In late 2002, a minor news item briefly appeared and, like so many such stories, disappeared almost without notice. It concerned a Marine Corps sergeant who served in Afghanistan and who, while waiting in a drive-up line at a fast-food restaurant during a visit home, was compelled to shoot a would-be killer in order to save his own life and that of his son.
This incident reminded me of a personal connection I have with a similar incident. It began with a telephone conversation I had about seven years ago, one that changed my life.
At that time, I was involved in lobbying the Wisconsin legislature about a gun bill. I got a phone call from a young chiropractor in central Texas, a Dr. Susanne Gratia. She related to me how she had left her handgun in her automobile one fateful day -- October 16, 1991 -- while lunching with her mother and father at Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen, Texas. She left it there because Texas state law at that time forbade concealed carry of weapons and she was fearful of losing her chiropractor's license if she had been caught carrying her firearm.
That proved to be the most tragic mistake of her life. A crazed man named George Hennard crashed his pickup truck through the window of the cafeteria, got out of the truck with multiple firearms, and proceeded to walk calmly around the restaurant murdering the diners hiding under the tables, including Dr Gratia's parents, Al and Ursula.
Dr. Gratia related how, as an experienced shooter, she could have shot and killed Hennard early in the incident, saving the lives of most of he victims, including her parents. But by the time the last shot was fired, 24 people were dead in that cafeteria, including Hennard, who took his own life.
Dr. Suzanne Gratia married, became Suzanne Gratia-Hupp, and led the successful fight to give citizens in Texas the right to defend themselves with lethal weapons where necessary, and was elected to the Texas state legislature, where she has accumulated a fine record of public service.
As election volunteer coordinator (EVC) for the National Rifle Association in our congressional district in Wisconsin, I have read all kinds of arguments supporting concealed carry and its usefulness in deterring armed criminals. These include the study by Dr. John Lott of the University of Chicago law school and department of economics, which studied the effects of concealed carry on crime rates in every county of the United States where it has been in effect for a number of years.
According to criminologist Gary Kleck, there are at least 2.5 million protective uses of firearms in the US every year. This according to survey research carried out by Kleck in the early 1990s. Kleck's research further shows that guns are used 3-5 times as often for defensive purposes than for criminal purposes.
The defensive firearms incidents I cite above, and millions of other major and minor case histories, illustrate exactly why firearm concealed carry laws are needed in all 50 US states, not just in the 43 that have them now in one form or another.
Wisconsin, my home state, is still one of the holdouts, but we hope to rectify that in the upcoming legislative session which begins in January. We came close to achieving such legislation earlier in 1992. But state senator Charles Chvala, then senate majority leader, shut down the entire legislative session to avoid having the senate pass the bill which was up for a final vote in the senate and which had previously passed both the state assembly (lower house) and the senate judiciary committee by overwhelming votes.
But the strongest argument I can come up with in relation to firearms concealed carry is the experience of that unfortunate woman in central Texas that day in 1991. Everything boils down to the rights and liberties of individuals, which is what the first 10 amendments to the United States Constitution -- the Bill of Rights -- is all about. And I know of no greater right than that of self-defense.
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Arnold Harris operates a data processing and mailing list business in southern Wisconsin, and is active in public issues. A US Army veteran with service late in the Korean War, he has a bachelor's degree in journalism and communication and a master's degree in urban and regional planning, both from the University of Illinois.
Arnold, as a Wisconsin native myself, I certainly hope your effort there succeeds. My own experience with firearms is limited to shooting tin cans off fenceposts with a .22 caliber rifle, on my grandfather's farm in central Wisconsin, when I was younger. But I've always been a firm supporter of our right to bear arms. It's right there in the Second Amendment.
I know that I, for one, would feel far safer knowing that there are law abiding citizens around me who are armed. As you mention, the figures bear it out. And the story of Sgt. Lowery speaks for itself.
Greetings,
My only suggestion would be to drop some of the PC language (i.e. defensive firearms incidents, etc.)
Cheers
I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. --J.R.R.Tolkien
I hate guns...always have, always will. My husband carries several for a living and they are always laying around the house like it's no big deal. However, I do believe that it is our right as an American citizen to have the freedom to bear arms if we choose to do so. I wish the world weren't such a violent place where we felt the need to arm ourselves in self-defense...but wishing doesn't make it different, and until we can change the world, the only logical solution for the innocent civilian is to have the right to arm oneself against that world.
Sorry guys, I don't really agree that we should be able to carry guns. I mean it seems like there would be a lot more deaths due to accidents and small misunderstandings than from wackos like Hennard. And by allowing people to bear arms and conceal weapons, we just make it easier for those wackos to kill people.
