Phil Lee1

Nov. 3, 2003 (rev. 12/29/04)

On Oct. 8, Del. Weldon (R) from District 3B published the article "Guns And Gun Violence". The issues and questions Del. Weldon raised were both Constitutional and practical. This note is my second "practical" response to his article.

The CDC has announced that they have no scientific evidence to prove that gun control reduces violence (see previous message #4 for reference). Other reports in that vein exist. For example, normally anti-gun researchers Ludwig and Cook said, "Our analyses provide no evidence that implementation of the Brady Act was associated with a reduction in homicide rates." This comment appears at the end of their article "Homicide and Suicide Rates Associated With Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act" JAMA, August 2, 2000, Vol. 284, No. 5. So, here we have the centerpiece legislation for gun control showing no evidence for reducing homicide -- the central purpose of that legislation.

University scientists have criticized the CDC for funding advocacy research (“sagecraft”) -- for example University of Illinois sociologist David Bordua and epidemiologist David Cowan called the public health literature on guns "advocacy based on political beliefs rather than scientific fact" at the American Society of Criminology's 1994 meeting (see Public Health Pot Shots, Don B. Kates, Henry E. Schaffer, and William B. Waters IV).

If the government cannot produce from the mound of studies on the subject the evidence that controlling guns reduces violence, then its policy amounts to stealing the people's freedom. Why not trust the people who respect the law to be free and to do the right thing? Why not trust the people to protect themselves with firearms?

You really don't have to trust the people much because there is evidence that gun control actually increases violence -- a consequence of control legislation that is not acknowledged by the Brady organization and allies. But, increase violence from gun-control is a common sense expectation of clear thinkers who understand law-breakers do not respect gun control legislation any more than they respect laws against drug dealing or murder and that such laws empower criminals against the disarmed law-abiding. Empowering decent people gives the best society. What a surprise -- the founding fathers were right after all. For the record, we reference studies and experiences to justify trusting the people.

John Lott and David Mustard in their paper "Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns," Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1997, analyzed the consequences to violence in states that changed their concealed carry laws to permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns. To their surprise, they found such polices had a beneficial effect in reducing violence. That paper, originally reported in 1997 is available at link (but the J. of Legal Studies will charge for it).

In "Confirming More Guns, Less Crime," John R.Lott Jr., Florenz Plassmann and John E.Whitley perform a confirming analysis of John Lott's original work and report ". . . we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 and 2.3 percent for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 billion and $3 billion per year." The right to carry law mention is a "shall-issue" concealed carry law where the state must issue a concealed carry license to qualified applicants. That paper gives references to a number of independent studies showing similar results.

Public mass shootings are deterred by shall-issue concealed carry policies as demonstrated by "Multiple Victim Public Shootings," John R. Lott Jr. and William M. Landes.

A number of attacks have been made on Lott's results, but even the most anti-gun of researchers have not been able to claim that shall-issue laws result in increasing violence. This has to be a big disappointment to the Brady Bunch and allies since they regularly predict dire consequences with everyone carrying concealed.

For example, Michael Barnes, former representative from Maryland and at that time President of Handgun Control Inc (the predecessor organization to Brady), wrote in a Boston Globe article (12/29/2000):

The proponents of concealed weapons laws always give their facts with no context; they say that crime goes down where people are allowed to carry guns. But the fact is, crime has been going down everywhere, and it goes down faster in states where concealed weapons are prohibited.

Here Mr. Barnes extols Massachusetts for its lack of concealed guns by contrast to nearby Vermont with the ultimate in concealed carry. Of course, no numbers are mentioned by Mr. Barnes, but Massachusetts violent crime was 551.0 in 1999 (FBI UCR rates per 100,000 people) and 621.3 in 1998. So, Massachusetts' rate decreased 11.3 percent between 1998 and 1999 certainly better than Vermont's increase of 7.1 percent -- or is it? It isn't because Vermont violent crime rates were only 20 percent of Massachusetts' rates -- 106.3 in 1998 and 113.8 in 1999. In short Massachusetts is five times more violent than nearby Vermont. In fact, taken whole, restrictive states are more violent than nearby shall issue states. So, why would Mr. Barnes think rate decrease is something to brag about when violence is so much higher in restrictive states than in right-to-carry states?

Thirty-five states now have laws that guarantee a concealed handgun permit to citizens who have passed a criminal background check and completed appropriate training. None of these laws has ever been repealed and these “shall-issue” laws have been universally successful. So successful are these laws that only a few states, Florida (also cumulative), Texas (see also Sturdevant, his update, and Texas conviction data), Michigan (summary & 2005 details), North Carolina and Utah bother to make their data on CHL behavior available via the web.

In Florida, over the 10 year period between 1987 and 1997, only 84 Concealed Handgun License (CHL) holders lost licenses because of felonies committed with handguns -- that amounts to nearly 4 per 100,000 per year -- less than 1% of Massachusetts' rate of violent crime). In all of these states revocation of licenses for crime committed by CHL holders has been negligible. Texas has a similarly low experience with CHL holders acting feloniously.

