Guns Shoot People as Well as Prairie Dogs

I like guns, especially for shooting prairie dogs, but I think they’re dangerous, a “two-edged sword” so to speak.  Most people have no business handling guns, either because they don’t know what they’re doing or they’re not mentally capable of safely handling them.

Here’s the abstract of a study that concludes that gun ownership is related to firearms homicide rates:

Objectives. We examined the relationship between levels of household firearm ownership, as measured directly and by a proxy—the percentage of suicides committed with a firearm—and age-adjusted firearm homicide rates at the state level.

Methods. We conducted a negative binomial regression analysis of panel data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting Systems database on gun ownership and firearm homicide rates across all 50 states during 1981 to 2010. We determined fixed effects for year, accounted for clustering within states with generalized estimating equations, and controlled for potential state-level confounders.

Results. Gun ownership was a significant predictor of firearm homicide rates (incidence rate ratio = 1.009; 95% confidence interval = 1.004, 1.014). This model indicated that for each percentage point increase in gun ownership, the firearm homicide rate increased by 0.9%.

Conclusions. We observed a robust correlation between higher levels of gun ownership and higher firearm homicide rates. Although we could not determine causation, we found that states with higher rates of gun ownership had disproportionately large numbers of deaths from firearm-related homicides.

Read More: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2013.301409?journalCode=ajph%29&

And a study that concludes that higher gun ownership is related to higher death rates of policemen from being shot:

Objectives. In the United States, state firearm ownership has been correlated with homicide rates. More than 90% of homicides of law enforcement officers (LEOs) are committed with firearms. We examined the relationship between state firearm ownership rates and LEO occupational homicide rates.

Methods. We obtained the number LEOs killed from 1996 to 2010 from a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) database. We calculated homicide rates per state as the number of officers killed per number of LEOs per state, obtained from another FBI database. We obtained the mean household firearm ownership for each state from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System.

Results. Using Poisson regression and controlling for factors known to affect homicide rates, we associated firearm ownership with the homicide rates for LEOs (incidence rate ratio = 1.044; P = .005); our results were supported by cross-sectional and longitudinal sensitivity analyses. LEO homicide rates were 3 times higher in states with high firearm ownership compared with states with low firearm ownership.

Conclusions. High public gun ownership is a risk for occupational mortality for LEOs in the United States. States could consider methods for reducing firearm ownership as a way to reduce occupational deaths of LEOs.

Read More: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2015.302749

Finally, a study that concludes that higher gun ownership is related to higher nonstranger shooting deaths:

Objectives. We examined the relationship between gun ownership and stranger versus nonstranger homicide rates.

Methods. Using data from the Supplemental Homicide Reports of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reports for all 50 states for 1981 to 2010, we modeled stranger and nonstranger homicide rates as a function of state-level gun ownership, measured by a proxy, controlling for potential confounders. We used a negative binomial regression model with fixed effects for year, accounting for clustering of observations among states by using generalized estimating equations.

Results. We found no robust, statistically significant correlation between gun ownership and stranger firearm homicide rates. However, we found a positive and significant association between gun ownership and nonstranger firearm homicide rates. The incidence rate ratio for nonstranger firearm homicide rate associated with gun ownership was 1.014 (95% confidence interval = 1.009, 1.019).

Conclusions. Our findings challenge the argument that gun ownership deters violent crime, in particular, homicides.

Read More: http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302042

Notice that we say “is related to” rather than “causes” because these studies only show a correlation and do not prove causation.  Nonetheless, these striking findings suggest that the presence of guns merely relates to more people getting shot, which is pretty simple.  Guns certainly do not relate to any protective effect against getting shot, nor do they protect policemen from getting shot.  It is hard to get away from the logical conclusion that guns cause people to get shot.

Guns are useful devices, but in the hands of fallible humans they go off, causing sometimes fatal wounds, when you point one at someone and pull the trigger.  Having one doesn’t necessarily protect you from someone else who has one.  Not having one leaves you defenseless, but if no-one other than a policeman has one, the fatality rate is lower– these studies show that.

Unfortunately, laws won’t reduce the number of guns floating around; illegally obtaining a gun is not difficult in most cities because there are so many in circulation.  At last count, there were almost 300 million firearms in the US; a minority of people actually have them, and those that do usually have several on hand.

Reducing the gun homicide and suicide rates would be most effectively approached by dramatically increased investment in mental-health treatment, conflict-resolution teaching, and anti-poverty programs, particularly programs to provide well-paying jobs to disadvantaged youth, especially those of color, the most likely victims and perpetrators of gun homicides.

Removing a significant number of guns from circulation would require an enormous, unconstitutional search-and-confiscate mission which would likely miscarry because people would be forewarned and would hide their guns away.  There really is no clear solution that doesn’t involve massive investment in mental health and anti-poverty programs.