When ALL have guns, ALL WILL be more civilized in thought, word & deed - indeed

More Guns, Less Crime?

In Arizona, the shootings have led some citizens to call for more guns, not more gun control. Why is that?

It Takes Laws to Control the Bad Guys

January 11, 2011

John J. Donohue 3rd is the C. Wendell and Edith M. Carlsmith professor of law at Stanford University.

In an ideal world, stable, cautious law-abiding citizens would have access to guns and others would not. Ideally, we would like wise regulation and prudent personal decisions about carrying and using guns. Deciding on the elements of wise laws and consumer decisions ultimately requires extensive data analysis beyond any single episode, like the horrific killings in Tucson. But this tragedy does highlight some relevant issues.

Laws are better than armed citizens in keeping killers from firing 31 times in succession.

First, the killer could not have purchased the high-capacity weapon that he used had George W. Bush adhered to his campaign promise in 2000 to support the federal Assault Weapons Ban that elapsed after 10 years in 2004. High-capacity magazines are far more valuable to criminals than to those seeking protection, and restoring a ban on possession (not just purchase) of such magazines would be a pro-life, anti-crime strategy.
Unfortunately, the gun area is a prime example of where good politics and good policy often diverge sharply. One cannot ignore the economic interests of gun sellers who profit directly when criminals can buy guns and then indirectly when the gun lobby uses the resulting mayhem to urge others to seek protection. These interests cannot be expected to tell the truth about wise regulation or seek to promote anything other than a more-guns, more-profits strategy.
Second, young men with severe mental illness can buy guns far too easily. A first-rate assessment of the costs and likely benefits of a program that screens every gun transfer to ensure that the purchaser is not mentally ill (or an alcoholic, drug user or convicted felon) should be undertaken. Some may be surprised to know that almost one-quarter of American teens have some form of mental illness, so the goal of wisely limited gun possession is complicated. In this regard, one must also think about stopping the incomprehensibly large number of lost and stolen guns -- in the neighborhood of one million guns per year -- that travel from law-abiding citizens to U.S. criminals. Arming the good guys unfortunately means arming the bad guys if the good guys don't have their guns locked and secure -- whether on their person or in their homes.
Third, while some early studies by John Lott and others suggested that state policies providing greater freedom to carry guns would reduce crime, empirical evidence refutes this view. Wise gun policy and individual consumer choice to carry weapons involves weighing competing probabilities.
The complexity of the issues of gun carrying is evident in the facts of the Tucson shooting: Joe Zamudio, the first lawful gun carrier on the scene, came around a corner and saw a man with a gun. Zamudio "grabbed his arm and shoved him into a wall." Thankfully, Zamudio didn't shoot because this was not the shooter, but the person who disarmed the shooter. Zamudio, age 24, displayed further caution in that he didn't pull out his own 9 mm handgun because "he didn't want to be confused as a second gunman."
Those who carry guns have to make quick decisions about who should be shot and to avoid being shot themselves, often in crowded and confused circumstances where the chance of doing more damage must be weighed against the benefit of stopping an assault. We should all agree, though, that there is a benefit in keeping bad guys from being able to fire 31 times without reloading.