Guns and Crime | Introduction
The prevalence of guns in the United States and the frequency with which they are used to commit crimes have made gun control a muchdiscussed and contentious issue. There are an estimated 200 to 250 million firearms in America, and of these, about a third are handguns. According to health researcher Etienne Krug, the homicide rate in the United States is six times higher than that of other developed nations. And though it varies from year to year, according to the FBI, in general guns are used in about 70 percent of homicides. In 2000, for example, 52 percent of homicides were committed with handguns, and 19 percent were committed with other guns.
Crime vs. violence
An important distinction in the gun control debate is between gun violence and gun crime. Often these categories overlap. For example, there were twelve thousand gun homicides in 1998. Homicide is both violent and criminal, hence the term “violent crime.” However, not all gun crime is violent crime—for example, armed robberies in which no one is hurt are criminal but not violent. Further confounding the issue is the fact that violent crimes are better documented—and therefore may be perceived as more widespread—than nonviolent crimes. This is because violent crimes, particularly homicide, are treated more seriously by law enforcement and are carefully investigated and documented. In contrast, reliable information on the number of gun crimes in which no shot was fired is much harder to obtain.
Moreover, not all gun violence is committed by criminals. For example, there were seventeen thousand gun suicides in 1998. Suicide is certainly a violent act, but it is generally not thought of as a criminal activity. There were also more than eight hundred fatal, but accidental, shootings in 1998—again, a type of gun violence that does not fit into most people’s conception of gun crime.
“Gun violence” is a broader term than “gun crime” because it includes both gun homicides (which most people think of when they hear the term “gun crime”) and gun suicides and accidental shootings (types of violence that most people do not associate with crime). Commentators on both sides of the gun control debate sometimes blur the distinction between gun crime and noncriminal gun violence in order to advance their own agendas—sometimes by using statistics on gun violence to exaggerate the problem of gun crime.
Antigun activists often use statistics on gun violence, rather than gun crime, in order to convince people that gun control laws are necessary. For example, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence notes that “in 1998 alone, 30,708 Americans died from gunfire.” This statistic is accu- rate, but because it combines the statistics on gun homicide, gun suicide, and accidental shootings, it may mislead people about the extent of gun crime (since more than half those who “died from gunfire” committed suicide or were victims of accidental shootings).
Conversely, opponents of gun control may use the more ominous statistics on gun violence to convince people that they need to purchase a handgun in order to protect themselves from ubiquitous gun-toting criminals. Those who accept this view would likely oppose any gun control legislation that would restrict the private ownership of guns. For example, pro-gun activists often argue that women should carry guns for self-defense. In doing so, they may cite the number of women “killed by” handguns and neglect to mention that many of those deaths were suicides or that the majority of rape and sexual assault victims do not face criminals armed with a gun.
Cause or deterrent?
While the various statistics on gun crime and violence can be used in confusing or misleading ways, the numbers are central to the gun control debate. Commentators on both sides of the issue argue about how often guns are used for self-defense in comparison to how often they are used to commit crimes. One of the main tenets of America’s gun control movement is that reducing the availability of guns would reduce crime. Writing in the magazine Christian Social Action, United Methodist minister and gun control advocate C. Emory argues that:
A number of studies confirm that the proportion of gun use in violence rises and falls with gun ownership. . . . In general, states with a high ownership of guns have a higher percentage of homicides using firearms. The simple fact is that murder and other crimes committed with firearms occur more frequently where gun control laws are least stringent. This applies both to the overall murder rate and to the percentage of murders involving firearms.
This position has, of course, been continually challenged by opponents of gun control. Pro-gun organizations such as the National Rifle Association (NRA) maintain that guns are an effective means of personal defense against criminals. In their view, gun ownership does not cause crime, but instead deters it. Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck maintains that “gun use by private citizens against violent criminals and burglars is a more common negative consequence for violent criminals than legal actions like arrests, a more prompt negative consequence of crime than legal punishment, and is more severe, at its most serious, than legal system punishments.” According to Kleck, “The best survey on defensive gun use frequency indicates 2.55 million defensive gun uses a year in the United States.”
