More Guns Less Crime
Page 30
The number of police in a state, the number of officers who have the power to make arrests, and police payrolls for each state by type of officer are available for 1982 to 1992 from the U.S. Department of Justice's Expenditure and Employment Data for the Criminal Justice System.
The data on age, sex, and racial distributions estimate the population in each county on July 1 of the respective years. The population is divided into five-year age segments, and race is categorized as white, black, and neither white nor black. The population data, with the exception of 1990 and 1992, were obtained from the U.S. Bureau of the Census. 4 The estimates use modified census data as anchor points and then employ an iterative proportional-fitting technique to estimate intercensal populations. The process ensures that the county-level estimates are consistent with estimates of July 1 national and state populations by age, sex, and race. The age distributions of large military installations, colleges, and institutions were estimated by a separate procedure. The counties for which special adjustments were made are listed in the report. 5 The 1990 and 1992 estimates have not yet been completed by the Bureau of the
254/APPENDIX THREE
Census and made available for distribution. We estimated the 1990 data by taking an average of the 1989 and 1991 data. We estimated the 1992 data by multiplying the 1991 populations by the 1990—91 growth rate of each county's population.
Data on income, unemployment, income maintenance, and retirement were obtained by the Regional Economic Information System (REIS). Income maintenance includes Supplemental Security Insurance (SSI), Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), and food stamps. Unemployment benefits include state unemployment insurance compensation, Unemployment for federal employees, unemployment for railroad employees, and unemployment for veterans. Retirement payments include old-age survivor and disability payments, federal civil employee retirement payments, military retirement payments, state and local government employee retirement payments, and workers compensation payments (both federal and state). Nominal values were converted to real values by using the consumer price index. 6 The index uses the average consumer price index for July 1983 as the base period. County codes for twenty-five observations did not match any of the county codes listed in the ICPSR codebook. Those observations were deleted from the sample.
Data concerning the number of concealed-weapons permits for each county were obtained from a variety of sources. Mike Woodward, of the Oregon Law Enforcement and Data System, provided the Oregon data for 1991 and after. The number of permits available for Oregon by county in 1989 was provided by the sheriff's departments of the individual counties. Cari Gerchick, Deputy County Attorney for Maricopa County in Arizona, provided us with the Arizona county-level conviction rates, prison-sentence lengths, and concealed-handgun permits from 1990 to 1995. The Pennsylvania data were obtained from Alan Krug. The National Rifle Association provided data on NRA membership by state from 1977 to 1992. The dates on which states enacted enhanced-sentencing provisions for crimes committed with deadly weapons were obtained from a study by Marvell and Moody. 7 The first year for which the enhanced-sentencing variable equals 1 is weighted by the portion of that first year during which the law was in effect.
For the Arizona regressions, the Brady-law variable is weighted for 1994 by the percentage of the year for which it was in effect (83 percent).
The Bureau of the Census provided data on the area in square miles of each county. Both the total number of unintentional-injury deaths and the number of those involving firearms were obtained from annual issues of Accident Facts and The Vital Statistics of the United States. The classification of types of weapons is from International Statistical Classification of Diseases
and Related Health Problems, vol. 1, 10th ed. The handgun category includes guns for single-hand use, pistols, and revolvers. The total includes all other types of firearms.
The means and standard deviations of the variables are reported in appendix 4.
Appendix Four
National Sample Means and Standard Deviations
Toble A4.1 National Sample Means and Standard Deviations
Variable
Observations Mean
Standard deviation
Gun ownership information:
Nondiscretionary law dummy 50,056 Arrests rates (ratio of arrests to offenses)
0.16
0.368
APPENDIX FOUR/257
Table A4.1 Continued
Variable
Observations Mean
Standard deviation
Rate of accidental deaths from
causes other than guns Rate of total accidental deaths Rate of murders (handguns) Rate of murders (other guns) Income data (all values in real 1983 Real per-capita personal
income Real per-capita unemployment
insurance Real per-capita income
maintenance Real per-capita retirement
(over age 65) Population characteristics County population County population per square
mile State population State NRA membership
(per 100,000 people) Percent voting Republican in
presidential election
'Index crimes represent the total of all violent and property crimes.
