Incidence of Defensive Gun Use Far Outweighs Offensive Gun Use

[MMMMMM]

In this article the point is made that, according to 3 different academic surveys, defensive gun use outweighs offensive/criminal gun use by a ratio of about 4-1. Of course most defensive incidents don't make big news splashes. When people weigh the benefits/costs of gun ownership, the actual defensive uses of guns need to be factored into the equation too. Article below:


"With the avalanche of horrific news stories about guns over the years, it's no wonder people find it hard to believe that, according to surveys (one I conducted for 2002 for my book, "The Bias Against Guns," and three earlier academic surveys by different researchers published in such journals as the Journal of Criminal Justice) there are about two million defensive gun uses (search) each year; guns are used defensively four times more frequently than they are to commit crimes.

The rebuttal to this claim always is: If these events were really happening, wouldn't we hear about them on the news? Many people tell me that they have never heard of an incident of defensive gun use. There is a good reason for their confusion. In 2001, the three major television networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- ran 190,000 words' worth of gun-crime stories on their morning and evening national news broadcasts. But they ran not a single story mentioning a private citizen using a gun to stop a crime.

The print media was almost as biased: The New York Times ran 50,745 words on contemporaneous gun crimes, but only one short, 163-word story on a retired police officer who used his gun to stop a robbery. For USA Today, the tally was 5,660 words on gun crimes versus zero on defensive uses.

Just take some of the 18 defensive gun uses that I found covered by newspapers around the country during the first 10 days of December:

-- Little Rock, Ark: After the assailant attacked him and his son-in-law with a poker, a 64-year-old minister shot a man dead on church grounds. The attacker had engaged in a string of assaults in an apparent drug-induced frenzy.

-- Corpus Christi, Texas: A woman shot to death her ex-husband, who had broken into her house. The woman had a restraining order against the ex-husband.

-- Tampa Bay, Fla.: A 71-year-old man, Melvin Spaulding, shot 20-year-old James Moore in the arm as Moore and two friends were beating up his neighbor, 63-year-old George Lowe. Spaulding had a concealed weapons permit.

--Bellevue, Wash.: A man shot a pit bull that lunged to within a foot of him and his family. Police said the man's family had been repeatedly menaced in the past by the dog.

-- Jonesboro, Ga.: A father out walking with his 11-year-old daughter was attacked by an armed robber. The police say the father shot the attacker in self-defense and will not face charges.

-- Houston, Texas: Andrea McNabb shot two of the three men who tried to rob her plumbing business on the afternoon of Dec. 1.

-- Philadelphia, Pa: A pharmacy manager fatally shot one robber and wounded another after the robbers threatened to kill workers at the store. The wounded robber escaped.

Part of the reason defensive gun use isn't covered in the media may be simple news judgment. If a news editor faces two stories, one with a dead body on the ground and another where a woman brandished a gun and the attacker ran away, no shots fired, almost anyone would pick the first story as more newsworthy. In 2002, some 90 percent of the time when people used guns defensively, they stopped the criminals simply by brandishing the gun.

But that doesn't explain all the disparity in coverage. It doesn't, for example, explain why, in some heavily covered public middle and high school shootings, the media mentioned in only 1 percent or fewer of their stories that the attacks were stopped when citizens used guns to stop the attacks.

The unbalanced reporting is probably greatest in cases where children die from accidental gunshots fired by another child. Most people have seen the public-service ads showing the voices or pictures of children between the ages of four and eight, never over the age of eight, and the impression is that there is an epidemic of accidental deaths involving small children. The exaggerated media attention given these particularly tragic deaths makes these claims believable.

The debate over laws requiring that people lock up their guns in their home usually concentrates on the deaths of these younger children. The trigger and barrel locks mandated by these laws are often only considered reliable for preventing the access to guns by children under age 7.

The truth is that in 1999, for children whose ages correspond with the public service ads, 31 children under the age of 10 died from an accidental gunshot and only six of these cases appear to have involved another child under 10 as the culprit. Nor was this year unusual. Between 1995 and 1999, only five to nine cases a year involved a child wounding or killing another child with a gun. For children under 15, there were a total of 81 accidental gun deaths of all types in 1999. Any death is tragic, but it should be noted that more children under five drowned in bathtubs or plastic water buckets than from guns.

