Gun Conundrum: More on Streets,
Fewer Reports of Deaths, Woundings
By GARY FIELDS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- More guns lead to more gun-related incidents, right? Not necessarily.
In a little-noticed report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the research arm of the Justice Department, said that gun-related deaths and woundings dropped 33% from 1993 to 1997. During the same time, the number of firearms in circulation in the U.S. rose nearly 10%, according to statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Combined, the reports appear to raise questions about a core argument for people who want more gun control: that there is a direct correlation between the proliferation of firearms in the U.S. and its gun problems.
"We have more guns than we've ever had, and the crime rate and gun-crime rate are dropping. That tells me that what is going on can't just be the prevalence of guns," says James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest law-enforcement organization. The challenge, he says, is "to figure out what the anomaly was."
Gun-control organizations take a different view of the statistics. Kristin Rand, an analyst for the Violence Policy Center, says the BJS study doesn't put the issue of gun violence in context. The nation's firearms incidents, both on a per-capita basis and in total, are still higher than in most, if not all, other nations, she says. "Mt. Ranier is not really very tall if you compare it to Mt. Everest, but it's still a mountain," she says.
The BJS, in its report released in October, estimates that U.S. gun deaths and woundings fell to 96,636 in 1997 from 143,795 in 1993. And the decline continued in 1998, the latest year for which figures are available, newer federal statistics show. Separately, based on annual production and export and import figures, the ATF says there were 236.5 million guns in the U.S. in 1997, the final year of the survey, up from 216.3 million in 1993. The bureau estimates there are 250 million firearms in the country now.
The new statistics come amid a gun debate that has intensified since April 1999, when two Columbine High School students in Colorado killed 12 schoolmates, a teacher and themselves. Gun-control groups say the tragedy could have been prevented had it been more difficult for the students to get firearms. Gun-rights groups say the killings could have been stopped had a teacher or other bystander been legally armed.
Criminologists say the issue of guns and how they correlate to crime is more complex than either side has depicted it. There is little statistical evidence to back claims that the presence of legal guns deters crime, they say. At the same time, the results of gun-control laws have been mixed.
"I'm not a gun-control zealot or a gun-rights fanatic, and I think we've underestimated the potential for self-responsibility on the part of Americans who don't want to see another Columbine," says Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University in Boston. "As I see it, we need laws when people can't control themselves, and, right now, it seems people are controlling themselves."
Several factors may be behind the drop in gun crimes. First, there is the economy. The median household income was $40,800 in 1999, up from $31,241 in 1993. Unemployment now is 3.9%, down considerably from 6.9% in 1993. Those two factors may mean less stressful lives and a greater stake in the system for a greater number of Americans. That may lead to fewer crimes and self-inflicted wounds.
Another issue is demographics. The number of young people in the most violent age group, 15-24, has fallen. Criminologists say the next big surge in that age group will come in 2010. The continuing public drumbeat about gun accidents among children has had a cumulative effect on gun owners, many of whom are taking greater precautions in locking up their firearms.
Moreover, the drop in gun incidents came during a decline in crime in general, the easing of the crack epidemic and the tremendous growth in the prison population, spurred by mandatory-sentencing laws.
"There are social forces more significant than the gun that explain why gunshot wounds are down," says Mike Rustigan, a criminologist at San Francisco State University. "The fact is, the majority of people who buy firearms are not criminals or drug dealers or gangsters."
For gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association, the ATF figures and the BJS statistics are a confirmation of what they have maintained for years: Most gun owners obey the law and more legal hurdles aren't needed. John Snyder, spokesman for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, says the numbers aren't widely discussed because "they don't conform to the politically correct philosophy of the government that more guns mean more crime."
Others say gun-control laws have undoubtedly had some impact on holding down shootings. But how much is debatable, since it is hard to prove what didn't happen because a particular law was enacted.