We know about Texas and Florida because they collect and publish data on the behavior of their CHL holders. Texas data can be found at:

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/demographics.htm

and

http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/convrates.htm

Florida's data is posted at:

http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/weapons/index.html

Now compare what the anti-gun Violence Policy Center has to say about Texas Concealed Handgun Licenses in their article "License to Kill, Arrests Involving Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders." The VPC, following gun control practice of half-truths mixed with lies, claims that Texas CHLs were arrested for weapons offenses at a rate 22% higher than the general adult Texas population. That claim and others are answered in "An Analysis Of The Arrest Rate Of Texas Concealed Handgun License Holders As Compared To The Arrest Rate Of The Entire Texas Population," 1996 - 1998, Revised to include 1999 and 2000 data, by William E. Sturdevant, PE, August 24, 2001. (It seems the links in the 2000 update incorrectly use a capital "S" rather than lower case "s" in linking the original study. So, the original study for 1996 through 1999 is here and its summary is here.)

Sturdevant found that, contrary to the VPC report, CHL holders are arrested at approximately 13% of the rate of the general Texas adult population. The average Texan adult is nearly 8 times more likely to be arrested than a CHL holder even though a CHL holder's arrest is routine whenever he or she uses a gun in self-defense. It is routine to charge murder or assault so that the local prosecuting attorney can sort out the facts at his leisure. We need to look at convictions in this case to determine what is happening here. It turns out that convictions are even more rare because Texas CHLs use their guns responsibly -- when they are necessary to defend life. The VPC won't tell you about convictions because truth doesn't serve their goal. There has been precisely one conviction of a Texas CHL holder for murder since 1996 when the licensing law took effect. Since more than 200,000 CHL holders are licensed by Texas, the rate is 0.16 per 100,000 per year.

A paper written by Senator Orrin Hatch mentions shall-issue concealed carry results. The paper's title is "THE BRADY HANDGUN PREVENTION ACT AND THE COMMUNITY PROTECTION INITIATIVE: LEGISLATIVE RESPONSES TO THE SECOND AMENDMENT?" Brigham Young University Law Review, Second Amendment Symposium, 1998, No. 1: 103. Senator Hatch wrote:

Opponents of the Florida legislation predicted that, regardless of the benefits that could result from the law, there would be a large number of instances in which members of the public would misuse their newly granted authority. That prediction proved mistaken. Florida has not witnessed rampant misconduct by its citizens. Consider these statistics: From 1987, when the Florida law took effect, through April 30, 1994, 221,443 concealed carry permits have been issued in Florida. [98]

Of these, only twenty-two have been revoked because licensees committed [Page 120] firearm crimes. [99]

That number represents only 1/100th of 1% of total permits issued, which is a minuscule fraction of the total number of outstanding permits.

Other states have now followed Florida's lead by adopting their own "shall issue" laws. Since 1987, twenty-two states have either enacted new "shall issue" laws where none previously existed, have changed "may issue" laws to "shall issue" laws, or have reaffirmed a "shall issue" law through judicial ruling. In total, thirty-one states have "shall issue" right-to-carry laws on the books. [100]

It is worth mentioning that the number of criminal homicides perpetrated by concealed carry permit holders in states with such laws is negligible. In many instances where permits were revoked, the permit holder did not commit a crime with a firearm. [101]

Standard reasons for revocations, for example, are alcohol and/or drug abuse, domestic violence, dishonorable discharge from the Armed Forces, misdemeanor offenses not involving a firearm, and felony offenses involving a firearm.

There have been a small number of cases in the last decade where a permit holder was charged with a felony homicide, but in most of these cases the court determined that the permitted firearm was used for self-defense [102]--which, I might add, is precisely the purpose of having permissive concealed carry laws. I would also like to note that a study completed by Gary Kleck in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology showed that only 16% of gun defenders in the study actually fired their weapon at an offender and, only 8% actually shot and wounded an offender. The vast majority of gun defenders in their study, 76%, just showed or brandished their weapons to deter an offender. [103]

And it is not just scientific studies, or illustrious politician, or pro-RKBA activists that can be quoted in favor of trusting the people to defend themselves properly, we can quote open-minded opponents who have seen the light such as John Holmes, district attorney of Harris County which includes the city of Houston who said in a letter dated December 16, 1999:

"As you know, I was very outspoken in my opposition to the passage of the Concealed Handgun Act. I did not feel that such legislation was in the public interest and presented a clear and present danger to law abiding citizens by placing more handguns on our streets.

"Boy was I wrong. Our experience in Harris County, and indeed state-wide, has proven my initial fears absolutely groundless."

We can quote a statement by Glenn White, president of the Dallas Police Association, reported in the Dallas Morning News in December 1997.

"I lobbied against the law in 1993 and 1995 because I thought it would lead to wholesale armed conflict. That hasn't happened. All the horror stories I thought would come to pass didn't happen. No bogeyman. I think it's worked out well, and that says good things about the citizens who have permits. I'm a convert."

It is interesting to contrast the benefits in crime reduction and lives of decent people saved with the approach of some states that respond to every criminal act with increasingly restrictive laws binding the people. Maryland, with its effort to limit the law-abiding gun owners, has set the “restriction” standard in recent years. From Maryland’s poor crime performance, we can see those restrictions for the failure they are. Maryland has the top rate for robbery of all the states and has held that rate for the past 8 years. It regularly is third in overall violence and typically 2nd or 3rd in murder (2nd last year). Maryland is the poster state for doing the wrong thing. Maryland’s crime and the effectiveness of its policing effort is a topic in its own right which is partially addressed here (large document and requires Microsoft Word or a Word viewer).

1 Phil Lee has a PhD in Mathematics and is active in Maryland politics to support the right of the people to keep and bear arms.