The gun deaths are covered extensively as well as prominently, with individual cases getting up to 88 separate news stories. In contrast, when children use guns to save lives, the event might at most get one brief mention in a small local paper. Yet these events do occur.

--In February, 2002, the South Bend, Indiana Tribune reported the story of an 11-year-old boy who shot and killed a man holding a box cutter to his grandmother's neck. Trained to use a firearm, the boy killed the assailant in one shot, even though the man was using his grandmother as a shield.

--In May, 2001 in Louisianna, a 12-year-old girl shot and killed her mother's abusive ex-boyfriend after he broke into their home and began choking her mother. The story appeared in the New Orleans Advocate.

--In January, 2001, in Angie, Louisianna, a 13 year-old boy stopped for burglars from entering his home by firing the family's shotgun, wounding one robber and scaring off the other three. The four men were planning on attacking the boy's mother--an 85-pound terminal cancer patient--in order to steal her pain medication.

As a couple of reporters told me, journalists are uncomfortable printing such positive gun stories because they worry that it will encourage children to get access to guns. The whole process snowballs, however, because the exaggeration of the risks--along with lack of coverage of the benefits--cements the perceived risks more and more firmly in newspaper editors and reporters minds. This makes them ever more reluctant to publish such stories.

While all this coverage affects the overall gun-control debate, it also directly shapes perceptions of proposed legislation. Take the upcoming debate over renewing the so-called assault-weapons ban. This past summer CNN repeatedly showed a news segment that starts off with a machine gun firing and claims that the guns covered by the ban do much more damage than other guns. CNN later attempted to clarify the segment by saying that the real problem was with the ammunition used in these guns. But neither of these points is true. The law does not deal at all with machine guns (though the pictures of machine guns sure are compelling)--and the "assault weapons" fire the same bullets at the same rate, and accomplish the exact same thing, as other semi-automatic guns not covered by the ban.

The unbalanced presentation dominates not just the media but also government reports and polling. Studies by the Justice and Treasury Departments have long evaluated just the cost guns impose on society. Every year, Treasury puts out a report on the top 10 guns used in crime, and each report serves as the basis for dozens of news stories. But why not also provide a report--at least once--on the top 10 guns used defensively? Similarly, numerous government reports estimate the cost of injuries from guns, but none measures the number of injuries prevented when guns are used defensively.

National polls further reinforce these biased perceptions. Not one of the national polls (as far as I was able to find) gave respondents an option to mention that gun control might actually be harmful. Probably the least biased polls still give respondents just two choices: supporting "tougher gun-control legislation to help in the fight against gun crime" or "better enforcement of current laws." Yet, both options ultimately imply that gun control is good.

But if we really want to save lives, we need to address the whole truth about guns--including the costs of not owning guns. We never, for example, hear about the families who couldn't defend themselves and were harmed because they didn't have guns.

Discussing only the costs of guns and not their benefits poses the real threat to public safety as people make mistakes on how best to defend themselves and their families.

John R. Lott, Jr., a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, is the author of "The Bias Against Guns" (Regnery 2003)."

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,107274,00.html

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Excellent article.

I have once used a gun to prevent myself from being attacked by a hand held weapon. It worked. I never fired a shot, but they backed off. Not worthy of news coverage tho.

On the other hand, I haven't committed any crimes with guns at all (not since the 20's at least, when I was cruising for trouble with my dad).

Bias in media coverage is seen in other areas too. Take pit bulls for instance. Actually, German Shepherds bite more people per year than any other breed. I doubt I have ever seen any dogbite stories involving any dogs other than pit bulls tho. However, how many pit bulls kept burglers or other potentially violent criminals from entering the family abode? My big fat lovable hairy dog ain't 1/10 as fierce as a pitbull, but NO ONE has even gone so far as to enter the fence, not even delivery guys, because he's big, and he barks a lot.