For example, the 1994 Brady Law and its latest incarnation, the "instant check" system, are credited with keeping guns out of the hands of 600,000 people prohibited from having them due to a criminal record or other reasons. But there is no way to tell how many of those people would have committed crimes, just as there is no way of knowing how many of them later avoided background checks by purchasing firearms either from private owners at gun shows or through newspaper want ads. Private sales account for 40% of the guns sold annually, according to law-enforcement surveys.
A reduction in federally licensed firearms dealers by the ATF also is believed to have cut down on the amount of guns filtering into crimes. Since 1993, the number of such gun dealers has dropped to 103,416 from 261,000.
Mark Logan, an assistant director with the ATF, says other law-enforcement programs also have played a role. Today, all 93 U.S. attorneys have gun-violence reduction plans and coordinators who focus attention on the problem of guns.
Still, law-enforcement authorities and new laws are not a panacea. According to the survey released last month, gun-related incidents already had begun to drop when the Brady law went into effect in 1994. And its forerunner, the Gun Control Law of 1968, did not lower the crime rate. In fact, gun incidents increased in the aftermath of the law, the first to limit who could buy or possess firearms in the U.S.
Advocates say the evidence that gun-control laws work is the fact that the percentage of the population that owns firearms isn't growing even though more are in circulation. Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for Americans for Gun Safety, says the surveys she has seen from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago show that gun ownership has declined to about 22% of the U.S. population in 1999 from almost 27% in 1989. She says that having guns in fewer hands means less potential for gun incidents.
If it is true that the percentage of Americans who possess guns has been falling, that means there are more multiple gun owners in the U.S. But that fact alone can't explain the drop in gun-related incidents in the BJS study.
"If the same people who have always had guns are the only ones who are buying the new ones, but there are fewer woundings and killings, then the behavior of those people has changed" says Northeastern's Mr. Levin. "Having a gun and using a gun are two different things."
-- Jennifer Davit contributed to this story.
Write to Gary Fields at gary.fields@wsj.com
Fewer Reports of Deaths, Woundings
By GARY FIELDS
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- More guns lead to more gun-related incidents, right? Not necessarily.
In a little-noticed report, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the research arm of the Justice Department, said that gun-related deaths and woundings dropped 33% from 1993 to 1997. During the same time, the number of firearms in circulation in the U.S. rose nearly 10%, according to statistics from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.
Combined, the reports appear to raise questions about a core argument for people who want more gun control: that there is a direct correlation between the proliferation of firearms in the U.S. and its gun problems.
"We have more guns than we've ever had, and the crime rate and gun-crime rate are dropping. That tells me that what is going on can't just be the prevalence of guns," says James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation's largest law-enforcement organization. The challenge, he says, is "to figure out what the anomaly was."
Gun-control organizations take a different view of the statistics. Kristin Rand, an analyst for the Violence Policy Center, says the BJS study doesn't put the issue of gun violence in context. The nation's firearms incidents, both on a per-capita basis and in total, are still higher than in most, if not all, other nations, she says. "Mt. Ranier is not really very tall if you compare it to Mt. Everest, but it's still a mountain," she says.
The BJS, in its report released in October, estimates that U.S. gun deaths and woundings fell to 96,636 in 1997 from 143,795 in 1993. And the decline continued in 1998, the latest year for which figures are available, newer federal statistics show. Separately, based on annual production and export and import figures, the ATF says there were 236.5 million guns in the U.S. in 1997, the final year of the survey, up from 216.3 million in 1993. The bureau estimates there are 250 million firearms in the country now.
The new statistics come amid a gun debate that has intensified since April 1999, when two Columbine High School students in Colorado killed 12 schoolmates, a teacher and themselves. Gun-control groups say the tragedy could have been prevented had it been more difficult for the students to get firearms. Gun-rights groups say the killings could have been stopped had a teacher or other bystander been legally armed.
Criminologists say the issue of guns and how they correlate to crime is more complex than either side has depicted it. There is little statistical evidence to back claims that the presence of legal guns deters crime, they say. At the same time, the results of gun-control laws have been mixed.
