Re: Gun Control Series Q1 -- Does gun ownership make the gunowner safer or less safe?
Posted: March 19th, 2019, 2:47 pm
A short research online clearly points out that owning a gun is less safe than not owning one.
But when making the question if owning a gun makes the owner more or less safe, we need to understand on what social context the owner lives in. I believe this is more important than anything else. How one keeps his gun safe is also important.
It is different to own a gun on a community where 80% of people owns guns than on a community where only 1% of people owns one. If there is a high prevalence of firearms in a community, when a criminal situation develops there is a higher chance a firearm is involved and that fact changes both the danger of the situation and how one should proceed.
The same applies to what kind of laws regarding firearms are there. For example, if concealed, or open carry is allowed or not.
Switzerland is perhaps the only country in the world where there is a high prevalence of gun ownership and low homicide rate. I am convinced that one of the main factors (but not the only one - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 30606.html) that accounts for this is that carrying a weapon concealed or not in public is against the law in Switzerland. If you own a gun you have to keep it at home or can only carry it for very specific activities like going to the shooting range or hunting. Switzerland is a unique case and very specific. Moreover there's even evidence from Switzerland that their relative safety isn't due to gun ownership at all.
Now to the specialists opinion and empirical data.
Tyler Bonin, a marine that turned teacher, wrote on the Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/a ... rs/554783/) why he thinks about allowing teachers to carry guns into the classroom. He makes good points and his thoughts apply not only to the classroom but to any self defence situation involving a firearm, particularly when a mass shooting is taking place.
Drawing from his experience as a marine he says:
"Responding effectively to an active-shooter situation is one of the toughest challenges for a marksman out there. To train teachers for this role would be an enormous task—and policymakers who think otherwise aren’t being realistic."
"By the time I completed boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island (...) I came to realize: There’s no such thing as a Rambo. Teamwork was the essence of mission success in the Marine Corps."
"As a former Marine and current teacher, I know that building within teachers (including military-veteran teachers) the required teamwork to be effective in a Parkland-type situation is an unreachable goal."
"Before recruits set foot on a rifle range for live-fire exercises, proper weapons-handling skills and the fundamentals of marksmanship are drilled into them—and these 13 weeks of training represent a minimum level of proficiency needed to simply be functional in a combat environment. The ability to enter a building and effectively clear rooms—a skill needed to stop an active-shooter situation—requires an added layer of training and specialization. Thus, having military training alone does not guarantee a person to be effective in an active-shooting situation"
"Over the course of my time in the Marines, I trained on various heavy machine guns for the purpose of convoy operations, and consider myself to be proficient with a firearm. But none of the skills I learned would truly transfer into an active-shooter situation. Furthermore, as a teacher, I know that most of my day is spent alone in a classroom with my students. Efficient communication—the type forged in the military and necessary for neutralizing an active shooter—cannot occur when teachers spend the day cut off from other teachers in separate rooms."
"Nobody knows how he or she will react when rounds are flying in their direction, and the confusion that law-enforcement officers may experience when encountering armed teachers at school during an active-shooter situation could be devastating. The danger of students being hit by stray bullets during the crossfire that may result from teachers engaging a shooter is also a very real possibility."
" Furthermore, a working paper by Sheldon Greenberg, a professor of management in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, illustrates that arming teachers will present an increased risk in schools, rather than mitigate the risks posed by an active-shooter situation."
"Had I wanted to continue carrying a firearm at work, I would’ve stayed in the service or chosen a different profession after my enlistment. Having worked with high-school students for several years now, I understand that my ability to be effective as a teacher is predicated on the existence of an environment conducive to learning and trust building. This environment will not exist in a schoolhouse where teachers double as armed guards."
These points have the merit of applying to any country because they do not draw from the abilities of the police forces or the strength of the law but are very situation specific.
I agree that on some very specific situations a good guy with a gun can in principle prevent a number of deaths but in most situations that is not the case. The assailant has the sheer determination, the element of surprise and the nerve that the "good guy" caught by surprise doesn't have, at least immediately. His gun may not be close or ready to fire. And those seconds could be the difference between life and death.
Finally there are the scientists point of view.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph- ... ety-safer/
"Scientists who conduct research on gun violence overwhelmingly agree that firearms make society more dangerous"
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph- ... ggests-no/
"Hemenway noted that one commonly cited statistic about guns—that 2.5 million people use them each year to defend themselves or their property — is based on faulty analysis from a 1990s study. A more reliable source of information, the National Crime Victimization Survey, pegs the number of people who use guns in this manner at roughly 100,000"
"the presence of more guns does make crimes more violent. “What guns do is make hostile interactions—robberies, assaults—much more deadly,”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nce-shows/
"About 30 studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help."