Finally, look at the mad cow scare. Between 1980-2000 there were about a million infected cattle in the UK. About 130 or so people died from the disease during those 20 years. ONE lousy mad cow in the US (which came from canada, btw) and there's a HUGE media hype over it. Yet every year e-coli O:151 H:7 infects estimated 73,000 and causes 61 deaths in the US** (mostly from eating undercooked hamburger, but can be transmitted other ways). These cases rarely make the news unless the burger came from an unfortunate jack-in-the-box. The flu might be the biggest danger of all, but during the mad cow scare the flu virtually disappeared from the news. An estimated 10% to 20% of U.S. residents get the flu each year: an average of 114,000 people are hospitalized for flu-related complications and 36,000 Americans die each year from complications of flu.***

So get out your hpye-o-meters when the news starts spouting off about the evils of guns.

al

* proper processing of meat should be of far more concern than the potential for mad cow disease

** stat from the cdc website

*** sentence directly quoted from cdc website

[Schneids]

[ QUOTE ]
If a news editor faces two stories, one with a dead body on the ground and another where a woman brandished a gun and the attacker ran away, no shots fired, almost anyone would pick the first story as more newsworthy.

[/ QUOTE ]
If it bleeds, it leads. The media has lost sight of what it should be doing and unfortunately does now what sells the best.

[ QUOTE ]
National polls further reinforce these biased perceptions. Not one of the national polls (as far as I was able to find) gave respondents an option to mention that gun control might actually be harmful. Probably the least biased polls still give respondents just two choices: supporting "tougher gun-control legislation to help in the fight against gun crime" or "better enforcement of current laws." Yet, both options ultimately imply that gun control is good.

[/ QUOTE ]
This is a good point and definitely a problem within American media -- journalists often feel they are presenting information without bias when in fact they are still letting their viewpoints cloud their supposed objectivity.

Take, for instance, four separate leads from stories describing the capture of the Washington Area snipers:

New York Daily News (10/25/02) -- "The Beltway snipers' three week reign of terror and one of the nation's biggest manhunts ended yesterday with the peaceful arrest of a sleeping ex-soldier and a teenager he called his stepson."

Boston Globe (10/25/02) -- "One of the most extraordinary manhunts in American history came to a peaceful conclusion yesterday with the predawn arrest of a former U.S. Army solider and a teenage companion as they slept in car at a Maryland rest stop."

ABC's World News Tonight (10/24/02) -- Peter Jennings: "Good Evening, everyone. The police in Maryland say tonight that the two men who have terrorized the Washington suburbs are behind bars."

CBS Evening News (10/24/02) -- Dan Rather: "It's over. They got them. After three weeks of murder, three weeks of terror in suburban Washington, police believe tonight they have cracked the case of the serial sniper."

From those four, it's easy to see who's looking to bring in the $$ and who is at least trying to do objective reporting. Journalists and reporters too often forget that it is their job to inform the public, and not to instill their own opinions into the public. Reporting nothing but the facts and giving a brief synopsis of 'why knowing the facts are important' (if the issue is more complicated), is what GOOD journalism is comprised of.

Even though the author and Fox did not come out and say "yes we are pro guns" (as they should have at the beginning of the article to give their own bias presentation more credibility...and therefore making it ok to make implications, since bias has been established beforehand and it is clear to ALL readers that the information being presented is not 'the only truth.'), kudos to them for at least giving this side of the fence some reporting with some facts and hard-nosed generalizations.

[MMMMMM]

Good points, Schneids2k02--and I suppose I was negligent to not note that it was on the "Views" page of Fox--even though it says so at the top of the linked page. So I think it is officially an opinion piece, even though it does seem to contain plenty of hard facts.

[Schneids]

No prob. Yeah, I didn't check out the link and didn't see it was in the Views section of their site. Though I will admit I think the article is very well-written and overall fairly factual.

[sam h]

While I agree with you that media bias exists against reporting these kind of acts of defensive gun use, I must say that this article is pretty unconvincing. The methodology behind the numbers isn't explained and unless its different than most of the previous work done in this realm - phone surveys of a few thousand people asking them if they've used a gun to defend against a crime and basically leaving it up to them to determine what that means - its pretty worthless as social science.