"I'm not a gun-control zealot or a gun-rights fanatic, and I think we've underestimated the potential for self-responsibility on the part of Americans who don't want to see another Columbine," says Jack Levin, director of the Brudnick Center on Violence at Northeastern University in Boston. "As I see it, we need laws when people can't control themselves, and, right now, it seems people are controlling themselves."
Several factors may be behind the drop in gun crimes. First, there is the economy. The median household income was $40,800 in 1999, up from $31,241 in 1993. Unemployment now is 3.9%, down considerably from 6.9% in 1993. Those two factors may mean less stressful lives and a greater stake in the system for a greater number of Americans. That may lead to fewer crimes and self-inflicted wounds.
Another issue is demographics. The number of young people in the most violent age group, 15-24, has fallen. Criminologists say the next big surge in that age group will come in 2010. The continuing public drumbeat about gun accidents among children has had a cumulative effect on gun owners, many of whom are taking greater precautions in locking up their firearms.
Moreover, the drop in gun incidents came during a decline in crime in general, the easing of the crack epidemic and the tremendous growth in the prison population, spurred by mandatory-sentencing laws.
"There are social forces more significant than the gun that explain why gunshot wounds are down," says Mike Rustigan, a criminologist at San Francisco State University. "The fact is, the majority of people who buy firearms are not criminals or drug dealers or gangsters."
For gun-rights groups such as the National Rifle Association, the ATF figures and the BJS statistics are a confirmation of what they have maintained for years: Most gun owners obey the law and more legal hurdles aren't needed. John Snyder, spokesman for the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, says the numbers aren't widely discussed because "they don't conform to the politically correct philosophy of the government that more guns mean more crime."
Others say gun-control laws have undoubtedly had some impact on holding down shootings. But how much is debatable, since it is hard to prove what didn't happen because a particular law was enacted.
For example, the 1994 Brady Law and its latest incarnation, the "instant check" system, are credited with keeping guns out of the hands of 600,000 people prohibited from having them due to a criminal record or other reasons. But there is no way to tell how many of those people would have committed crimes, just as there is no way of knowing how many of them later avoided background checks by purchasing firearms either from private owners at gun shows or through newspaper want ads. Private sales account for 40% of the guns sold annually, according to law-enforcement surveys.
A reduction in federally licensed firearms dealers by the ATF also is believed to have cut down on the amount of guns filtering into crimes. Since 1993, the number of such gun dealers has dropped to 103,416 from 261,000.
Mark Logan, an assistant director with the ATF, says other law-enforcement programs also have played a role. Today, all 93 U.S. attorneys have gun-violence reduction plans and coordinators who focus attention on the problem of guns.
Still, law-enforcement authorities and new laws are not a panacea. According to the survey released last month, gun-related incidents already had begun to drop when the Brady law went into effect in 1994. And its forerunner, the Gun Control Law of 1968, did not lower the crime rate. In fact, gun incidents increased in the aftermath of the law, the first to limit who could buy or possess firearms in the U.S.
Advocates say the evidence that gun-control laws work is the fact that the percentage of the population that owns firearms isn't growing even though more are in circulation. Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for Americans for Gun Safety, says the surveys she has seen from the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago show that gun ownership has declined to about 22% of the U.S. population in 1999 from almost 27% in 1989. She says that having guns in fewer hands means less potential for gun incidents.
If it is true that the percentage of Americans who possess guns has been falling, that means there are more multiple gun owners in the U.S. But that fact alone can't explain the drop in gun-related incidents in the BJS study.
"If the same people who have always had guns are the only ones who are buying the new ones, but there are fewer woundings and killings, then the behavior of those people has changed" says Northeastern's Mr. Levin. "Having a gun and using a gun are two different things."
-- Jennifer Davit contributed to this story.
Write to Gary Fields at gary.fields@wsj.com