Table A4.2 Average percent of the total population in U.S. counties in each age, sex, and race cohort from 1977 to 1992 (50,023 observations)
A ppendix Five
Continuation of the Results from Table 4.2: The Effect of Demographic Characteristics on Crime
Toble A5.1 Continued
Table A5.1 Continued
*The result is statistically significant at the 1 percent level for a two-tailed t-test. **The result is statistically significant at the 5 percent level for a two-tailed t-test. ***The result is statistically significant at the 10 percent level for a two-tailed t-test.
Notes
CHAPTER ONE
1. Gary Kleck, Targeting Guns (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter Publishers, 1997), and David B. Kopel, Guns: Who Should Have Them! 1 (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995), pp. 260—61, 300—1. The estimates on the number of guns are very sensitive to the rate at which guns are assumed to wear out. Higher depreciation rates produce a lower estimated current stock. About a third of all guns are handguns.
A recent poll by the Dallas Morning News indicated that "52 percent of the respondents said they or a member of their household own a gun. That response is consistent with Texas Polls dating to 1985 that found more than half of Texans surveyed own guns.
"In the latest poll, of those who said they owned a gun, 43 percent said they had two to five guns; 28 percent said they had one; and 19 percent said they had more than five guns. And of the gun owners polled, 65 percent said they had some type of shooting instruction." See Sylvia Moreno, "Concealed-Gun Law Alters Habits of Some Texans, Poll Finds Supporters, Foes Disagree About What That Means," Dallas Morning News, Nov. 3, 1996, p. 45A. The number of people owning guns is examined in more detail in chapter 3.
2. For example, in Chicago 59 percent of police officers report never having had to fire their guns. See Andrew Martin, "73% of Chicago Cops Have Been Attacked While Doing Their Job," Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1997, p. A3.
3. Dawn Lewis of Texans Against Gun Violence provided a typical reaction from gun-control advocates to the grand jury decision not to charge Gordon Hale. She said, "We are appalled. This law is doing what we expected, causing senseless death." Mark Potok, a Texan, said that the concealed-gun law saved his life. "I did what I thought I had to do," (USA Today, Mar. 22, 1996, p. 3A). For a more recent evaluation of the Texas experience, see "Few Problems Reported After Allowing Concealed Handguns, Officers Say," Fort Worth Star-Telegram, July 16, 1996. By the end of December 1996, more than 120,000 permits had been issued in Texas.
4. Japan Economic Newswire, "US. Jury Clears Man Who Shot Japanese Student," Kyodo News Service, May 24, 1993; and Lori Sham, "Violence Shoots Holes in USA's Tourist Image," USA Today, Sept. 9, 1993, p. 2A.
&
nbsp; 5. Gary Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter Publishers, 1991).
6. John R. Lott, Jr., "Now That the Brady Law Is Law, You Are Not Any Safer Than Before," Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 1, 1994, p. A9. For a more detailed breakdown of police shootings in the larger US. cities, see William A. Geller and Michael S. Scott, Deadly Force: What We Know (Washington, DC: Police Executive Research Forum, 1992).
7. "Mexican Woman Who Killed Would-Be Rapist to Turn to Activism," Associated Press Newswire, Feb. 12, 1997, dateline Mexico City.
8. For many examples of how guns have prevented rapes from occurring, see Paxton Quigley, Armed and Female (New York: St. Martin's, 1989).
9. Newspaper stories abound. Examples of pizza deliverymen defending themselves can be found in the Chicago Tribune, May 22, 1997, p. 1; Baltimore Sun, Aug. 9, 1996, p. Bl; Tampa
264/NOTES TO PAGES 3-4
Tribune, Dec. 27, 1996, p. Al; and Los Angeles Times, Jan. 28, 1997, p. Bl. Another recent example involved a pizza deliveryman in New Paltz, NY (Middletown (New York) Times Herald Record, Jan. 25, 1997). Examples of thwarted carjackings (Little Rock Democrat-Gazette, Aug. 3, 1996) and robberies at automatic teller machines (York (Pennsylvania) Daily Record, April 25, 19%) are also common.
