much better position to defend themselves.
Question: What is the basis for these numbers?
Lott: The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994.
Question: Your argument about criminals and deterrence doesnt tell the whole story. Dont statistics show that most people are killed by someone they know?
Lott: You are referring to the often-cited statistic that 58 percent of murder victims are killed by either relatives or acquaintances. However, what most people dont understand is that this acquaintance murder number also includes gang members killing other gang members, drug buyers killing drug pushers, cabdrivers killed by customers they picked up for the first time, prostitutes and their clients, and so on. Acquaintance covers a wide range of relationships. The vast majority of murders are not committed by previously law-abiding citizens. Ninety percent of adult murderers have had criminal records as adults.
Question: But how about children? In March of this year  four children and a teacher were killed by two school boys in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Wont tragedies like this increase if more people are allowed to carry guns? Shouldnt this be taken into consideration before making gun ownership laws more lenient?
Lott: The horrific shooting in Arkansas occurred in one of the few places where having guns was already illegal. These laws risk creating situations in which the good guys cannot defend themselves from the bad ones. I have studied multiple victim public shootings in the United States from 1977 to 1995. These were incidents in which at least two or more people were killed and or injured in a public place; in order to focus on the type of shooting seen in Arkansas, shootings that were the byproduct of another crime, such as robbery, were excluded. The effect of shall-issue laws on these crimes has been dramatic. When states passed these laws, the number of multiple-victim shootings declined by 84 percent. Deaths from these shootings plummeted on average by 90 percent, and injuries by 82 percent.
For other types of crimes, I find that both children as well as adults are protected when law-abiding adults are allowed to carry concealed handguns.
Finally, after extensively studying the number of accidental shootings, there is no evidence that increasing the number of concealed handguns increases accidental shootings. We know that the type of person who obtains a permit is extremely law-abiding and possibly they are extremely careful in how they take care of their guns. The total number of accidental gun deaths each year is about 1,300 and each year such accidents take the lives of 200 children 14 years of age and under. However, these regrettable numbers of lives lost need to be put into some perspective with the other risks children face. Despite over 200 million guns owned by between 76 to 85 million people, the children killed is much smaller than the number lost through bicycle accidents, drowning, and fires. Children are 14.5 times more likely to die from car accidents than from accidents involving guns.
Question: Wouldnt allowing concealed weapons increase the incidents of citizens attacking each other in tense situations? For instance, sometimes in traffic jams or accidents people become very hostilescreaming and shoving at one another. If armed, might people shoot each other in the heat of the moment?
Lott: During state legislative hearings on concealed-handgun laws, possibly the most commonly raised concern involved fears that armed citizens would attack each other in the heat of the moment following car accidents. The evidence shows that such fears are unfounded. Despite millions of people licensed to carry concealed handguns and many states having these laws for decades, there has only been one case where a person with a permit used a gun after a traffic accident and even in that one case it was in self-defense.
Question: Violence is often directed at women. Wont more guns put more women at risk?
Lott: Murder rates decline when either more women or more men carry concealed handguns, but a gun represents a much larger change in a womans ability to defend herself than it does for a man. An additional woman carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for women by about 3 to 4 times more than an additional man carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for men.
Question: Arent you playing into peoples fears and prejudices though? Dont politicians pass these shall-issue laws to mollify middle-class white suburbanites anxious about the encroachment of urban minority crime?
Lott: I wont speculate about motives, but the results tell a different story. High crime urban areas and neighborhoods with large minority populations have the greatest reductions in violent crime when citizens are legally allowed to carry concealed handguns.
Question: What about other countries? Its often argued that Britain, for instance, has a lower violent crime rate than the USA because guns are much harder to obtain and own.
Lott: The data analyzed in this book is from the USA. Many countries, such as Switzerland, New Zealand, Finland, and Israel have high gun-ownership rates and low crime rates, while other countries have low gun ownership rates and either low or high crime rates. It is difficult to obtain comparable data on crime rates both over time and across countries, and to control for all the other differences across the legal systems and cultures across countries. Even the cross country polling data on gun ownership is difficult to assess, because ownership is underreported in countries where gun ownership is illegal and the same polls are never used across countries.
Question: This is certainly controversial and there are certain to be counter-arguments from those who disagree with you. How will you respond to them?
Lott: Some people do use guns in horrible ways, but other people use guns to prevent horrible things from happening to them. The ultimate question that concerns us all is: Will allowing law-abiding citizens to own guns save lives? While there are many anecdotal stories illustrating both good and bad uses of guns, this question can only be answered by looking at data to find out what the net effect is.
I wonder if Dr. Fleegler considered Oakland, CA in his study?
I would have cited a number of other cities like Detroit, but their population is decreasing so rapidly, they won't have anyone left to turn out the lights.
The top two states for violent crime are Louisiana and Mississippi (both of which have fairly lax gun laws).
BUT a huge portion of the crime in those states is directly attributable to New Orleans, which has the highest rates of violent crime and homicide in the country. It has nothing to do with the gun laws (in fact, much of NOLA has been disarmed) but with the corrupt and incompetent law enforcement organizations in and around New Orleans.
Third is New Mexico, where much of the violence is due to spillover from Mexico due to drugs and illegals crossing the border.
Fourth is Maryland, hardly a gun friendly state.
The murder rate of a state has a more direct correlation to the presence of large cities and corrupt Democratic administration of those cities, including restrictions on firearms in those large cities (see: Detroit, Chicago, DC, Baltimore, NOLA, LA, etc)
What a farce!
Vermont has very loose gun laws, and very low crime. The reason seems to have a lot more to do with demographics than gun laws.
I remember back in 1968, anti-gun researchers found more people were killed in the South.
George Wallace created a firestorm when he said the reason was “all those darkies killing each other”.
Now, today, how bad is gun free Chicago.
Totally ridiculous talking point. The thing that matters is not “FIREARMS Deaths”, it is TOTAL deaths by violence. Best data is that when firearms usage by honest citizens is forcibly reduced, TOTAL deaths go UP.
Deat is dead, whether by firearm, baseball bat, rope, or fists and feet.
The important statistic is overall deaths and violent crime, not just deaths specific to firearms.
Johns Hopkins University has done "study" work for a number of gun-grabbing NGO's for 20+ years now, sifting data to find statistical correlations that can enable politically useful statements which are then dispensed to Media by the grabber NGO's.
This isn't about "studying" anything or building an argument on solid foundations. It's about supplying one-liners to demagogues, and Johns Hopkins has found it a worthwhile sideline to their more serious research.
That data alone would refute the author's conclusions.
I would like to see the gun crime rate as it correlates to the Democratic population of a city and see if we can get to the bottom of this.
Make that the crime rate, broken down by type of crime and the weapon used if any. The gun didn’t do the crime, it was just the tool that perp used.