from Tee <eagle11@classicnet.net> -----

http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7862

1: What Gun Controllers Don't Want You to Know

Written by
http://www.chronwatch.com/content//site_search.asp?auth=141 Howard Nemerov
Friday, June 11, 2004

        I used to support gun control, meaning civilian disarmament. There
was no reason, the rationale went, for a private citizen to own a gun. The
only ones who wanted guns had small genitalia, were paranoid crazies, and
criminals.

         All this was assumed, without any empirical or statistical
research to base it upon. Due to the influence of one of my clients who is
a person of great honor, I began to research the issue of gun control on my
own. Having been a college boy who loved library research, I knew how to
ferret out fact from fiction. It was interesting to find that the claims
of the NRA, John Lott, et al., were easy to verify from neutral or even
slightly pro-gun control sources.

         More ominously, I found that the gun control groups consistently
lied or twisted minor factoids taken out of context in their
articles. This begged the question: if they are lying to advance their
agenda, can we really trust the utopian outcome they promote as true?

The Utopian Thesis of Gun Control

         The philosophy behind gun control is that by limiting access to
guns, the public is made a safer place. (1,2) This is a noble undertaking,
and all persons of conscience should support this. If it were proven
beyond a reasonable doubt that disarming the law-abiding public would
enhance public safety, save children's lives, and enhance or preserve our
civil rights, I would be in favor of gun control.

        Of course, there is a ''competing'' hypothesis: placing firearms
into the hands of law-abiding citizens accomplishes the same goals with
fewer unpleasant side-effects.

        These hypotheses were being tested during my research. A simple
litmus test could be set up; one can examine actual crime rates and trends
in countries similar to our culture that have recently disarmed the public,
and see what resulted.

        The United Kingdom is an English speaking democracy with a
bicameral legislature, similar enough for our litmus test. The UK
instituted a massive gun ban in 1997, finally banning all handguns. While
a tool of choice for criminals, because of its ease of concealment, this
attribute also makes it a valuable personal protection tool for a
law-abiding citizen.

        If the gun control thesis is the correct one, then it should follow
that by taking out an element that allegedly incites criminal behavior, in
this case guns, crime rates should drop. So let's take a look at the
statistical record to find out.

Facts, Not Rhetoric

        What always made me reluctant to address the issue of gun control
was all the hyperbole surrounding it from both sides of the issue.
Therefore, it was imperative to be able to locate similar statistics from
multiple sources, to insure factual validity.

        First, it is important to establish a pre-ban baseline and then
compare it to similar research after the ban to determine crime trends. For
that, we will reference the International Crime Victimization Surveys of
1992 and 2000. (3)

        In general, the research shows that violent crime rates were lower
in the UK than the United States in 1992. (Rated in percent of those
interviewed responding ''yes'' to being victimized.)

Burglary with entry:                   UK - 2.5%      U.S. - 3.5%
Robbery:                                  UK - .9%        U.S. - 1.7%
Sexual assault of women:          UK - ...3%        U.S. - 1.5%
Assault with force:                    UK - 1.1%      U.S. - 2.2%

        In the 2000 survey the researchers combined the three violent
crimes of robbery, rape, and assault into one category entitled ''Selected
Contact Crime.'' Here is what they report (post-ban for UK.)

Burglary with entry:                   UK - 2.8%      U.S. - 1.8%
Selected contact crime:             UK - 3.6%      U.S. - 1.9%

        These two reports were done with essentially the same criteria and
methods, and they clearly show that while selected violent crime rates rose
100% in the UK, they fell 65 % in the U.S. During this time, Britain
outlawed private ownership of firearms, while over 70 million additional
civilian firearms were sold in the U.S. (4) At the very least, a reasonable
person is forced to conclude that availability of firearms to the general
public is not a contributing factor to any increase in crime.