For a case in which a gun was merely brandished to stop an armed street robbery, see the Annapolis Capitol, Aug. 7, 1996. Other examples of street robberies that were foiled by law-abiding citizens using concealed handguns include the case of Francisco Castellano, who was shot in the chest during an attempted street robbery by two perpetrators but was able to draw his own handgun and fire back. Castellano's actions caused the robbers to flee the scene (Corey Dada and Ivonne Perez, "Armed Robbery Botched as Restaurateur Shoots Back," Miami Herald, Aug. 3, 1996, p. B6.) The following story gives another example: "Curtis Smalls was standing outside the USF&G building when he was attacked by two thugs. They knocked him down, robbed, and stabbed him. Mr. Smalls pulled a .38-caliber revolver and shot both attackers, who were later charged with this attack and two other robberies and are suspects in at least 15 more robberies." This story was described in "Gun Laws Render Us Self-Defenseless," Baltimore Sun, Sept. 27, 1996. See also Charles Strouse, "Attacker Killed by His Victim," Fort Lauderdale (Florida) Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 16, 1997, p. 4B; Henry Pierson Curtis, "Bicyclist Kills Man Who Tried to Rob Him," Orlando Sentinel, Sept. 19, 1997, p. D3; and Florence (Alabama) Times Daily, Dec. 27, 1996, for other examples. Examples of foiled carjackings can be found in "Guns and Carjacking: This Is My Car," Economist, Sept. 20,1997. Many other types of robberies have been foiled by people carrying concealed handguns. In at least one case, citizens carrying concealed handguns in Jacksonville, Florida may have saved a restaurant waitress from being shot ("Pistol-Packing Seniors in Florida Wound Robber," Reuter Information Service, Sept. 24, 1997, 6:15 p.m. EDT). For another example, see Clea Benson, "Wounded Barmaid Kills Gunman in Holdup," Philadelphia Inquirer, Jan. 23, 1997, p. Rl.
10. Stories involving defensive uses of guns in the home are featured even more prominently. For example, four intruders forced their way into the home of two elderly women, struggled with them, and demanded their car keys. The attack stopped only after one of the women brandished her handgun ("Pistol-Packing Grandmas Honored by Sheriff," Associated Press Newswire, Feb. 16, 1997 2:30 p.m. EST, dateline Moses Lake, WA). In another case a twenty-three-year-old burglar "pummeled" a 92-year-old man and "ransacked]" his house. The burglar left only after the elderly man reached his gun ("Burglar Puts 92-Year-Old in the Gun Closet and Is Shot," New York Times, Sept. 7, 1995, p. A16). Although the defensive use of guns in the home is interesting, my focus in this book is on the effects of allowing citizens to carry concealed handguns.
11. Not all news stories of defensive uses involve shots being fired. For example, the Arizona Republic reported the following: "In January 1995, a permit-holder who lives in Scottsdale pulled a handgun from a shoulder holster and scared off two men armed with aluminum baseball bats who attempted to rob him near 77th Street and East McDowell Road. No shots were fired." ("In Arizona, High Numbers of Concealed-Weapon Permit Holders Are Found in the Suburbs," Arizona Republic, Mar. 17, 1996.)
12. "Mom Saves Self and Child with Handgun," Atlanta Constitution, Nov. 12, 1996, p. E2.
13. See Los Angeles Times, Jan. 28, 1997, p. Bl. Similarly, Pete Shields, Handgun Control, Inc.'s founder, wrote that "the best defense against injury is to put up no defense—give them what they want or run. This may not be macho, but it can keep you alive." See Pete Shields, Guns Don't Die, People Do (New York: Arbor, 1981).
14. Problems exist with the National Crime Victimization Survey both because of its nonrepresentative sample (for example, it weights urban and minority populations too heavily) and because it fails to adjust for the fact that many people do not admit to a law-enforcement agency that they used a gun, even defensively; such problems make it
NOTES TO PAGES 4-8/265
difficult to rely too heavily on these estimates. Unfortunately, this survey is the only source of evidence on the way the probability of significant injury varies with the level and type of resistance.
15. Lawrence Southwick, Jr., "Self-Defense with Guns: The Consequences," Managerial and Decision Economics (forthcoming), tables 5 and 6; see also Kleck, Point Blank.