You guys say that we need the guns for self-defense, but that self-defense is usually against other guns. If there was a ban on guns though, that means the wackos would have a lot harder time getting them too, so there wouldn't be as much need for self-defense. I realize that a ban wouldn't solve everything - some people would manage to get guns anyways, or they could use knives, explosives, etc. But it seems that a ban solves more problems than letting everyone have a gun.
Sushant:
Are you aware that, as a gun owner, I am statistically about three times more likely to kill you with my car than I am with my firearm?
Fact of the matter is that violent crime is down, not up, in every state which has enacted liberal concealed carry laws.
Indeed, overall, the violent crime rate in the U.S. is now notably lower than it is in many countries which have the kind of outright bans on firearm ownership that you're advocating. In fact, we're safer now than the British, who've had draconian anti-gun laws for generations.
And by the way, there are millions of us who will die before we co-operate with any such ban anyway. Are you ready to deal with that? 1 in 4 American households is armed, and many of those which aren't armed still support those of us who are. If you want sane public policy, you're going to have to deal with the reality of us first.
We own our guns, and we will never, ever let you take them from us. Period. So the real question for you is, what will significantly reduce violence? You need to ask yourself what will work. Bans won't work because we will not cooperate.
Besides...
i agree 100% with the right to bear arms and i feel than any average citizen with proper training should be permitted to carry a concealed weapon. with that said i found one area of the article hard to swallow.
According to criminologist Gary Kleck, there are at least 2.5 million protective uses of firearms in the US every year. This according to survey research carried out by Kleck in the early 1990s. Kleck's research further shows that guns are used 3-5 times as often for defensive purposes than for criminal purposes.
now these numbers are quite staggering i would certainly like to know where mr. kleck got these numbers. i feel that inflated numbers like this only make the pro-gun people look silly. now i may be alone here but who really believes that guns are used 3-5 times more often for defensive purposes? i think that is absolutely ridiculous. and as for 2.5 million defensive uses per year. i would sure love to see where he got those numbers also.
please don't think I'm anti-gun. i am just pro-commonsense.
Well, Rupert, I'm sure Arnold can tell you more, but I can tell you a few things.
When I was young, a co-worker of mine liked to tell of such an incident. She heard a noise outside, and grabbed her husband's gun. Then the glass in her back door broke and a hand reached in to unlock the door. The creep quietly opened the door, spotted Charman pointing a gun at him, backed up, quietly closed the door, and was never seen again.
Things like this were never recorded or analyzed until Kleck--a fairly typical academic leftist and a gun-control advocate, mind you--took the time to do the research on it.
Most defensive uses of firearms never result in a shot being fired. Of those which do, almost no one is actually hurt.
I own a shotgun. One of the main reasons I keep it is for that delicious "clack-CLACK!" sound when you rack a round into the chamber. No one can mistake that noise, and a home intruder in my living room who hears that sound coming from my bedroom would most likely soil his pants and run without my ever having to bother pointing the gun.
Rupert, the information I cited came directly from the National Rifle Association Institute of Legislative Affairs (NRA-ILA), with whom I am associated as election volunteer coordinator (EVC) for the Wisconsin 2nd congressional district. They in turn cited data from Gary Kleck's 1997 study, "Targeting Guns". Dr Kleck is a professor in the Department of Criminalogy and Criminal Justice at Florida State University in Tallahessee.
The following information appears in NRA Firearm Facts, 2001:
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"Survey research during the early 1990s by criminologist Gary Kleck shows at least 2.5 million protective uses of firearms each year in the U.S. '[T]he best available evidence indicates that guns were used about three to five times as often for defensive purposes as for criminal purposes.' (Kleck, Targeting Guns, 1997).
Most protective uses do not involve discharge of a firearm. In only about 0.1% of protective gun uses are criminals killed, and in only 1% are criminals wounded. A Dept. of Justice survey found that 40% of felons chose not to commit at least some crimes for fear their victims were armed, and only 34% admitted being scared off or shot at by armed citizens. (James D. Wright, Peter H. Rossi, Armed and Considered Dangerous, 1986)."
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I do not have in my office any of Professor Kleck's criminology studies citing his survey research among criminals, but he is cited frequently in the academic literature of criminology, and there are numerous references to his studies in Professor Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime; Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws". I am certain you can look up all this in Google.
