My strategy in these cases is usually “look for lots of facts relevant to this issue and see what stands out”. The things that jump out at me from just that page:
Many American cities/states (and the entire UK in one very interesting case) have instituted or repealed gun control laws long enough ago that we can look at what happens to violent crime before and after the law is changed. In every case that they showed me, at least, places that pass gun control laws see an increase or no real change in their violent crime rate relative to national average.
1⁄3 of incarcerated US felons claimed to have been shot at, scared off, wounded, or captured by an armed victim, but only 1⁄12 of violent crimes committed in the US ever result in a prison sentence. My interpretation of these two numbers combined is that owning a gun makes it more likely that anyone who tries to commit a violent crime against you will not be successful, and also will more likely be punished by prison time and/or being shot.
Just 8% of violent crimes are committed by someone visibly armed with a gun.
About 11,000 murders per year are committed by gun in the US (in 2008), and about 160,000 people (in 1993) claim they’ve used a gun for self-defense in a situation within the last five years where someone would have died had they not had a gun. Based on these two numbers alone, and probably not exercising as much care as I should in producing such a pithy and easily-repeatable factoid, widely available guns (in the context of American society in the recent past) prevent on the order of three deaths for every one they cause.
The relative lack of facts that would justify stronger gun control laws on that site makes me suspicious, but I don’t see anything wrong with the cited sources for any of these specific numbers.
1st point: Regions experiencing a rise in violent crime are more likely to pass gun control laws, if the rate of rise stays approximately the same this would be evidence that gun control laws do not affect crime one way or the other.
2nd/4th point: DOJ reports approximately 20k gun deaths per year that aren’t suicide. Of 8 separate studies on use of firearms by private citizens to prevent crime, the lowest number was 200k/year. This was from the study based only on police reports.
1st point: Regions experiencing a rise in violent crime are more likely to pass gun control laws, if the rate of rise stays approximately the same this would be evidence that gun control laws do not affect crime one way or the other.
This also seems like a place that needs close attention to the regression fallacy. If especially high crime rate areas tend to change their gun control laws (either direction!) and then crime rates improve, that could be regression instead of cause and effect.
That could definitely apply to a lot of the examples they presented. I’m still mystified by Washington D.C.: they already had a higher murder rate than the US average, then handguns were banned in 1975, then their murder rate tripled while the national average stayed fairly flat, then their murder rate came back down to its mid-70s level in the late 2000s, then the handgun ban was struck down. My current favored conclusion from that is “gun control laws themselves just don’t matter very much, and are dwarfed by other social and cultural forces.”
Obvious confounding to the last fact: How many of those “someone would have died” situations would somebody actually have died in? That seems a number strongly prone to overestimation. (Of course, it’s a bigger number even if you put a 90% bullshit discount on, but it’s something to keep in mind)
Just 8% of violent crimes are committed by someone visibly armed with a gun.
1) What fraction of people are visibly armed with a gun?
2) Does that simply result in concentrating the criminals onto the other 92%?
EDITED TO EXPLAIN: I misread this as committed [i]against[/i] someone visibly armed. So this was extra-confusing. Of course, I should have noticed that and gone back and been more careful.
re: 4: I am skeptical that the fraction of reported self-defense situations in which “someone would have died” are actually situations in which someone would have died is 100%. I would ballpark it at 25%-50%, but I wouldn’t be terribly shocked by any number in the range 10%-150%. Citation definitely needed on this one, especially as my “reasonable range” is wide enough to cover everything from net positive to net negative.
They explain how they found that number here. I’m pretty impressed with their methodology, though I’m also sure you have a point about people exaggerating their chances of dying regardless of what clever study authors do.
My strategy in these cases is usually “look for lots of facts relevant to this issue and see what stands out”. The things that jump out at me from just that page:
Many American cities/states (and the entire UK in one very interesting case) have instituted or repealed gun control laws long enough ago that we can look at what happens to violent crime before and after the law is changed. In every case that they showed me, at least, places that pass gun control laws see an increase or no real change in their violent crime rate relative to national average.
1⁄3 of incarcerated US felons claimed to have been shot at, scared off, wounded, or captured by an armed victim, but only 1⁄12 of violent crimes committed in the US ever result in a prison sentence. My interpretation of these two numbers combined is that owning a gun makes it more likely that anyone who tries to commit a violent crime against you will not be successful, and also will more likely be punished by prison time and/or being shot.
Just 8% of violent crimes are committed by someone visibly armed with a gun.
About 11,000 murders per year are committed by gun in the US (in 2008), and about 160,000 people (in 1993) claim they’ve used a gun for self-defense in a situation within the last five years where someone would have died had they not had a gun. Based on these two numbers alone, and probably not exercising as much care as I should in producing such a pithy and easily-repeatable factoid, widely available guns (in the context of American society in the recent past) prevent on the order of three deaths for every one they cause.
The relative lack of facts that would justify stronger gun control laws on that site makes me suspicious, but I don’t see anything wrong with the cited sources for any of these specific numbers.
1st point: Regions experiencing a rise in violent crime are more likely to pass gun control laws, if the rate of rise stays approximately the same this would be evidence that gun control laws do not affect crime one way or the other.
2nd/4th point: DOJ reports approximately 20k gun deaths per year that aren’t suicide. Of 8 separate studies on use of firearms by private citizens to prevent crime, the lowest number was 200k/year. This was from the study based only on police reports.
This also seems like a place that needs close attention to the regression fallacy. If especially high crime rate areas tend to change their gun control laws (either direction!) and then crime rates improve, that could be regression instead of cause and effect.
That could definitely apply to a lot of the examples they presented. I’m still mystified by Washington D.C.: they already had a higher murder rate than the US average, then handguns were banned in 1975, then their murder rate tripled while the national average stayed fairly flat, then their murder rate came back down to its mid-70s level in the late 2000s, then the handgun ban was struck down. My current favored conclusion from that is “gun control laws themselves just don’t matter very much, and are dwarfed by other social and cultural forces.”
Even that isn’t a great measure—social changes aren’t constrained by anything to rise at the same rate.
Obvious confounding to the last fact: How many of those “someone would have died” situations would somebody actually have died in? That seems a number strongly prone to overestimation. (Of course, it’s a bigger number even if you put a 90% bullshit discount on, but it’s something to keep in mind)
1) What fraction of people are visibly armed with a gun?
2) Does that simply result in concentrating the criminals onto the other 92%?
EDITED TO EXPLAIN: I misread this as committed [i]against[/i] someone visibly armed. So this was extra-confusing. Of course, I should have noticed that and gone back and been more careful.
1) Almost zero, of course. How should that affect our interpretation of that fact?
I don’t understand what you mean by the second question.
re: 4: I am skeptical that the fraction of reported self-defense situations in which “someone would have died” are actually situations in which someone would have died is 100%. I would ballpark it at 25%-50%, but I wouldn’t be terribly shocked by any number in the range 10%-150%. Citation definitely needed on this one, especially as my “reasonable range” is wide enough to cover everything from net positive to net negative.
They explain how they found that number here. I’m pretty impressed with their methodology, though I’m also sure you have a point about people exaggerating their chances of dying regardless of what clever study authors do.