July 26, 2000
Thomas Sowell
Underlying assumptions
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE SPECIFIC controversial issues we fight about often reflect more general
differences in our underlying assumptions. This was apparent in a letter
from a reader named Herbert Simon, who wrote to the Times-Leader, a
newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, protesting my position on gun
control. But the implications reach far beyond gun control and may shed
light on many other issues.
Mr. Simon referred to "the equanimity with which Sowell accepts the number
of gun deaths in the U.S." But it is not up to me to accept or reject any
number of deaths of innocent people. If it were, I would accept none.
In the real world, however, we have to make our choices among the
alternatives actually available. Tragically, those alternatives do not
include zero deaths of innocent people.
What are the alternatives when we are talking about guns? Having guns in
millions of homes means that somebody, somewhere, is going to needlessly
kill somebody, perhaps himself. But studies also show that guns in the hands
of law-abiding citizens reduce violence, including murders. In making our
choices, we have to consider which way will fewer innocent people die.
Sadly, many people who cry out for gun control have never even considered
such facts or weighed the tragic alternatives. Moreover, mindless emotional
reactions are not confined to gun control controversies. All too often, one
particular evil is dealt with in isolation and laws are advocated or passed
to stamp out that particular evil, without the slightest consideration of
what other evils will be made worse in the process.
If the problem is poverty, then such things as minimum wage laws and rent
control laws are advocated to help the poor. These laws do in fact help
particular poor people -- and hurt many other poor people. But those who are
looking for "solutions" do not even want to think about trade-offs.
Economists who have studied the actual over-all effects of minimum wage laws
and rent control laws have usually found that the poor are worse off, on net
balance, as a result of such laws. Higher unemployment rates are one of the
bad consequences of minimum wage laws, while housing shortages have followed
rent control as surely as night follows day -- all around the world.
Most advocates of minimum wage laws and rent control laws do not even ask
the question whether such laws have any down side. And you certainly cannot
get an answer unless you first ask the question. The same is true of gun
control and many other issues.
Like so many gun control advocates, Mr. Simon cites countries with murder
rates much lower than that of the United States -- and then takes a flying
leap to the conclusion that gun control laws account for the difference. But
you could have picked different countries and reached the opposite
conclusion.
Brazil and Russia have stronger gun control laws than the United States --
and much higher murder rates. In Statistics 1, they usually point out that
correlation is not causation. In this case, there isn't even correlation.
There are simply arbitrary choices of which countries to use for making
comparisons.
Unfortunately for Mr. Simon, he included Switzerland among the countries
with low murder rates. But gun ownership is very widespread in Switzerland,
as it is in Israel -- and both countries have very low murder rates.
The cold facts back up what common sense should have told us: It is people
who choose to kill. Fortunately, guns can also prevent people from killing.
Indeed, the highly publicized shootings in schools and elsewhere, which gun
control advocates exploit repeatedly, all came to an end when armed
policemen arrived on the scene.
In addition to the underlying assumption that there are solutions, rather
than trade-offs, too many people assume that members of the general public
lack common sense and so must be tightly controlled by some anointed elite
like themselves. It is a very self-flattering vision and therefore one that
the anointed are unlikely to give up.
In this vision of the anointed, ordinary people cannot be trusted with guns
or cars or even with their own choices of shower heads and toilets -- the
last two now being prescribed by the federal government. Those who think
like this seldom have the facts to back up their sweeping assumptions.
Worse yet, they don't see the need to check the facts.
- ------------------
JWR contributor Thomas Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is
author, most recently, of The Quest for Cosmic Justice.
Thomas Sowell
Underlying assumptions
http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
THE SPECIFIC controversial issues we fight about often reflect more general
differences in our underlying assumptions. This was apparent in a letter
from a reader named Herbert Simon, who wrote to the Times-Leader, a
newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, protesting my position on gun
control. But the implications reach far beyond gun control and may shed
light on many other issues.
Mr. Simon referred to "the equanimity with which Sowell accepts the number
of gun deaths in the U.S." But it is not up to me to accept or reject any
number of deaths of innocent people. If it were, I would accept none.
In the real world, however, we have to make our choices among the
alternatives actually available. Tragically, those alternatives do not
include zero deaths of innocent people.
What are the alternatives when we are talking about guns? Having guns in
millions of homes means that somebody, somewhere, is going to needlessly
kill somebody, perhaps himself. But studies also show that guns in the hands
of law-abiding citizens reduce violence, including murders. In making our
choices, we have to consider which way will fewer innocent people die.
Sadly, many people who cry out for gun control have never even considered
such facts or weighed the tragic alternatives. Moreover, mindless emotional
reactions are not confined to gun control controversies. All too often, one
particular evil is dealt with in isolation and laws are advocated or passed
to stamp out that particular evil, without the slightest consideration of
what other evils will be made worse in the process.
If the problem is poverty, then such things as minimum wage laws and rent
control laws are advocated to help the poor. These laws do in fact help
particular poor people -- and hurt many other poor people. But those who are
looking for "solutions" do not even want to think about trade-offs.
Economists who have studied the actual over-all effects of minimum wage laws
and rent control laws have usually found that the poor are worse off, on net
balance, as a result of such laws. Higher unemployment rates are one of the
bad consequences of minimum wage laws, while housing shortages have followed
rent control as surely as night follows day -- all around the world.
Most advocates of minimum wage laws and rent control laws do not even ask
the question whether such laws have any down side. And you certainly cannot
get an answer unless you first ask the question. The same is true of gun
control and many other issues.
Like so many gun control advocates, Mr. Simon cites countries with murder
rates much lower than that of the United States -- and then takes a flying
leap to the conclusion that gun control laws account for the difference. But
you could have picked different countries and reached the opposite
conclusion.
Brazil and Russia have stronger gun control laws than the United States --
and much higher murder rates. In Statistics 1, they usually point out that
correlation is not causation. In this case, there isn't even correlation.
There are simply arbitrary choices of which countries to use for making
comparisons.
Unfortunately for Mr. Simon, he included Switzerland among the countries
with low murder rates. But gun ownership is very widespread in Switzerland,
as it is in Israel -- and both countries have very low murder rates.
The cold facts back up what common sense should have told us: It is people
who choose to kill. Fortunately, guns can also prevent people from killing.
Indeed, the highly publicized shootings in schools and elsewhere, which gun
control advocates exploit repeatedly, all came to an end when armed
policemen arrived on the scene.
In addition to the underlying assumption that there are solutions, rather
than trade-offs, too many people assume that members of the general public
lack common sense and so must be tightly controlled by some anointed elite
like themselves. It is a very self-flattering vision and therefore one that
the anointed are unlikely to give up.
In this vision of the anointed, ordinary people cannot be trusted with guns
or cars or even with their own choices of shower heads and toilets -- the
last two now being prescribed by the federal government. Those who think
like this seldom have the facts to back up their sweeping assumptions.
Worse yet, they don't see the need to check the facts.
- ------------------
JWR contributor Thomas Sowell, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, is
author, most recently, of The Quest for Cosmic Justice.