Transcript SPSS For Teaching & Research

Politics is inherently controversial
because human beings are passionately
attached to their opinions by interests
that have nothing to do with the truth.
 Harry V. Jaffa
(Distinguished Fellow, Claremont Institute)
The Gun Control Debate
in the United States
– Few Straight Lines in the Data –
(… and it’s not about the data anyway)
– Gregg Lee Carter –
Professor of Sociology
Bryant University
First Unitarian Church
of Providence
October 18th, 2013
(Gun rights supporters recite the
Pledge of Allegiance a rally at the steps of the capitol in Jefferson
City, Missouri – Sept. 2013)
Worldwide:
* 1,000 people a day are killed by small arms (handguns; rifles;
shotguns)
* Five times as many are seriously wounded
* 875 million small arms in the world today, with 8 million new
guns added to the stockpile each year (Note: guns don’t wear
out)
* International trade in small arms (and ammunition) is a $7
billion+ industry
(Source: Gunpolicy.org; http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/)
Sept. 16, 2013
Washington Navy Yard
13 dead
January 8, 2011
Tucson, Arizona
U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords shot in the
head, though she survived, 6 others were killed,
including 9 year-old Christina-Taylor Green
June 20, 2012
Aurora, Colorado (midnight premier of Dark Knight Rises)
12 killed, including 6-year old Veronica Moser-Sullivan, with 82
wounded (highest number of victims ever in U.S. history)
December 14, 2012
Newton, Connecticut (Sandy Hook Elementary School)
20 children (all in the 1st grade) killed, 6 school staff members
killed, + the shooter and his mother
The FBI defines a mass shooting as involving 3 or more
homicide victims, of which there are hundreds every year–
many being related to narcotics, alcohol, and gangs
(overall, about 10% of murder situations involve multiple
victims).
However, the kind of shootings that have been
grabbing public attention and concern are what law
enforcement officials deem “Active Shooter Incidents” –
that is, those involving “spree shootings” at a mall or a
school or a business. The shootings given earlier would be
classic examples.
Criminologists began carefully monitoring these
incidents after the tragedy at Columbine High School in
Littleton, Colorado, when 2 students murdered one of their
teachers and 12 of their fellow students.
And, overall, there does seem to be
a trend of an increasing number and
an increasing level of
destructiveness of ‘mass shootings’ –
a la those we saw in Washington
D.C., Aurora Colorado, Tucson
Arizona, and
New Town Connecticut …
Number of Spree Shooting Incidents by 5-year Periods over the past 3 Decades
with Selected Massacres Highlighted
(Raw data source: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/12/mass-shootings-mother-jones-full-data)
Gun control advocates also like to point out some other important facts – each
year, we lose between 30 and 32 thousand lives where a gunshot is the cause of
death; here is the breakdown for the 31,076 deaths in 2010 – the most recent year
for which data are available (Raw data from: http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html)
Regarding the previous
graphic:
* the 19,392 suicides by firearm
represent about half of the total
number of suicides (38,364);
* note that 87% of these firearm
suicides are by males
More regarding the previous graphic:
* Race & gender are strong predictors of homicide
victims:
44% are white (though fully 72% of the U.S.
population is white)
53% are black (though just 13% of the
population is black )
78% of all homicide victims are males (and 90%
of the offenders are male!)
Looking at the two together: 43% of all homicide
victims are black males (though they are only about 6%
of the population) … as with all homicide victims, most
are between the ages of 17 and 39
Of the approximately 14 to 15 thousand murders
in the U.S. that we’ve experienced in recent years:
• About 2/3 of the homicides are committed by firearm (about
8,900 in 2012); and
• About 3/4 of the firearm homicides, according to the UCR,
are committed with a handgun (about 6,400);
• Rifles, including military-style “assault rifles,” account for a
little over 300 murders per year.
(The second most common weapon is a knife, which accounts
for about 1,600 homicides a year.)
(Raw data from the FBI’s expanded homicide tables: :http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-theu.s/2012/crime-in-the-u.s.-2012/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expandedhomicide/expandhomicidemain)
More regarding the previous graphic:
• Regarding ‘accidental’ shooting deaths, the New
York Times recently completed an investigative
report indicating that the number of accidental
shootings is seriously under-reported, the
situation is aggravated when counting shootings
involving children – most of which involve a
young boy shooting a sibling or friend.
• How can this be? The standard CDC-approved
death certificate has 5 options for a coroner or
medical examiner to chose regarding cause of
death:
•
•
•
•
•
Homicide
Accidental
Suicide
Natural, or
Undetermined ….
AND most examiners/coroners simply call any
death in which one person shoots another a
“homicide.”