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2018041 ... isappeared
"Though controversial, some research indicates that the mere presence of a gun makes men behave more aggressively, a phenomenon called “the weapons effect”
On a side note, I think is important to understand the psychological effect of owning a gun. Even with a clean criminal record if you have violent tendencies, and psychology shows everyone can be violent if pushed to the limits, is much easier to kill or injure someone with a gun than anything else. So your threshold may be lower if something compels you to be violent.
https://law.stanford.edu/2015/10/12/pro ... -us-safer/
"Guns are a bit like chest x-rays. If you really need them, they can be helpful to have around, and even save lives. If you don’t need them, and yet are constantly exposed to them, they represent a constant threat while conferring little or no benefit (...) On the other hand, if one happens to be in a particularly high-risk category, then having a gun for personal protection could make sense. One reason that gun ownership in the United States is declining is that more and more Americans recognize that for them guns are unlikely to be confer benefits that exceed their costs."
"Indeed, the FBI report indicates that the only case in which a citizen with a concealed carry permit holder (as opposed to a police officer or armed security guard) stopped an active shooting (at a bar in Nevada in 2008) also occurred when the shooter stopped to reload his high-capacity handgun."
"The problem of mass shootings in the United States stems largely from the fact that a gun-obsessed culture allows certain mentally ill individuals to marinate in a commonly expressed ideology that says guns are a useful way to deal with one’s perceived enemies"
"Certainly, we don’t have a higher prevalence of mentally ill individuals than our competitor nations, but we undoubtedly have a higher number who are constantly being flooded with glorified messages about the power of guns to thwart one’s enemies, coupled with ready – indeed at times omnipresent – access to powerful weapons.
At one point, Australia had that same unappealing brew operating and suffered from an even larger problem of mass shootings (on a per capita basis) than the US, but a massive effort to turn away from that gun culture after a particularly horrendous shooting in 1996 has drastically reduced the problem in Australia over the last twenty years. With only 20 percent of the murder rate of the US, half the robbery rate, and no active mass shootings in almost 20 years, Australia is a very potent example of what can be achieved if a country is willing to reduce the presence and availability of guns as well as the gun culture. No country can ever be immune to such tragedies, but President Obama is right that one can reduce their frequency through reasonable measures."
Ending on a personal note; I live in the UK with my partner and a toddler. If I had a gun in the house, even if it was hidden, unloaded and kept safe I would not feel safer. On the contrary, I would feel much more unsafe having such a thing around.
But when making the question if owning a gun makes the owner more or less safe, we need to understand on what social context the owner lives in. I believe this is more important than anything else. How one keeps his gun safe is also important.
It is different to own a gun on a community where 80% of people owns guns than on a community where only 1% of people owns one. If there is a high prevalence of firearms in a community, when a criminal situation develops there is a higher chance a firearm is involved and that fact changes both the danger of the situation and how one should proceed.
The same applies to what kind of laws regarding firearms are there. For example, if concealed, or open carry is allowed or not.
Switzerland is perhaps the only country in the world where there is a high prevalence of gun ownership and low homicide rate. I am convinced that one of the main factors (but not the only one - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 30606.html) that accounts for this is that carrying a weapon concealed or not in public is against the law in Switzerland. If you own a gun you have to keep it at home or can only carry it for very specific activities like going to the shooting range or hunting. Switzerland is a unique case and very specific. Moreover there's even evidence from Switzerland that their relative safety isn't due to gun ownership at all.
Now to the specialists opinion and empirical data.
Tyler Bonin, a marine that turned teacher, wrote on the Atlantic (https://www.theatlantic.com/education/a ... rs/554783/) why he thinks about allowing teachers to carry guns into the classroom. He makes good points and his thoughts apply not only to the classroom but to any self defence situation involving a firearm, particularly when a mass shooting is taking place.
Drawing from his experience as a marine he says:
"Responding effectively to an active-shooter situation is one of the toughest challenges for a marksman out there. To train teachers for this role would be an enormous task—and policymakers who think otherwise aren’t being realistic."
"By the time I completed boot camp at Marine Corps Recruit Depot Parris Island (...) I came to realize: There’s no such thing as a Rambo. Teamwork was the essence of mission success in the Marine Corps."
"As a former Marine and current teacher, I know that building within teachers (including military-veteran teachers) the required teamwork to be effective in a Parkland-type situation is an unreachable goal."
"Before recruits set foot on a rifle range for live-fire exercises, proper weapons-handling skills and the fundamentals of marksmanship are drilled into them—and these 13 weeks of training represent a minimum level of proficiency needed to simply be functional in a combat environment. The ability to enter a building and effectively clear rooms—a skill needed to stop an active-shooter situation—requires an added layer of training and specialization. Thus, having military training alone does not guarantee a person to be effective in an active-shooting situation"
"Over the course of my time in the Marines, I trained on various heavy machine guns for the purpose of convoy operations, and consider myself to be proficient with a firearm. But none of the skills I learned would truly transfer into an active-shooter situation. Furthermore, as a teacher, I know that most of my day is spent alone in a classroom with my students. Efficient communication—the type forged in the military and necessary for neutralizing an active shooter—cannot occur when teachers spend the day cut off from other teachers in separate rooms."
