The go-to expert on foolish rushes to further restrict guns after a shooting is John R. Lott Jr. An economist and foxnews.com contributor, he is author of the authoritative More Guns, Less Crime, now in its third edition. National Review Online talked to him about the Tucson attack.
Kathryn Jean Lopez: Are you outraged that Jared Lee Loughner was not marked a “prohibited possessor” when he went to Sportman’s Warehouse to buy a gun on November 30?
John R. Lott Jr.: No, I am not. While about 90 percent of murderers have a violent criminal history, not every murderer does. It is impossible to flag everyone who might possibly become a criminal. While Loughner had an arrest record and exhibited strange behavior, he was not a convicted criminal, and had not been involuntarily committed, and had not been deemed as a risk to himself or others. Do people really want to forbid gun ownership to law-abiding individuals who have never been convicted of a crime?
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Background checks are actually very ineffective to begin with and are mostly an inconvenience for regular people. Unfortunately, many law-abiding citizens end up being erroneously flagged. People intent on horrific crimes are not going to be deterred if they cannot get the guns legally. They can easily enough get guns illegally.
The statistics are clear on this issue: Virtually the only people inconvenienced by background checks are law-abiding citizens. Just as law-abiding citizens accidentally get their names on the government’s “no-fly” list, Americans without a criminal record also find themselves prevented from buying guns.
In 2008, 1.5 percent of those having a Brady background check were forbidden from purchasing a gun. Unfortunately, virtually all these cases represent so-called “false positives.” In 2006 and 2007 (the latest years with detailed data), a tiny fraction — just 2 percent — of those denials involved possible unlawful possession; and just 0.2 percent of the denials were viewed as prosecutable — 174 cases in 2006 and 122 in 2007. Even when the government decided that the cases were prosecutable, at least a third of them failed to result in convictions. And even the few convictions were often for people who simply made mistakes — they hadn’t realized that they were prohibited from purchasing a gun.
The Brady background checks have done virtually nothing to prevent people with criminal intent from getting guns. Given that, it isn’t too surprising that no academic studies by economists or criminologists have found that the Brady Act or other state background checks have reduced violent crime.
Lopez: Does anyone need a nine-millimeter Glock, the gun he used?
Lott: Nine-millimeter semiautomatic pistols are by far the most common handguns sold in the U.S. Handguns are particularly useful for self-defense in enclosed spaces such as inside a house. Indeed, there is a safety reason for using handguns. The bullets fired by handguns travel more slowly than those fired by rifles and are thus less likely to harm people outside of the home.
As to the type of handgun that works best for people — that depends on everything from the size of the person’s hands and strength to how much stopping power he needs.
Lopez: Isn’t that gun made “to kill people,” as I’ve heard on MSNBC?
Lott: Well, guns do make it easier to kill people, but guns also make it easier for people to defend themselves. The defensive argument is especially important for people who are weaker physically — women and the elderly — and for those living in crime-infested neighborhoods, such as poor blacks in urban areas. Criminals are overwhelmingly young males who are physically stronger than their potential victims. Police are extremely important in deterring crime, but they understand that they almost always arrive on the scene after the crime has been committed. Simply telling people to behave passively or to defend themselves in some other way is not very good advice. Having a gun is by far the safest course of action for those left to confront a criminal alone.
"To ban guns because criminals use them is to tell the innocent and law-abiding that their rights and liberties depend not on their own conduct,but on the conduct of the guilty and the lawless,and that the
law will permit them to have only such rights and liberties as the
lawless will allow... For society does not control crime,ever,by
forcing the law-abiding to accommodate themselves to the expected
behavior of criminals. Society controls crime by forcing the criminals to accommodate themselves to the expected behavior of the law-abiding."
---------- Jeff Snyder
"I just wish that more people in Tucson, Arizona, were carrying a concealed handgun with them when the attack occurred on Saturday."