“A homicide just means they died at the hands
of another,” reports Dr. Randy L. Hanzlick, the
chief medical examiner for Fulton County, Ga. “It
doesn’t really connote there’s an intent to kill.”
(Note: Just 19 states have “Child Access Prevention” laws – whereby a gun owner is
required to safely store his or her weapons and ammunition …. To prevent access
by children or mentally impaired adults; CAP laws make stealing guns more
difficult– a critical issue in the gun control debate: CT, MA, and RI are among the 19)
(This 2011 photograph was evidence in a negligent homicide trial of the father after his son shot himself this
gun; source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?_r=0)
Source: New York Times (9-28-2013) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/us/children-and-guns-the-hidden-toll.html?_r=0
More regarding the previous graphic:
The CDC estimates that the economic
cost of suicide death in the U.S. is $34
billion annually (so about $17 billion
connected to guns). Because the
majority of suicides involve adults of
working age, the cost to the economy
results in large part from lost wages
and work productivity. …. And ….
More generally…In their often quoted and now
classic Oxford University Press book, The Real
Costs of Gun Violence, economists Philip J.
Cook and Jens Ludwig do a sophisticated,
multifaceted analysis – involving the medical
and economic costs of gun violence (the 31,000
deaths, plus another 75,000 who report to
emergency rooms with gunshot wounds) and
come up with the figure of
$100 billion dollars annually
… (and) …
And when we add in the emotional
costs of a gun-filled society, which
encompasses not just victims but
potential victims and those who are
linked to those potential victims …
The majority of Americans
suffer from of gun violence.
Setting the context for the next set of facts that those supporting
stronger gun control want you to know …
The U.S. murder rate is high, but when we consider the nations of
the world, there are certainly dozens upon dozens that are a lot
nastier places to live regarding fear-of-crime and actual violent
crime when compared to the U.S.
For example, in the U.S., our murder rate is currently 4.7 murders
per 100,000 people … but consider:
Honduras
Jamaica
Venezuela
El Salvador
Guatemala
Trinidad & Tobago
South Africa
Colombia
Dominican Republic
Brazil
61.3
59.5
52.0
51.9
46.0
41.1
36.8
35.9
24.8
22.8
For the year 2008, the last good year for
making cross-national comparisons, the U.S.
ranked 45th of the 113 nations for which the UN
was able to gather homicide statistics …
HOWEVER, of the 44 countries with a higher
murder rate, almost all are “developing
countries” … and the few “developed”
countries ahead of the U.S. are found in the
relatively poor nations of Eastern Europe
(Lithuania, Moldova, Estonia, Georgia, Belarus,
and the Ukraine) …
(see United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-andanalysis/homicide.html)
AND, thus, when we compare the
U.S. to its peer nations –
that is, economically developed
democracies, including Canada, New
Zealand, Australia, Japan, and those
of Western and Northern Europe,
the U.S. sticks out like a sore thumb
in a number of ways regarding guns,
gun control, and gun violence…
First, let’s look at the murder rate (2008): The U.S. rate of 5.4 homicides per 100,000
people is nearly 5 times the rate of our average peer nation (where the average is 1.1)
Raw data source: United Nations: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/homicide.html
It is important to note that we are not talking about
crime in general, and not even street crime like
theft or even violent crime, like assault – indeed:
Sweden (915.5 assaults per 100,000 population),
Belgium (719.2), Finland (654.2), Germany
(628.7), The Netherlands (419.5), Australia
(316.2), France (302.6), and New Zealand (279.3)
all have rates of assault well above that of the U.S.
(276.6).
Crime is Not the Problem in the U. S.
– rather it is lethal violence
Keep in mind the graphic just shown where the bar for the United States’ murder rate extended far
above the bars of our peer nations. Now compare this bar chart, where we look at the rate of
homicides due to firearms
The U.S. rate of 3.6 gun homicides per 100,000 population is nearly fifteen times the rate of our
average peer nation (where rate averages out a 0.37)
Keep in mind the 2 graphics just shown where the bars for the United States’ murder rates (overall
and by gun) extend far above the bars of our peer nations. Now compare this bar chart, where we
look at the rate of civilian gun possession (the number of guns per 100 population)
The U.S. rate of 101.1 guns per 100 civilians is five times the rate of our average peer nation (where
the rate averages out a 20.2) [raw data from gunpolicy.org]
And given the very similar shapes of all the preceding bar graphs, it is not surprising
to see that the correlation is very strong between rate of civilian gun possession and
both the overall murder rate and the murder-by-gun rate (see next 2 scatterplots, with
selected countries highlighted):
(r = .72, p.<.0001)
(r = .75, p.<.0001)
And, moreover, we see that the murder-by-gun rate drives the overall murder rate in these
economically developed societies (selected countries shown):
(r = .89, p.<.0001)
So, this is the essence of the narrative of strong
gun control advocates thus far:
Gun are destructive to human life and welfare …
And thus we need either to:
 Reduce the number of guns (currently
310,000,000 in the hands of the U.S. civilian
population) … or …
 Strengthen the regulations governing their
possession and use.
