... Dr. Gary Kleck, the nation's leading scholar on crime and firearms, began his research as a staunch gun control advocate. He is a member of the ACLU, Amnesty International USA, and Common Cause - certainly not someone who you would label as a conservative. He is not and has never been a member of or contributor to any advocacy group on either side of the gun control debate. Yet today, he has moved, by his own words quoted in The Denver Post, November 28, 1985, "beyond even the skeptic position." That is quite a shift. James Wright, a gun control advocate who received a grant to study the effectiveness of gun control laws from President Jimmy Carter's Justice Department, was surprised to discover, during the course of his research, that neither waiting periods, background checks, nor ANY gun control laws were effective in reducing violent crime. In an article titled "Second Thoughts About Gun Control", in the spring 1988 issue of "The Public Interest", Wright said, "I am now of the opinion that a compelling case for stricter gun control cannot be made."
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In a thesis titled "Armed Resistance to Crime: The Prevalence and Nature of Self-Defense With a Gun", in the Northwestern University School of Law, Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 86, issue 1, 1995, Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz revealed some interesting facts.
Now, before anyone tries to dismiss the findings of this study as biased, because the study's author is pro gun ownership, let me remind you that the Dr. Kleck, who authored this study, is the same Dr. Kleck, who began his career as an opponent of private gun ownership.
Furthermore, criminologist Marvin E. Wolfgang, who has researched guns and violence for more than 25 years and is one of the most outspoken opponents of private gun ownership, after reading this study, praised the methodology that was used, in a paper titled "A Tribute to a View I Have Opposed," published in the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology, vol. 86, Issue 1 (Fall 1995), p. 188.
In that article, Wolfgang begins by saying:
"I am as strong a gun-control advocate as can be found among the criminologists in this country. If I were Mustapha Mond of Brave New World, I would eliminate all guns from the civilian population and maybe even from the police."
Those are certainly not the views of your ordinary anti-gun type. This is a man who represents the ultimate in anti-gun philosophy. But to his credit as a researcher, he was not so proud that he would deny the excellent methodology employed by Kleck and Gertz. He went on to say:
"What troubles me is the article by Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz. The reason I am troubled is that they have provided an almost clear-cut case of methodologically sound research in support of something I have theoretically opposed for years, namely, the use of a gun in defense against a criminal perpetrator... I have to admit my admiration for the care and caution expressed in this article and this research."
Wolfgang concludes by saying:
"The Kleck and Gertz study impresses me for the caution the authors exercise and the elaborate nuances they examine methodologically. I do not like their conclusions that having a gun can be useful, but I cannot fault their methodology. They have tried earnestly to meet all objections in advance and have done exceedingly well."
Principal among the facts that Wolfgang was disappointed to learn, is that Guns are used for self-defense between 2.1 Million and 2.5 Million times every year. The following facts from the Kleck/Gertz study, relate directly to this fact.
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In the vast majority of those self-defense cases, the citizen will only brandish the gun or fire a warning shot.
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In less than 8% of those self-defense cases will the citizen will even wound his attacker.
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Over 1.9 million of those self-defense cases involve handguns.
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As many as 500,000 of those self-defense cases occur away from home.
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Almost 10% of those self-defense cases are women defending themselves against sexual assault or abuse.
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This means that guns are used 60 times more often to protect the lives of law-abiding citizens than to take a life.
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At an estimated 263 million US population, in 1995, when the study was released, it also means that an average of 1 out of every 105 to 125 people that you know will use a gun for self-defense every year.
Dr. Kleck also wrote in his book titled " Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (Social Institutions and Social Change)" that burglars are more than three and a half times more likely to enter an occupied home in a gun control country than in the USA. Compare the 45% average rate of Great Britain, Canada and Netherlands with the 12.7% of the USA. He continued to point out that citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals every year as do police (1,527 to 606). In a related article titled, "Are We a Nation of Cowards'?" in the November 15, 1993 issue of Newsweek Magazine, George Will reported that police are more than 5 times more likely than a civilian to shoot an innocent person by mistake.