16. For example, see David B. Kopel, The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy (Amherst, NY: Prometheus, 1992), p. 155; and John R. Lott, Jr., "Now That the Brady Law Is Law, You Are Not Any Safer Than Before," Philadelphia Inquirer, Feb. 1, 1994, p. A9.
17. James D. Wright and Peter Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter Publishers, 1986).
Examples of anecdotes in which people successfully defend themselves from burglaries with guns are quite common. For example, see "Burglar Puts 92-Year-Old in the Gun Closet and Is Shot," New York Times, Sept. 7, 1995, p. A16. George F. Will, in "Are We 'a Nation of Cowards'?" Newsweek, Nov. 15, 1993, discusses more generally the benefits produced from an armed citizenry.
18. See Wright and Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, p. 150.
19. Ibid., p. 151.
20. Baltimore Sun, Oct. 26, 1991; referred to in Don Kates and Dan Polsby, "Of Genocide and Disarmament," Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 86 (Fall 1995): 252.
21. Rebecca Trounson, "Anxiety, Anger Surround Return of Young Survivors," Los Angeles Times, Mar. 14, 1997, p. Al.
22. It is possible that both terrorists and citizens are worse off" because of the switch to bombings if shootings would have involved targeted attacks against fewer citizens.
23. David Firestone, "Political Memo: Gun Issue Gives Mayor Self-Defense on Crime," New York Times, Mar. 7, 1997, p. Bl.
24. Using an on-line retrieval search, it is easy to find many news articles and letters to the editor that repeat this common claim. For example, one letter to the Newark Star-Ledger (Oct. 12, 1996) stated that "over half the firearm homicides are committed not by criminals but by friends, family members, and lovers—people with no criminal record."
25. The sum of these percentages does not equal precisely 100 percent because fractions of a percent were rounded to the nearest whole percent.
26. Captain James Mulvihill recently testified before the U.S. Senate that "the greater L. A. area suffers under the weight of more than 1,250 known street gangs, whose membership numbers approximately 150,000. These gangs are responsible for nearly 7,000 homicides over the last 10 years, and injury to thousands of other people." (Prepared testimony of Captain James Mulvihill, commander of the Safe Streets Bureau for Sheriff" Block of Los Angeles County before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Apr. 23, 1997.)
27. I would like to thank Kathy O'Connell of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority for taking the time to provide me with such a detailed breakdown of these data.
28. Many such murders also end up in the "undetermined relationship" category.
&nbs
p; Probably the best known study of who kills whom is by Daly and Wilson. They examined nonaccidental homicide data for Detroit in 1972. In contrast to my emphasis here, however, they focused exclusively on trying to explain the composition of murders when relatives killed relatives. Of the total of 690 murders committed in Detroit in 1972, 243 (47.8 percent) involved unrelated acquaintances, 138 (27.2 percent) involved strangers, and 127 (25 percent) involved relatives. Of this last category, 32 (4.6 percent) involved blood relatives, and 80 (11.6 percent) victims were spouses (36 women killed by their husbands, and 44 men killed by their wives). The percentage of Chicago's murders involving relatives in 1972 was very similar (25.2 percent), though by the 1990—95 period the percentage of murders involving relatives had fallen to 12.6 percent (7.2 percent involving spouses). For the information about Detroit, see Martin Daly and Margo Wilson, Homicide (Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter Publishers, 1988).
29. Kathy O'Connell of the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority provided these data.
30. See also Daniel D. Polsby, "From the Hip: The Intellectual Argument in Favor of Restrictive Gun Control Is Collapsing. So How Come the Political Strength of Its Advocates Is Increasing?" National Review (Mar. 24, 1997): 35—36.
31. In these seventy-five largest counties in 1988, 77 percent of murder arrestees and 78 percent of defendants in murder prosecutions had criminal histories, with over 13 percent of murders being committed by minors, who by definition cannot have criminal records. This implies that 89 percent of those arrested for murders must be adults with criminal records, with 90 percent of those being prosecuted. See Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Reports, "Murder in Large Urban Counties, 1988," (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 1993), and "Murder in Families" (Washington, DC: US. Department of Justice, 1994); see also Don B. Kates and Dan Polsby, "The Background of Murders," Northwestern University Law School working paper (1997).