The important point in answering one of your specific questions is that "most protective uses do not involve discharge of a firearm". Most of the academic literature on protective uses that I have read indicate that it is frequently sufficient to cause a would-be attacker to see that the victim is armed, and therefore too dangerous to attack.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
Dean, you are 100% correct. The sound of a shotgun being racked into battery is less mistakable than the voice of the president of the United States, and its immediate implication is considerably clearer.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
thank you Arnold for the information. just one question to make sure i am understanding this correctly. does Mr. Kleck count the crimes that criminals decided not to commit for fear of their would be victims being armed in his estimate of 2.5 million. if this is the case i don't see how he could accurately come up with this. now i am sure that there is a scientific method to estimate the probability by interviewing a cross section of criminals, but how accurate would that be?
finally i hope my skepticism of these statistics was in no way taken as an attack on the person who posted them. i just thought they were a little high. i am a law enforcement officer and i firmly believe in the right to bear arms. it has just been my experience that most uses of firearms involve criminal activity and i found it hard to believe those numbers. but alas you have explained it to me. for this i graciously thank you.
Pro or con; one set of statistics is usually ignored--the cost of gun violence:
"Injuries from gunshots result in $802 million a year in hospital charges nationwide, with nearly a third of victims uninsured, a new study indicates. The study by Dr. Jeff Coben, director of Allegheny General Hospital's Center for Violence and Injury Control, and Dr. Claudia Steiner of the federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, was published Wednesday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. They analyzed injuries from 1997, the most recent year with complete data. The $802 million figure represents hospital costs and does not include physician fees or follow-up care, Coben said. Initial stays cost, on average, almost $24,000 for assault cases and $30,000 for accident cases. Overall, 29 percent of patients did not have health insurance, the study found. Hospitals often have to absorb the costs of treating uninsured patients."
Source:
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=534&ncid=534&e=5&u=/ap/20030101/ap_on_bi_ge/gun_injuries_cost
Would love to see that balanced with the cost of the crimes thwarted, which is ignored in all such analyses I've seen.
I'd also like to see that compared to the health costs in, say, the U.K., where draconian gun laws have not prevented them from reaching a level of violent crime higher than that of the U.S.
Attention, Paul Fallon:
Many -- perhaps most -- of the gunshot wounds involving uninsured individuals that you describe involves shoot-outs among rival gang members in the ghettos and barrios of every major city in the United States. I do not give a damn how many of these people wound or kill each other, and I would not pay money out of my pocket to treat them.
My interest is confined to arming law-abiding citizens against this human trash, or anyone else who threatens or carries out violence against the rest of us. My definition of law-abiding citizens includes black and latino Americans who are attempting to live law-abiding lives and provide an upbringing for their children sufficient to induce them to do the same. For the rest, let them rot.
Arnold Harris
Mount Horeb WI
1.) Regarding the question of 2.5 million protective uses of firearms per year, the data doesn't seem too farfetched, but you're right to question them Rupert--as we should all be skeptical of statistics (kin of lies and damn lies). US Dept of Justice gives the following stats for 2001:
18.3 million property crimes
5.7 million violent crimes
source: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvictgen.htm
...the 2.5 figure is supposedly drawn from "early 1990's" data, and the overall crime rate dropped in the '90
source: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cv99.htm
So, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) comes up with a total of 24 million crimes in 2001. (Note, that this is not all crime; it excludes murder, kidnapping and a bunch of other types of crimes, like shoplifting.) Assuming the crime rate dropped 10% from the early 90's to 2001, the annual crimes in the early 90's would be about 26 million.
I've heard stats that 50% of American households have guns (source: no idea, I forget--someone else google this, if you care to ;)--maybe its just a damn lie.)
Given this, is it so hard to believe that in less than 10% of these crimes the victim flashes a gun, or yells from their bedroom "I HAVE A GUN", or pulls out their legally carried pistol, thereby warding off the criminal?
I don’t know, does 10% seem high?
I can tell you that if someone breaks into my house, if they wake me, they will be facing someone with a shotgun 2 minutes after I shake off the cobwebs and figure out what the heck is going on (2 minutes to remove said shotgun from it’s legally required locked case. They will also have to wait another minute while I unlock the legally required trigger lock. Luckily, Massachusetts burglars, rapist and murderers are a patient lot.)
Out of the 30 apartments in my building, I know one other guy who’s a hunter who has a gun. He would certainly use it to protect himself from an intruder. That’s 2 outta 30 where a burglar would face an armed victim. Less than 10%.
Is this average of all of the US? Above average? Below? I don’t know.