        These trends are confirmed by Britain's own Home Office. (5) In
the period of 1997 through 2001, homicide rose 19% in the UK while it fell
12% in the USA. (6) Violent crime incidents rose 26% in the UK while
falling 12% in the USA. (7) Robbery rates rose 92% in the UK and fell 15%
in the USA. (8)

"Trust Us, We're Your Government"

        ''What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not
warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of
resistance?'' - Thomas Jefferson

        ''Congress by the power of taxation, by that of raising an army,
and by their control over the militia, have the sword in one hand and the
purse in the other. Shall we be safe without either? Let him candidly
tell me, where and when did freedom exist, when the sword and purse were
given up from the people?'' - Patrick Henry

        This same British Home Office report attempts to put a happy face
on the UK crime trend by proclaiming on page one that during the period of
2002-2003 crime has dropped, attempting to devalue the entire body of the
report to the reader. Such hyperbole is also expressed in another British
Home Office report entitled ''Crime in England and Wales 2002/2003,'' (9)
which consists of two parts. The first section relies on Britain's new
Crime Survey, a governmental attempt to show crime reduction by selecting a
small group of subjects to question. The Crime Survey findings contrast
sharply with the second section of actual compiled police statistics that
show sharp rises in nearly all crime categories.

        Here are some crime trends collected from UK police crime data for
the period of 1995 to 2003. (10)

Homicide rose 41%.
Attempted murder rose 29%.
Total Violent Crime rose 219%.

        For those who believe that gun control benefits women and children,
who are generally smaller and less physically capable of protecting
themselves, it is interesting to note that during this time period female
rape increased 129%, child abduction rose 143%, and cruelty to or neglect
of children increased 79%.

        In his book ''More Guns, Less Crime,'' John Lott discusses how when
criminals know more citizens are armed they switch from crimes where they
come into direct contact with their victims to crimes where there is no
contact. So instead of robbery, where they confront the intended victim,
they wait until people leave home and commit burglary. In an email
interview, Professor Lott said: ''They do this in order to avoid victims
who are now better able to defend themselves.''

        ''More Guns, Less Crime'' showed how such a crime trend is indeed
in effect in Right-to-Carry states, where violent (confrontational) crime
is dropping faster than property (non-confrontational) crime. The reason I
bring this up now is because this substitution effect is borne out in the
UK, where total property crime dropped 1% from 1995 to 2003. (11) As
victims are more available due to the loss of self-defense capabilities,
criminals see no need to spend the extra effort to plan burglary in order
to avoid their victims; it is far easier to confront them and wave a gun in
their face, demanding loot and sex.

        Some may still want to deny the truth, saying ''but the population
has increased, so even if crime increases, there still is no increase in
crime rates.'' On the surface, this is a valid argument, but the same
report shows that violent crime rates (per 100,000 population) increased
216% from 1995 to 2003, while property offenses dropped 2%. (12)

        In her book ''Guns and Violence,'' Joyce Lee Malcolm discusses the
same substitution effect was active historically as well. In the first
part of the book, she does an overview of the earlier eras in Britain and
concludes:

        ''...this era in which firearms first came into common use in
everyday life as well as for the citizen militia, the century in which an
Englishman's right to have 'arms for his defence' was proclaimed, also
witnessed a sharp decline in violent homicide.'' (13)

        In an e-mail interview, I asked Professor Malcolm about the
discrepancy between the British Home Office Crime Survey results and the
police statistics included in the same report from 2003.

        Question: In your book you mention in the introduction that there
are some irregularities in how the police report crime. Does this in fact
make the Crime Survey a more accurate indicator of crime trends in the UK?

        Professor Malcolm: ''The differences between the UK crime
victimization studies and police statistics are indeed confusing and almost
always at odds. Both come from government and are official. For many years
the English police seemed to record only about 1/3 of the crimes reported
to them, making the victimization studies more accurate. They also
purposely underestimated a crime like burglary, for example, by counting
several offences by the same individual as one burglary. The police
reporting was so unabashedly political that the victimization studies were
undertaken.''

        Question: This brings up two concerns: first, it seems that one of
the governmental branches, either the Home Office or the police, is in
effect lying. Second, how can people trust the government when they can't
even come out with a consistent answer on crime rates or even what
constitutes a crime?

         Professor Malcolm: ''The government now seems to be insisting that
the police actually record a higher level of the crimes reported to them,
but don't seem willing to explain what proportion or how it is being
done. As a result, as crime rates go up dramatically in police statistics,
especially for violent crime, the government keeps saying they are not
really going up, it is just that the police are using a different method of
recording crime. But for some crime, such as murder, the police could not
easily have been under-reporting in the past, although they do track
murders to pull them from the totals if the final judgment is anything less
than a court finding of murder. At this point the government has used the
''new method of calculating crime'' excuse so repeatedly and without
explanation that I am inclined not to trust their assurances that crime is
going down or remaining steady. Murder, for instance, is at the highest
level since statistics were kept.''