The Wall Street Journal reported, in an August 28, 1996 article titled, "More Guns, Less Violent Crime," that a University of Chicago study revealed that states which passed concealed carry laws reduced their murder rate by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. The most impressive single statement in the University of Chicago Study, which is an ongoing study, is the very first sentence of the Abstract on the first page.
"Using cross-sectional time series data for U.S. counties from 1977 to 1992, we find that allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons deters violent crimes, without increasing accidental deaths." - University of Chicago Study (1st line of Abstract)
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A 1979 Carter Justice Department study found that of more than 32,000 attempted rapes, 32% were actually committed. That number dropped to only 3% when the woman was armed. That means that an unarmed woman is more than 10 times more likely to be raped than an armed woman. Think about it.
Since England passed its strict gun control laws, their previously low murder rate has almost caught up to that of the USA and according to a Reuters article on October 11, 1998 most other violent crime in England has passed the US crime rates. This is also supported by an October 1998 report of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
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How about accidents? The National Safety Council Report titled, "What Are the Odds of Dying?" for 1998 reveals that you are almost twice as likely to die from natural environmental factors (1,521 deaths), such as injuries caused by animals, plants or exposure to the elements than from an accidental gunshot (866 deaths). Think about it. The same report shows that you are more likely to choke to death on a piece of food (1,147 deaths) or die from falling down stairs (1,389 deaths) as to die from an errant bullet. You are four times more likely to die in a fire (3,255 deaths) or drown (3,964 deaths). The simple fact is that there are many things that we take for granted in life that are much more dangerous than guns. In 1998, there were 43,501 motor vehicle deaths, 10,255 poisoning deaths, 3,228 deaths from complications or misadventures of surgical or medical care and 16,274 total falling deaths - maybe we should ban ladders.
Get this! In 1998, there were 723 persons killed by falling objects. Compare that to 866 gun related deaths. So, using the logic proposed by the anti-Second Amendment types, our lawmakers should require us to wear helmets at all times.
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The police are not required to protect you, as an individual! In fact, I challenge you to think of just one case where the police have actually prevented a crime. When you think about it, the actual job of the police is not to prevent crime, but to investigate crime, catch the perpetrator and bring the perpetrator to court - ALL after the fact.
Think about how the police work. They try to take the bad guys off of the street. How do they know who the bad guys are? They know, because the bad guys did something bad (past tense). So, by putting the bad guy in jail, you can argue that the police prevented potential crime, protecting the public at large. But the act that put the bad guy behind bars was a real crime, with real victims.
But, it is not the job of the police to protect individuals. That is a pretty powerful statement and deserves some support. There is, in fact, so much support for that statement that I could write a book on the subject. Fortunately, Richard W. Stevens has already done that. His very excellent book is "Dial 911 and Die." I encourage you to get the book and read it. Then, if you don't already own a gun, buy one and learn how to use it. Your life could very well depend upon it.
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Armed Citizens Make Fewer Mistakes Than Police Don't think that just because the police are trained in the use of firearms that they are less likely to kill an innocent person. A University of Chicago Study revealed that in 1993 approximately 700,000 police killed 330 innocent individuals, while approximately 250,000,000 private citizens only killed 30 innocent people. Do the math. That's a per capita rate for the police, of almost 4000 times higher than the population in general. OK, that is a little misleading. Let's just include the 80,000,000 gun owning citizens. Now the police are down to only a 1200 times higher accidental shooting rate than the gun-owning population in general.
That still sounds high. So let's look at it in a different light. According to a study by Newsweek magazine, only 2% of civilian shootings involve an innocent person being shot (not killed). The error rate for police is 11%. What this means is that you are more than 5 times more likely to be accidentally shot by a policeman than by an armed citizen. But, when you consider that citizens shoot and kill at least twice as many criminals as do police every year, it means that, per capita, you are more than 11 times more likely to be accidentally shot by a policeman than by an armed citizen.
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The Kleck study shows that police shoot and kill around 600 criminals each year. Yet the University of Chicago study shows that police killed 330 innocent individuals in 1993. That means that for every two criminals killed by police, one innocent citizen is killed by police. Although I have the greatest respect for the police and how they must respond under pressure, I think that I would much rather trust an armed populace.
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