I also don't know what the accuracy of the NCVS versus the FBI's tally of reported crimes. It seems like the NCVS tally is higher, which you would expect since it tries to capture data on unreported crime. But this kinda follows suit in that you might also expect a gun owner not to report a crime where he had to pull his own gun (granted that this goes against all the training I have had).
It may be that 10% may seem high to someone who doesn’t own a gun or know anyone who claims to own a gun (don’t laugh, it’s not that uncommon in Massachusetts where gun owners tend to remain in the closet), but it seems I have heard a lot more anecdotal evidence backing up the 2.5 million after becoming a hunter—even more so after I started the process of getting my license to carry.
Not that anecdotal evidence is worth anything—its just that 2.5 mil is more believable when you’ve heard 2-3 first hand accounts of people protecting themselves versus never hearing about ANYONE EVER even CARRYING a gun-—much less defending themselves with one.
2.) Regarding the 3-5 times a gun is more often used for defensive rather than criminal purposes, the FBI says that in 1995 about 570,000 crimes involved guns
source: http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/Cius_97/95CRIME/95crime5.pdf
So, if you buy the 2.5 mil, the 3-5 doesn’t seem far fetched either.
All in all, I know my dates of comparison are all over the place, but the general time frame is the 1990’s and I’m only looking at the numbers to get a feel for how accurate the 2.5 mil and the 3x-5x stat are.
I buy them. Reasonable people can probably disagree.
3.) As to the $802 million ‘cost’ of gun violence it’s probably worth looking at how it stacks up to other ‘costs’. Like Dean says, compare it to the ‘gain’ of thwarted crimes, which may be difficult to measure (how much does a thwart go for nowadays?)
I would like to compare it to the ‘cost’ of hospital charges due to injuries from automobiles, just to put it into perspective.
Since details on measuring this $802 million dollar cost aren’t available, why not just compare deaths from guns versus death from auto’s. It’s probably a good guess the ‘cost’ due to hospitalization varies as does the number of deaths, wouldn’t you say?
1999: 41.6k deaths.
Source:
http://www.unitedjustice.com/stories/stats.html
1998: 30k+ deaths from guns.
Source:
http://goodsforguns.org/nationalfacts/
So cars cause 33% more deaths than guns. Does this mean we should ban guns AND cars to save 70+ thousand lives a year? I mean, is it really that important that EVERY family own 1.4 cars? Can’t 2-3 families get together and share a car when this many lives are at stake?
My point being that looking at one stat is kinda useless. A little analysis can tell you how significant a stat is.
That last website, by the way, quotes a couple of ‘costs’ for gun injuries in the US. The 100 billion seems a little high. Oddly, its much higher than the $802 mil. (I suppose you want to have various stats to use on different groups of people given that the gullibility of people varies.)
Maybe its good that I kept using quotes when I typed "costs" (sorry, I'll stop now), since the term doesn't seem to be objectively defined. $100 bil in costs versus $802 mil in costs begs the question: "what do you mean by costs?"
Given that the anti-gun lobby isn’t above fudging the stats, I’m suspicious.
http://www.keepandbeararms.com/information/XcIBViewItem.asp?ID=2302
The funny thing to me -- and it really does floor me -- is that I've never seen gun-control advocates arguing for training requirements for gun ownership.
Look, we know we have a problem with gang-bangers. Probably most of the gun injuries in that article Paul talks about are due to that sort of activity. Victims of violence by violent teen and early 20-something boys mostly. And yes, those caught in the crossfire too.
The mistake I think too many people make is in believing that if you just ban guns, those gangsters wouldn't be able to shoot each other. This is the height of naivetee. Such legal efforts have never made a smidge of difference. And we know it's not the guns themselves anyway, because you can find communities in America where gun ownership is nearly 100%, where there hasn't been a person killed in a violent crime for a generation or more.
I do think it is possible to take Arnold's "I don't care attitude" too far. But I don't believe the social problem of street gangs can be solved by gun bans. As others have probably noted, most street thugs don't buy their weapons legally anyway, and are committing one or more felonies just by having the gun.
Oh, by the way, Ivan--I believe it's about 25% of households with firearms, not 50%.
But otherwise your analysis is very good. Crimes prevented by the simple expedient of a would-be criminal being frightened away by an armed person were never collected before Kleck began his work. His findings documented everything from the woman who shoots a man who's in the middle of raping her to the far, far more common cases where an intruder flees when confronted with a gun and no one is hurt at all.
Which appears to happen about couple of million times a year. (Hmm, let's see, if each crime thwarted were a net cost to society of $100, including damages, medical expenses, lost work, etc., that would be a billion bucks a year saved, right? ;-)