        Question: Why is the British Crime Survey is at odds with the
International Crime Victimization Survey of 2002 and your own article at
Reason.com (14), which indicate that the UK is indeed increasingly more
crime-ridden in many categories than the U.S.?

        Professor Malcolm: ''I think the international crime victimization
study released in 2002 is more reliable and offers a comparison of how
England and Wales are doing compared to other industrial countries. Sadly,
England has many times the violent crime of most European countries. But
their methods of fighting crime by disarming and prosecuting victims is so
counter-productive that the results do not surprise me. Unfortunately it
is in the government's interest to demonstrate that its crime-fighting
initiative is successful, which makes its assertions doubtful.''

        The key point to remember is that murder is a statistic that is
hard to fudge, and therefore a reliable indicator of crime trends. The
police actually under-report murder rates, because if the court reduces the
sentence, the police subtract that case from murder totals. Even so,
murder has risen dramatically since the gun ban went into effect.

        Referring back to the Founders' quotes leading this section, pray
tell me this: how are the people of the United Kingdom are going to force a
redressing of grievances upon their government? They have surrendered
their arms and their purse, and therefore have no protection against a
government acting without restraint, nor do they have the means to show
their government any spirit of resistance to flawed and deadly
policy. Once again, the age-old lessons are being taught on yet another
stage: absolute power corrupts absolutely; and if you surrender your
personal responsibility to a government which promises to take care of you,
they will only take care of themselves.

Conclusion

         The English experience proves that guns and violence have no
corresponding relationship that justifies gun control. Do we want to go
down the same road as the UK when the evidence is so alarming? When the
consequences could be so deadly?   How will we force our government to
return power to the people once it has taken it?

        Perhaps gun control will go away when we have the ''Million Armed
Mom March in Washington, D.C.'' Women will drive this issue when they ask
the politicians, ''Tell me exactly how you expect me to defend my children
against violent predators? If gun control is so wonderful, how come more
women are being raped and children being abused in England since guns were
banned? Do you plan to sacrifice our lives to pander to your moneyed
sponsor/constituents? Or do you just want power so much that you don't
care who suffers?''

        George Santayana coined the phrase: ''Those who do not learn from
history are doomed to repeat it.'' To which I humbly wish to add: Those who
have tasted power and developed an addiction to it, studied of history,
intend to repeat it.

Footnotes

(1)   Gun Laws Work, Loopholes Don't, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Violence
http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/issues/?page=loop

Numerous references at this site relating gun control to reducing violence.

(2)   Information Page on Firearms Violence, Violence Policy Center.
http://www.vpc.org/fvtopic.htm
Numerous articles relating gun control to reducing violence.

(3)   Crime Victimisation in the Industrialised World: Key Findings of the
1989 and 1992 International Crime Surveys, van Dijk and Mayhew, The Hague:
Ministry of Justice, Department of Crime Prevention, 1993.
Criminal Victimisation in Seventeen Industrialised Countries: Key-findings
from the 2000 international Crime Victims Survey, Van Kesteren, Mayhew and
Nieuwbeerta, The Hague: Ministry of Justice, Department of Crime
Prevention, 2000. Both available at
http://www.unicri.it/icvs/publications/index_pub.htm

(4)   Firearms Commerce in the United States 2001/2002. Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms.
http://www.atf.gov/pub/fire-explo_pub/firearmscommerce/firearmscommerce.pdf

(5)   International Comparisons of Criminal Justice Statistics 2001.
Britain Home Office and Council of Europe, 10/23/2003.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb1203.pdf

(6)   Ibid, page 10.

(7)   Ibid, page 12.

(8)   Ibid, page 13.

(9)   Crime in England and Wales 2002/2003. British Home Office, July 2003.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hosb703.pdf

(10)                       Ibid, page 53.

(11)                       Ibid, page 56.

(12)                       Ibid, page 58.

(13)                       ''Guns and Violence, The English Experience,''
Joyce Lee Malcolm, Harvard University Press, 2002, pp 62-63.

(14)                       ''Gun Control's Twisted Outcome,'' Joyce Lee
Malcolm, Reason Online, November 2002.
http://reason.com/0211/fe.jm.gun.shtml

Howard Nemerov is a Bay Area freelance writer who receives e-mail at:
<mailto:hnemerov@netvista.net>hnemerov@netvista.net