[andyfox]

"A man shot a pit bull that lunged to within a foot of him and his family. Police said the man's family had been repeatedly menaced in the past by the dog"

If you can show me more evidence of dogs being shot by people, I will become a pro-gun convert.

[Jim Kuhn]

Thank you very much for the informative post. It is going on my favorite list.

[HDPM]

Well Andy, I damn near had to shoot a couple of german shepherds. When I still rented I pulled up to my condo one night. A guest of a neighbor had a couple huge german shepherds that got out when the owners went drinking. When I got out of my car, they charged. So I got back in the car real fast. People who know me would be surprised at how fast I moved, but 2 attacking big dogs are good incentive. So I'm sitting there looking at these massive dogs and wondering what to do. Shoot it out in the dark sending bullets flying in a neighborhood or go away for a while and come up w/ a plan. Like most gun owners would if given the chance, I took the retreat option. because most people w/ guns are responsible enough to use them only when there is no other option.

So I wish I could give you some dog killing incentive to arm yourself, but I can't. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Ray Zee]

gee hdpm, i thought you would be in great shape from chasing all those ambulances around. it sounds like those dogs were trained well to me. if you can get the owners name i would like it as i am thinking of training a breed of lawyer attack dog. it would be a good seller.

[Diplomat]

I find these types of articles pretty funky. It's not about why the gun was fired; it's about the gun being fired at all. Is it totally necessary to use a gun to defend yourself? Even in this article there are examples where the shooter clearly did not need a firearm to defend themselves.

I think you would see fewer 'defensive' shootings if there were a lot fewer guns in general. (and correspondingly a lot fewer guns in the hands of people you would need a gun to defend yourself from)

Really, isn't the problem that the people you would want a gun to defend yourself against somehow attained guns of their own?

My two bits.

-Diplomat

[MuckJagger]

Howdy, MMMMMM ~~

Speaking as a liberal Democrat who has no problem with gun ownership (I'm originally from Maine, and Maine has many liberal Democrats and many gun owners who apparently have found some sort of way to co-exist peacefully), you should be aware that the man (John Lott) whose article you've cited to has been accused of some rather unsavory practices in the defense/promotion of his work.

http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/guns/Lott/MaryRosh

and

http://www.whoismaryrosh.com/

For those twoplustwoers not so inclined to "look stuff up," these cites link to articles detailing Mr. Lott's creation of a false identity in order to support and substantiate his work. (Mr. Lott admitted to this early last year.) The weblogs I frequent have had a field day with Mr. Lott's penchant for "making things up."

There also appears to be some evidence that *after* Mr. Lott and, um, "Ms." Rosh were outed, that Mr. Lott created yet another persona in order to post favorable reviews of his own work on Amazon and other sites.

While I believe that Mr. Lott's work shouldn't necessarily be discredited, it should be looked at with at minimum a big ol' bagful of skepticism. Perhaps his research *is* meticulous; you'd have a hard time convincing me of that given this subterfuge.

I find it not surprising in the least that this "scholar" gets a free ride from Fox News. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Muck Jagger

[andyfox]

Yes, to me the argument collapses of its own weight. If we banned or restricted guns, only the criminals would have them. Well, yes, but only if we did a bad job. We managed to land a spacecraft on Mars, getting the guns wouldn't seem impossible to do. Take all the nonviolent drug users out of our prisons and fill them up with gun users. Mandatory jailtime (despite what Mr. Rehnquist says).

[HDPM]

Hmm, yes, speaking of drug crimes and prisoners. Drugs are illegal and people get them. Then we send guys to prison for getting drugs. Then we ban drugs in prison, which is a more secure environment than the outside world is. And guess what? people in prison get drugs. So a gun ban will work. Well, no it won't.


Guns are easy to make. The technology is old. For instance, I think I posted about the recent 9th Circuit case that concerned a home made machine gun. People with tools can make guns. It isn't as hard to make a gun as it is to do a Mars landing. So even if you banned all guns, and destroyed every gun in the country today, there would be guns on the street in no time. There is no chance a ban will work.

The only thing that will work is to have humans develop to the point that violence doesn't occur. As far fetched as that idea might seem, it is probably more likely to work than a gun ban.