The guns-deter-crime argument received nationwide attention in 1998 with the publication of former University of Chicago economist John R. Lott Jr.’s book More Guns, Less Crime. In the book, Lott summarizes his analysis of eighteen years of national gun and crime data and concludes that states that allow citizens to carry concealed weapons have lower crime rates. Lott’s research bolstered the view, long embraced by gun advocates, that criminals are less likely to act against potential victims that may be armed. While much of More Guns, Less Crime is devoted to detailed statistical analysis, Lott concludes his book on a provocative note: “Will allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns save lives? The answer is yes, it will.”
While Lott has become a hero of sorts for groups like the NRA, he and his research have come under a hail of criticism from gun control advocates. The primary criticism is that crime rates have been falling throughout the country for several years, and it is very difficult to show conclusively that one single factor, such as concealed-carry laws, is responsible for the decline. For example, in their book Gun Violence: The Real Costs, Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig contend that Lott “confounded the effects of concealed-carry laws with other factors” that may have reduced crime, and that “the best available evidence suggests that permissive concealed carry laws have little or no effect on violent crime and injuries.”
Whether Lott’s statistical analysis of concealed-carry laws is valid or not, many Americans find the logic behind Lott’s conclusions appealing. The primary reason that people buy handguns is for self-defense, as evidenced by the sharp increase in guns sales in the weeks following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on America. The popular belief that gun ownership may deter crime has become a significant obstacle to gun control legislation. As a result, many gun control advocates have shifted away from calls to ban handguns, instead focusing on policies that would reduce criminals’ access to guns.
Keeping guns from criminals
One principle that both sides of the gun control debate agree on is that criminals should not own guns, but the two sides do not agree on how, or even if, this goal can be achieved. Noting America’s high gun homicide rate in comparison to other developed nations, gun control advocates have looked to these nations as models for gun control policy. As social science professor Gregg L. Carter explains:
Unlike the United States, most western European countries and other economically developed nations have strict national gun laws. These countries require that guns be registered, that gun owners be licensed, and that guns be stored and transported with utmost security. To get a license, a potential gun owner must typically pass an exam on gun safety. Also required are comprehensive background checks of individuals seeking to purchase guns, including any history of criminality or mental incapacity.
The United States only began implementing such a system with the 1993 Brady Law, which instituted mandatory background checks for gun purchasers in an effort to screen out ineligible gun buyers. The Brady Law, however, has drawn criticism from both sides of the gun control debate.
Gun control advocates point out, for example, that the Brady background check system is still very permissive in comparison to the European or Canadian systems in terms of who is deemed eligible to purchase a handgun. Gun control advocates also say that further legislation is necessary to close various “loopholes” in the Brady Law that enable criminals to buy guns. The most infamous is the so-called “gun show loophole,” which allows unlicensed, private gun sellers to ignore the background check system.
Groups like the NRA, on the other hand, contend that the Brady Law is fundamentally flawed. They maintain that in terms of gun control, the United States is not comparable to other nations because Americans already have so many guns. In their view, instituting a background check system at this late stage in U.S. history will have little effect, since the law only affects sales of new guns. Even if the “gun show loophole” is closed through further legislation, they insist, criminals will still have easy access to the millions of guns that are already on the black market.
Both sides in the gun control debate have some valid arguments, and the passage of the Brady Law gives some hope that there is room for compromise. Gun control activists seem to be slowly coming to terms with the fact that the United States will not soon have a gun control system as restrictive as other countries’, and a segment of gun rights activists are grudgingly conceding that background checks, while not a panacea, may stop at least some criminals from getting guns. Pro- and antigun groups are also finding some room for compromise in measures that aim to reduce gun violence—for example, mandatory gun safety training for firsttime gun buyers and laws that punish parents who keep a gun in the home and fail to keep it securely out of their children’s reach.
The viewpoints in At Issue: Guns and Crime provide a survey of current thinking on the relationship between guns and crime as well as an overview of the arguments surrounding gun control proposals. The pressure is now on both sides of the gun debate to devise new strategies for reducing gun crime and the broader problem of gun violence.
