Rethinking Gun Control

Handguns seized during recent sweeps are displayed at a news conference on May 17, 2013 in Los Angeles, California.

Photo by Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

Background checks are back. Last week, Vice President Joe Biden said that five U.S. senators?enough to change the outcome?have told him they?re looking for a way to switch their votes and pass legislation requiring a criminal background check for the purchase of a firearm. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who led the fight for the bill, is firing back at the National Rifle Association with a new TV ad. The White House, emboldened by polls that indicate damage to senators who voted against the bill, is pushing Congress to reconsider it.

The gun control debate is certainly worth reopening. But if we?re going to reopen it, let?s not just rethink the politics. Let?s take another look at the facts. Earlier this year, President Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the existing research on gun violence and recommend future studies. That report, prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is now complete. Its findings won?t entirely please the Obama administration or the NRA, but all of us should consider them. Here?s a list of the 10 most salient or surprising takeaways.

1. The United States has an indisputable gun violence problem. According to the report, ?the U.S. rate of firearm-related homicide is higher than that of any other industrialized country: 19.5 times higher than the rates in other high-income countries.?

2. Most indices of crime and gun violence are getting better, not worse. ?Overall crime rates have declined in the past decade, and violent crimes, including homicides specifically, have declined in the past 5 years,? the report notes. ?Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent victimizations remained generally stable.? Meanwhile, ?firearm-related death rates for youth ages 15 to 19 declined from 1994 to 2009.? Accidents are down, too: ?Unintentional firearm-related deaths have steadily declined during the past century. The number of unintentional deaths due to firearm-related incidents accounted for less than 1 percent of all unintentional fatalities in 2010.?

3. We have 300 million firearms, but only 100 million are handguns. According to the report, ?In 2007, one estimate placed the total number of firearms in the country at 294 million: ?106 million handguns, 105 million rifles, and 83 million shotguns.? ? This translates to nearly nine guns for every 10 people, a per capita ownership rate nearly 50 percent higher than the next most armed country. But American gun ownership is concentrated, not universal: In a December 2012 Gallup poll, ?43 percent of those surveyed reported having a gun in the home.?

4. Handguns are the problem. Despite being outnumbered by long guns, ?Handguns are used in more than 87 percent of violent crimes,? the report notes. In 2011, ?handguns comprised 72.5 percent of the firearms used in murder and non-negligent manslaughter incidents.? Why do criminals prefer handguns? One reason, according to surveys of felons, is that they?re ?easily concealable.?

5. Mass shootings aren?t the problem. ?The number of public mass shootings of the type that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School accounted for a very small fraction of all firearm-related deaths,? says the report. ?Since 1983 there have been 78 events in which 4 or more individuals were killed by a single perpetrator in 1 day in the United States, resulting in 547 victims and 476 injured persons.? Compare that with the 335,000 gun deaths between 2000 and 2010 alone.

6. Gun suicide is a bigger killer than gun homicide. From 2000 to 2010, ?firearm-related suicides significantly outnumbered homicides for all age groups, annually accounting for 61 percent of the more than 335,600 people who died from firearm-related violence in the United States,? says the report. Firearm sales are often a warning: Two studies found that ?a small but significant fraction of gun suicides are committed within days to weeks after the purchase of a handgun, and both also indicate that gun purchasers have an elevated risk of suicide for many years after the purchase of the gun.?

7. Guns are used for self-defense often and effectively. ?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 per year ? in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,? says the report. The three million figure is probably high, ?based on an extrapolation from a small number of responses taken from more than 19 national surveys.? But a much lower estimate of 108,000 also seems fishy, ?because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.? Furthermore, ?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.?

8. Carrying guns for self-defense is an arms race. The prevalence of firearm violence near ?drug markets ? could be a consequence of drug dealers carrying guns for self-defense against thieves or other adversaries who are likely to be armed,? says the report. In these communities, ?individuals not involved in the drug markets have similar incentives for possessing guns.? According to a Pew Foundation report, ?the vast majority of gun owners say that having a gun makes them feel safer. And far more today than in 1999 cite protection?rather than hunting or other activities?as the major reason for why they own guns.?

9. Denying guns to people under restraining orders saves lives. ?Two-thirds of homicides of ex- and current spouses were committed [with] firearms,? the report observes. ?In locations where individuals under restraining orders to stay away from current or ex-partners are prohibited from access to firearms, female partner homicide is reduced by 7 percent.?

10. It isn?t true that most gun acquisitions by criminals can be blamed on a few bad dealers. The report concedes that in 1998, ?1,020 of 83,272 federally licensed retailers (1.2 percent) accounted for 57.4 percent of all guns traced by the ATF.? However, ?Gun sales are also relatively concentrated; approximately 15 percent of retailers request 80 percent of background checks on gun buyers conducted by the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.? Researchers have found that ?the share of crime gun traces attributed to these few dealers only slightly exceeded their share of handgun sales, which are almost equally concentrated among a few dealers.? Volume, not laxity, drives the number of ill-fated sales.

These conclusions don?t line up perfectly with either side?s agenda. That?s a good reason to take them seriously?and to fund additional data collection and research that have been blocked by Congress over politics. Yes, the facts will surprise you. That?s why you should embrace them.

William Saletan's latest short takes on the news, via Twitter:

Source: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_nature/2013/06/handguns_suicides_mass_shootings_deaths_and_self_defense_findings_from_a.html

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