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Semi-Annual Crime and Guns Article

Those of you who know me know I'm not a huge gun affictionado. But I do have an interest in trying to do what I can to keep the most people from being killed, robbed, raped, assaulted, shot, etc. in the society in which I live.

It was this motivation which initially led me to oppose concealed-carry measures, and convince a few other people to vote with me. It was this same motivation which led me to actually examine the data to see if my beliefs were right. And it was this motivation which ultimately changed my views on what solutions worked here in the U.S.

Today's post is triggered a bit by a recent post by Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, who points us to Kennesaw, Georgia, a town which not only allows people to own guns, but requires them to do so:

Sec. 34-1 Heads of households to maintain firearms.

(a) In order to provide for the emergency management of the City, and further in order to provide for and protect the safety, security and general welfare of the city and its inhabitants, every head of household residing in the City limits is required to maintain a firearm, together with ammunition therefore.

(b) Exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who suffer a physical or mental disability, which would prohibit them from using such a firearm. Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.

Since the law was passed in 1982, the population has quadrupled (from a tiny burg of 5,000 to a 20,000) and burgulary and overall crimes have been cut to about half the national average, while murder has fallen to one quarter the national rate!

Stats:

Violent CrimesBurglaryTotal Index Crimes
Kennesaw:1073472567
Georgia:5339515200
U.S.:5668624616

1981 (Year prior to Gun Ordinance)
Population: 5,242
Burglaries: 54
Total Part 1 Crimes: 228

1982 (Year Gun Ordinance Passed)
Population: 5,308 (+1% )
Burglaries : 35 ( -35%)
Total Part 1 Crimes: 165 ( -27%)

1998 (Compared to 1981)
Population: 19,000 ( +275%)
Burglaries: 36 (-33%)
Total Part 1 Crimes 227(+0%)

It could indeed be argued this is just anecdotal evidence. True -- there might be other factors involved. Another law might have put the townsfolks in straightjackets. There might be some anti-crime agent in the drinking water which also just appeared in 1981. But the magnitude of the change seems hard to explain by other means.

Further, I can't help but wonder if the town's extraordinary growth doesn't have to do with it's low crime rate. That would be interesting to learn. According some, guns have a powerful mind-warping effect that turns ordinary law-abiding citizens into power-crazed would-be criminals. The immediate drop after the passage after the law would seem to argue strongly against that hypothesis.

In other news, it appears that policing troubled neighborhoods for illegal guns works as well, if done correctly -- as they seem to have done it in Pittsburgh:

Recently, we tested the effectiveness of such a program in Pittsburgh and found that special firearm-suppression patrols significantly reduced 911 calls reporting shots fired and hospital-treated gunshot injuries in the targeted neighborhoods. Our estimates also suggest that Pittsburgh's policing program was extremely cost-effective....

The similarity in off-day trends between the target and control zones, combined with the modest number of guns actually confiscated by the special patrols, point to deterrence as the most plausible explanation for the program's impact.

The report seems to admit the conclusions are still a bit fuzzy, so I pass that along to you. But, if the trend holds in other experiments, it seems indeed that deterrence is the key concept here, where a safe society seems to be created when honest people have guns and criminals don't, or have trouble doing so.

Guns in the hands of law abiding citizens: Deterrence. Having the criminal think: Who's packing heat? The granny over there? The guy in the wheelchair? The big guy? Deterrence. Having criminals know they get charged for illegal guns in public: Deterrence.

Comments

im glad you came over to the right side. the stats have allways been on the pro second amendment side.

the anti gun zealots have never had anything but propaganda and emotional attacks to create a position. ive seen some of the most irrational arguments ive ever seen, come from that group. along with the biggest lies and propaganda.

ie bowling for columbine

or Michael Bellesiles attempt to write history for the anti gun left agenda (if you have to make up out of whole cloth evidence to support your position your officially a weasil)

http://www.aim.org/publications/briefings/2002/jun28.html


"When Michael Bellesiles’ “Arming America” appeared in late 2000, it met rave reviews from liberals, who touted it as “the NRA’s worst nightmare.” Critics at The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Chicago Tribune all hailed the book, which aims to expose the myths of gun culture and gun ownership in early America. Even as questions surfaced over the accuracy of his claims, Bellesiles picked up a $30,000 fellowship from the National Endowment of the Humanities and the prestigious Bancroft prize for American history. Those questions, however, soon erupted into a controversy over Bellesiles’ findings-a controversy that now has the antigun left, biting its collective tongue.
Professor James Lindgren, a probate specialist and criminologist at Northwestern University School of Law, was one of the first to cast doubt on “Arming America.” Lindgren noticed that Bellesiles’ statistics were mathematically impossible. Bellesiles’ main 18th-century probate records report only about one-fifth of the guns that are documented by every other probate researcher. As Lindgren said, “It's a simple sixth-grade math problem, computing an overall mean from samples.”
That a professional historian was too careless to conceal such blatant forgery is truly ironic. It sounds humorous. And it would be, if Bellesiles’ fabrications were not so widespread.
Alongside the recent blunders of fellow historians: both Doris Kearns Goodwin and Stephen Ambrose caught plagiarizing, David McCullough misquoting Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Ellis lying about having served in Vietnam, the initial accusations against Bellesiles do not seem so bad. And for several weeks, the liberal media was happy to cover the differences as just that-a mere disagreement between two historians (Lindgren vs. Bellesiles). Finally, David Mehegan of The Boston Globe went back to the actual probate records to settle the dispute. On September 11, 2001, Megehan published an article citing Bellesiles’ errors in “Arming America.” Lindgren was right and Bellesiles was wrong. Still, it would be weeks until Americans knew just how wrong he was.
Members of the academic community tend to give fellow scholars the benefit of the doubt when it comes to honesty. Typically, a historian is charged with “misreading” or “misrepresenting” their data despite the extent of his or her transgression. Then, the historian is given a chance to respond to the allegations or take accountability for the mistakes (something Bellesiles has yet to do). So, even after The Boston Globe and the National Review poked holes in “Arming America,” the mainstream media continued to paint the story as pure politics. That is, reporters covered it as a strictly Republican (pro-gun) vs. Democrat (gun control) issue, while neglecting concerns of academic integrity. For the liberal media, the attacks on Bellesiles were only ideological bias and NRA spin.
But, the most damning evidence against Bellesiles came from Clayton Cramer, a software engineer and independent historian, who had been researching the data for years. Cramer began checking Bellesiles’ work in 1996 when the Professor wrote a piece in The Journal of American History that laid the foundation for his book. Ironically, that piece won “Best Article of the Year” from the Organization of American Historians. Cramer, who has also written two books on the history of American firearm laws, discovered and documented literally hundreds of errors in “Arming America.” In truth, Cramer unearthed so many mistakes in the book that he could reasonably write a critique of similar length. Nonetheless, the mainstream media refused to take him seriously because he is outside the preferred academic circles, not to mention that he is a pro-Second Amendment activist. It was only once other scholars (including Lindgren) corroborated Cramer’s claims that they were taken seriously.
As it turns out, “Arming America” is more fiction than history. Bellesiles did not just steal another writer’s work or lie about his personal life…he lied about his findings. Clearly, Bellesiles wrote his conclusions then contrived records to support them. As other writers investigated “Arming America,” they uncovered a vast number of errors, discrepancies and fabrications."

Posted by: rumcrook on December 10, 2003 06:13 PM

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