(…or … better yet … even do both)
The final three pieces of the puzzle to put together the
argument of those advocating for more gun control in the
contemporary debate over guns and gun violence in the
United States:
(1st) What is especially frustrating to these advocates is that our peer
nations have gun regulations that are much stricter than we have –
they require, at the national level:
 licensing of gun owners,
 registration of guns,
 universal background checks,
 safe storage, and
 generally ban or highly restrict the possession of
handguns and military-style assault rifles (“modern
sporting rifles” in the parlance of the NRA and of the
gun industry),
 as well as the carrying of concealed weapons.
(2nd) And even more frustrating to gun
control advocates is that they believe the
generally strong impulse for gun control in
the U.S. is being thwarted by the American
political system that allows a committed
minority, the NRA and its ally organizations,
to control the legislative agenda of gun
regulation.
“Would you favor oppose a law which would
require a person to obtain a police permit
before he or she could buy a gun?” (from the
General Social Survey, 2012)
Part 1 of 2 (GUNLAW): “Would you favor oppose a law which would require a
person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun?”
Part 2 of 2 (GUNLAW): “Would you favor oppose a law which would require a
person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun?”
(3rd) And, finally, gun control advocates point out that even
though we have the highest rate of civilian gun possession, we
are NOT the stereotype that the rest of the world sees as:
Gun Toting, Wild-West-Cowboy-Mentality Crazies
Indeed, despite the huge rise in the absolute number of firearms, gun
ownership has been going down for decades (1973 – 2012, for the “yes”
response to the General Social Survey item “OWNGUN – Do you happen
to have in your home [if house: or garage] any guns or revolvers?”)
(Footnote on HANDGUNS: And, extremely stable, ever since the GSS
has been gathering data in the early 1970s to the present: About 1 in 5
households report having a pistol in the home [21.9% in 2012].)
On the Other Side of the Debate ….
Are those who advocate strongly for “gun rights,” and on
the basis of defending these rights, are generally strongly
opposed to all forms of gun regulation, save those
intended to keep guns out of the hands of convicted
felons and the severely mentally disabled (as determined
by both a physician and a judge)
If you want the clearest statements on the positions of
gun control advocates, you can go to the homepages of
BradyCampaign.org and GunPolicy.org
…
On the other hand, if you want the clearest statements on
the positions of gun rights advocates, you can go to the
NRA.org homepage (following 3 images were from 10-182013.
I could present as many slides
as I did for the gun control side,
but most of them would be a
variant of the previous slide
from the NRA website
(with more exact details found at this URL: http://www.nraila.org/newsissues/fact-sheets/2013/firearm-safety-in-america-2013.aspx?s=&st=&ps=)
…. And can be captured with
these following three graphics…
… While at the same time the number of guns has
skyrocketed …
So, this is the essence of the narrative of strong gun rights is:
The evidence shows that a rise in the number of guns and a
relaxation in gun laws and an increase in the rights of gun
owners have not conspired to produce more destruction to human life
and welfare, but less …
And thus we need to:
Continue to expand gun rights through national legislation to reinforce
what dozens of U.S. states have already done regarding:
 Concealed Carry Laws;
 Stand-Your-Ground Laws;
 Open Carry Laws;
 Preemption Laws; and
 Allowing guns in increasing numbers of public places,
including college campuses …
AND ….
…
 Ditto regarding the U.S. Supreme Court,
which has defended the “individual right”
to “bear and possess” firearms (as
opposed to the traditional federal-court
interpretation of the Second Amendment,
that it guaranteed the collective right of
the people to form well regulated militias)
…
2nd Amendment, A well regulated militia
being necessary to the security of a free
state, the right of the people to keep and
bear arms shall not be infringed.
And both sides contend:
“L’avenir peut être à nous.”*
(The future can be ours.)
SEE SLIDES 35 & 36! (the percentages favoring ‘gunlaw’ for gender, hunter,
immigrant – all indicate that the demographics of the near future [next decade] favor
the control side of the debate, with hunting still on the decline, immigration
maintaining strong rates, and with women continuing to grow in political power, as
indicated by their continued growth in holding legislative and executive offices)