[Ray Zee]

and it would be so easy to do andy. just do like hitler did. search every house and beat up the people. then program their children to turn them in. this way you can be pretty sure you will get most of the guns away from the honest people.

the problem isnt the guns it is the courts that let out violent people and repeat offenders. let them first get that in hand then talk about taking away our rights and last line of protection against a violent intruder. i dont care to face him with a broom.

[Diplomat]

Ok. But why is it that the only modern democracy in the world that allows citizens to bear arms via their consititution also has the highest number of firearm deaths per annum per capita?

-Diplomat

[HDPM]

The cynical answer is because a lot of people need shooting. /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

Clearly when guns are about, those who desire to cause harm will use them. So we will have shooting deaths. I am a little different than a lot of pro-gun people because I don't get caught up in the details of the statistics. Gun crimes and accidents are a natural byproduct of a free society. I don't mind the cost. And if I am murdered by some punk w/ a hi-point I don't much care. What I care about is being able to live as a free human being. I will not be subject to tyranny. The 2d Amendment is not about hunting. It has self defense against criminals as an important byproduct. But it is about having a free citizenry. I think some of my ancestors fought in the American Revolution; they were certainly in the country then. On another side of the family, some people died in camps in a country with successful gun control. A gun control law that was copied later in the US. Well, I won't go to a camp. That's what guns are for. So I don't care if other countries have gun control. Especially certain western European democracies like say Germany.

The exercise of rights causes problems. The First Amendment causes problems. All kinds of things are reported that cause harm. Idiotic religious indoctrination causes harm. But nobody blinks at the social costs. Same should be true about the social costs of guns. The cost of getting rid of guns is much too high.

And no, I don't live in a compound. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Al_Capone_Junior]

Pretty radical views Ray. you must be from montana.

I agree completely tho.

Reminds me of the simpsons episode where homer pays bart $3 for on couch delivery of the mail. he pays bart, then bart says "hey this money isn't real, it's printed by the montana militia!" then homer says "It'll be real soon enough!"

al

[MMMMMM]

"Ok. But why is it that the only modern democracy in the world that allows citizens to bear arms via their consititution also has the highest number of firearm deaths per annum per capita?"

I recall reading that both Russia and Brazil have higher rates of criminal gun violence than does the USA. Interestingly, they both also have more restrictive gun laws.

[Zeno]

I would like to add that I generally echo HDPM’s sentiments. There are costs to liberty and freedom. Morons and hatemongers are free to publish and disseminate trash just as they are free to purchase a firearm and use it. Call it a social freedom tax if you want, but the alternative of less freedom and liberty for all would entail MUCH MORE of a social cost. Thus, I always opt for individual liberties and freedom and the free exercise thereof.

-Zeno

[Boris]

which time period are you looking at?

[MMMMMM]

"I would like to add that I generally echo HDPM’s sentiments. There are costs to liberty and freedom. Morons and hatemongers are free to publish and disseminate trash just as they are free to purchase a firearm and use it. Call it a social freedom tax if you want, but the alternative of less freedom and liberty for all would entail MUCH MORE of a social cost. Thus, I always opt for individual liberties and freedom and the free exercise thereof.

-Zeno"

Hear ye, hear ye.

[andyfox]

I think we're actually on the same page. If a criminal uses a gun in the commission of a crime, lock him up for a set period of time, no judicial discretion. (Note that the conservative Supreme Court Chief Justic Rehnquist recently spoke out against legislatures mandating minimum setences for crimes). Repeat offender, lock him up and throw away the key. If we really are serious about wanting to stop violent crime, make the penalaty severe and unyielding. There'd be both a deterrent effect and we'd rid ourselvces of the worst offenders. No need for Gestapo tactics.

[andyfox]

What we ought to do is ban the use of guns in the commission of a crime. By "banning" it I mean to make the punishment severe and certain. And to make sure guns are not used accidentally lethally, all who own them should be trained properly (which I think, for the most part, they are), and held responsible, with severe and certain punishment, if the gun is used other than for self-defense.

Drugs are addictive. Guns are not. (At least I hope not.)