Whether there were CCH licensees there or not on Saturday, I imagine that the ones who were there were cautious about drawing and shooting. As I understand it, if a police officer injures someone in a good faith effort to stop a guy like Loughner, he/she has some limited immunity from civil penalties. A CCH licensee does not and would therefore be putting himself in substantial jeopardy if he started shooting back in a crowd. My instructor drilled it in to my head, protect yourself and your family, beyond that and you are asking for trouble.
The evil 30-round magazine: In the two seconds it takes the perp to drop his spent ten-round mag and slam another one in the hole, you can try to talk some sense into him. Or you can produce your weapon with it's 30-round magazine and after he has fired his first shot you can put as many rounds into him as is necessary. The "we only want ten people to die" argument is disgusting.
Great article, and Mr. Lott is SO right. Everything he pointed out is absolutely correct. Any ban or restriction only allows criminals to get the upper hand, and leaves more innocent people dead. It is so important for all of us law-abiding citizens to keep, bear, and carry arms.
Thank you National Review and Ms. Lopez for a fine interview article with John R. Lott, Jr. It is a shame that dispassionate and rational dialogue is not the ultimate in effectiveness. Thank you.
Thank you Dr. Lott, you do us patriotic geeks proud. (Was the Apostle misquoted in the Beatitude about the "meek"?)
Brilliant piece, but will be unconvincing to liberals whose fear of fireams is deeply rooted in psychological issues. If you parse "liberalism" you'll see that it's not a theory or a program or an ideology but a personality. It's largely driven by beta males who've withdrawn their whole lives from masculine behavior--sports, the military. salesmanship, enterprenurial exercises, hard physical labor, whatever--and are sick of being found inadequate by women and the world in general. Thus they've leapt to the altar of "sensitivity," "compassion" and "human kindness"; they've tried to make inadequacy the new adequacy. The last thing they want is for someone to heroically defend self or others with a firearm or fists. Knowing they could not do so infuriates them and the fury turns to irrational hatred of those who can. They'll never relent on guns; guns are scawy.
I am a retired United States Army first Sgt I have seen what happens to people in a country whom have had their rights taken away from them by their government. More people have been killed by their own governments that you wish to think about. The Arizona shootings could have been prevented if the individual had been psychologically evaluated earlier and live and placed on a no cell list for the background check but for some reason, like many others have fallen through the cracks. The second amendment right but it is the Constitution of the United States by our founding fathers and their comments on why they did that are a public record that is constantly being ignored by the anti-again establishment. The American people have a God-given right of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness and no government has the right to interfere with these things.
Constitubertarian/Jack of SS,
I see it like this: your instructor was technically right about the legal possibilities, but what kind of man would take no action and let women and children be killed because he feared civil suits? If you carry a weapon, you are of course taking chances in many ways. If those things scare you, maybe a firearm is not right for you. Then, you and your family get to be one of the 31 that get shot.
The one good thing about this disaster is thank God this wacko was a lousy shot. He fired 31 rounds but only hit 13. But then again that's 13 too many. This nut should have gotten treatment. Then he wouldn't have shot anyone. But no one wanted to take responsibility for that. If you don't put out a smoldering fire, it becomes an inferno.
I am proud and experienced gun owner. While I do not support any gun ban of any sort. I do however support ammo/gun registration laws. If you do not intend to use your weapon to commit murder outside of self-defense, then you should not have a problem with who is aware of you having a gun. If you condone open carry, surely you should condone registration of ammo/guns. Where the problem comes into to play with America are the biased/racist individuals whom pretend to be law-abiding citizens and members of the NRA, use their guns to cause death to others in such a manner, it is identical to that of a pure murderer. These are wolves in sheep's clothing. They think Blacks commit most crimes, Latinos have taken all the jobs, Asians have drained the country, and so forth. These are the TRUE criminals in America. From many of the comments I have read here, and on many other forums regarding gun-control issues, clearly gun control is indeed a MUST in America. The ignorance and hatred shown makes the enforcement evident.
To Eric C: Registration is the first step of confiscation. It has been proven time and again. That is the very least that you should learn if you say you support gun rights.
