I'm so sick and tired of Ludwig. He is such an idiot.
Guns Exact $100 Billion Toll On U.S. Each Year, Book Says
Gun violence, gun accidents and
gun-related suicides cost Americans $100
billion annually, according to a new book
that ventures a first-ever attempt at such
a national price tag.
In arriving at the figure, the authors,
economists Philip J. Cook of Duke
University and Jens Ludwig of
Georgetown University, departed from
earlier approaches that looked only at
costs such as the medical expense of
treating gunshot wounds and the lost
productivity of gunshot victims.
The much larger price, they say, also
includes ``the devastating emotional costs
experienced by relatives and friends of
gunshot victims.''
These include all manner of costs, from
the time lost waiting in line at airports to
pass through metal detectors, to the
difference between actual property values
in violent neighborhoods and what those
values would be if there was no gun
violence.
In their book, ``Gun Violence: The Real
Costs,'' to be published next month by
Oxford University Press, Cook and
Ludwig applied a widely accepted method
for estimating intangible costs that asks
people how much they would pay to avoid
a problem.
In a nationally representative telephone
survey, 1,200 people were asked how much
they would pay per year to reduce criminal
gunshot injuries. The authors applied the
results to the nation's entire population to
reach a figure of $80 billion.
As for accidental shootings and gun
suicides, the authors drew on previous
studies of losses in the workplace and on
jury awards to determine the statistical
value of life and the costs of nonfatal
injuries. That sum totaled $20 billion.
``One might quibble with the figure, since
the question of how much people would
pay to avoid gun violence is hard to
know,'' said Alfred Blumstein, a
criminologist at Carnegie Mellon
University. Still, he called the study
``helpful.''
But the study was criticized by scholars
and gun advocates who maintain that guns
contribute to public safety.
Robert Delfay, president of the National
Shooting Sports Foundation, said the
authors had failed to count guns' benefits,
such as their use by the police to stop
crime.
------------------
~USP
"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998
Guns Exact $100 Billion Toll On U.S. Each Year, Book Says
Gun violence, gun accidents and
gun-related suicides cost Americans $100
billion annually, according to a new book
that ventures a first-ever attempt at such
a national price tag.
In arriving at the figure, the authors,
economists Philip J. Cook of Duke
University and Jens Ludwig of
Georgetown University, departed from
earlier approaches that looked only at
costs such as the medical expense of
treating gunshot wounds and the lost
productivity of gunshot victims.
The much larger price, they say, also
includes ``the devastating emotional costs
experienced by relatives and friends of
gunshot victims.''
These include all manner of costs, from
the time lost waiting in line at airports to
pass through metal detectors, to the
difference between actual property values
in violent neighborhoods and what those
values would be if there was no gun
violence.
In their book, ``Gun Violence: The Real
Costs,'' to be published next month by
Oxford University Press, Cook and
Ludwig applied a widely accepted method
for estimating intangible costs that asks
people how much they would pay to avoid
a problem.
In a nationally representative telephone
survey, 1,200 people were asked how much
they would pay per year to reduce criminal
gunshot injuries. The authors applied the
results to the nation's entire population to
reach a figure of $80 billion.
As for accidental shootings and gun
suicides, the authors drew on previous
studies of losses in the workplace and on
jury awards to determine the statistical
value of life and the costs of nonfatal
injuries. That sum totaled $20 billion.
``One might quibble with the figure, since
the question of how much people would
pay to avoid gun violence is hard to
know,'' said Alfred Blumstein, a
criminologist at Carnegie Mellon
University. Still, he called the study
``helpful.''
But the study was criticized by scholars
and gun advocates who maintain that guns
contribute to public safety.
Robert Delfay, president of the National
Shooting Sports Foundation, said the
authors had failed to count guns' benefits,
such as their use by the police to stop
crime.
------------------
~USP
"[Even if there would be] few tears shed if and when the Second Amendment is held to guarantee nothing more than the state National Guard, this would simply show that the Founders were right when they feared that some future generation might wish to abandon liberties that they considered essential, and so sought to protect those liberties in a Bill of Rights. We may tolerate the abridgement of property rights and the elimination of a right to bear arms; but we should not pretend that these are not reductions of rights." -- Justice Scalia 1998