"Nobody knows how he or she will react when rounds are flying in their direction, and the confusion that law-enforcement officers may experience when encountering armed teachers at school during an active-shooter situation could be devastating. The danger of students being hit by stray bullets during the crossfire that may result from teachers engaging a shooter is also a very real possibility."
" Furthermore, a working paper by Sheldon Greenberg, a professor of management in the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, illustrates that arming teachers will present an increased risk in schools, rather than mitigate the risks posed by an active-shooter situation."
"Had I wanted to continue carrying a firearm at work, I would’ve stayed in the service or chosen a different profession after my enlistment. Having worked with high-school students for several years now, I understand that my ability to be effective as a teacher is predicated on the existence of an environment conducive to learning and trust building. This environment will not exist in a schoolhouse where teachers double as armed guards."
These points have the merit of applying to any country because they do not draw from the abilities of the police forces or the strength of the law but are very situation specific.
I agree that on some very specific situations a good guy with a gun can in principle prevent a number of deaths but in most situations that is not the case. The assailant has the sheer determination, the element of surprise and the nerve that the "good guy" caught by surprise doesn't have, at least immediately. His gun may not be close or ready to fire. And those seconds could be the difference between life and death.
Finally there are the scientists point of view.
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph- ... ety-safer/
"Scientists who conduct research on gun violence overwhelmingly agree that firearms make society more dangerous"
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph- ... ggests-no/
"Hemenway noted that one commonly cited statistic about guns—that 2.5 million people use them each year to defend themselves or their property — is based on faulty analysis from a 1990s study. A more reliable source of information, the National Crime Victimization Survey, pegs the number of people who use guns in this manner at roughly 100,000"
"the presence of more guns does make crimes more violent. “What guns do is make hostile interactions—robberies, assaults—much more deadly,”
https://www.scientificamerican.com/arti ... nce-shows/
"About 30 studies show more guns are linked to more crimes: murders, rapes, and others. Far less research shows that guns help."
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/2018041 ... isappeared
"Though controversial, some research indicates that the mere presence of a gun makes men behave more aggressively, a phenomenon called “the weapons effect”
On a side note, I think is important to understand the psychological effect of owning a gun. Even with a clean criminal record if you have violent tendencies, and psychology shows everyone can be violent if pushed to the limits, is much easier to kill or injure someone with a gun than anything else. So your threshold may be lower if something compels you to be violent.
https://law.stanford.edu/2015/10/12/pro ... -us-safer/
"Guns are a bit like chest x-rays. If you really need them, they can be helpful to have around, and even save lives. If you don’t need them, and yet are constantly exposed to them, they represent a constant threat while conferring little or no benefit (...) On the other hand, if one happens to be in a particularly high-risk category, then having a gun for personal protection could make sense. One reason that gun ownership in the United States is declining is that more and more Americans recognize that for them guns are unlikely to be confer benefits that exceed their costs."
"Indeed, the FBI report indicates that the only case in which a citizen with a concealed carry permit holder (as opposed to a police officer or armed security guard) stopped an active shooting (at a bar in Nevada in 2008) also occurred when the shooter stopped to reload his high-capacity handgun."
"The problem of mass shootings in the United States stems largely from the fact that a gun-obsessed culture allows certain mentally ill individuals to marinate in a commonly expressed ideology that says guns are a useful way to deal with one’s perceived enemies"
"Certainly, we don’t have a higher prevalence of mentally ill individuals than our competitor nations, but we undoubtedly have a higher number who are constantly being flooded with glorified messages about the power of guns to thwart one’s enemies, coupled with ready – indeed at times omnipresent – access to powerful weapons.
At one point, Australia had that same unappealing brew operating and suffered from an even larger problem of mass shootings (on a per capita basis) than the US, but a massive effort to turn away from that gun culture after a particularly horrendous shooting in 1996 has drastically reduced the problem in Australia over the last twenty years. With only 20 percent of the murder rate of the US, half the robbery rate, and no active mass shootings in almost 20 years, Australia is a very potent example of what can be achieved if a country is willing to reduce the presence and availability of guns as well as the gun culture. No country can ever be immune to such tragedies, but President Obama is right that one can reduce their frequency through reasonable measures."
Ending on a personal note; I live in the UK with my partner and a toddler. If I had a gun in the house, even if it was hidden, unloaded and kept safe I would not feel safer. On the contrary, I would feel much more unsafe having such a thing around.