[andyfox]

Indeed there are costs to liberty and freedom. But someone having the freedom to shoot you is not freedom, it is a denial of freedom for you. Government's main responsibility is to protect its citizenry. We stop for red lights even though it impedes our freedom of movement in the interest of the common good and common sense.

Guns have nothing to do with freedom and liberty. Why can't I be free and at liberty to have a tank and some weapons of mass destruction?

But I still love you.

[andyfox]

They also have societies where laws mean very little.

[andyfox]

Shooting deaths are not a natural by-product of a free society. Death is the great anti-freedom. If you are shot dead, you are being denied your freedom. Supposedly we join together in a society for the common good. We necessarily give up some individual rights. The essence of good government is to determine where the line forms.

And where does that line form on weaponry? Should we be entitled to only those arms that are necessary for a well-regulated militia? To those that are necessary to protect us from being herded into camps like your and my relatives were? Our government has weapons of mass destruction, will guns really protect us if it turned fascist?

[MMMMMM]

No matter, it still would refute Diplomat's claim regarding gun violence being highest in the U.S. amongst modern democracies.
And if you say you can't count Russia or Brazil, who is left for comparison then but the Euro-weenies, and the Asian democracies who of course have too strong a sense of work ethic and discipline and pride to embrace widespread criminal violence (gun or otherwise) on a level comparable to that in the USA. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

And didn't we before discuss and find that the rate of muggings in London now surpasses that of muggings in NYC (oh those wonderful English laws forbidding firearms, or even the carrying of any item you might use to defend yourself). This isn't rocket science, but some like to think that the way they think things ought to be is the same as the way things are. Laws restricting weapons for persponal defense don't prevent violent crime, and as Ray Zee says, I'd rather not have to use a broom to defend myself. Also how else can a frail or elderly person possibly be anything but a victim to a violent attacker if that person is denied any effective means of self-defense.

[HDPM]

To answer this post and the one above, I think we fundamentally disagree on the function of government. I do not think that the primary purpose of government is to protect citizens in a mundane day-to-day way or that we give up individual rights by forming governments. Rather, I think the function of government is to protect individual rights. So in a sense the purpose is to protect people, but I view it differently. A person should first protect himself. When that fails, a government can legitimately punish a criminal. And the government should set up civil courts so that disputes can be litigated in a civil context, if not civilly. /images/graemlins/wink.gif I think the government should have military power to provide for defense from outside invasion. But I think government's primary purpose is allowing individual rights, not in seeking some ambiguous "common good." I also think "society" is mostly a myth. It is just a lump of individuals, all with different interests. So the government does protect us, but only if its goal is the protection of individual rights. Individual rights can only flourish in a country of laws. The government should protect that, not do mundane crap like protect people from addiction or gambling or whatever. Or streal from some to provide retirement or medical care to others.

A citizenry armed only with small arms can prevent tyranny by a much heavier armed government. I have posted on this before. In a worst case scenario, how much ground can the military hold in the US? Not much. Factor in the fact the gov won't be likely to nuke its own stuff and that soldiers will desert. As before I am not advocating or hoping for the worst case scenario. Just saying it is near impossible for our military to hold ground agains a lightly armed but determined foe.

[MMMMMM]

andy if you are stabbed dead or clubbed dead it is the same damn thing.

OWNING a gun does NOT endanger your neighbors, but using it irresponsibly does. Same with OWNING a car, or using it irresponsibly.

Our government should be in the business of protecting RIGHTS. SELF-DEFENSE is a NATURAL RIGHT.



Rehgarding deterrence to tyranny: this too has been discussed on this board. The widespread ownership of guns PLUS those people in government and military and police forces who would rebel (hopefully) if government turned facist would jointly create a grand deterrent force. Also it is an impediment and deterrent to foreign invasion. Take away the right of people to own guns and you are just asking, no make that BEGGING, for a fascist government to take over at some point.

[andyfox]

Russia and Brazil don't count as modern democracies. Modern democracies, as you have often pointed out, have a respect for the rule of law. Russia and Brazil don't.

Muggings have gone down in New York City because all the smokers now have to go outside to light up and there's safety in numbers. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Strangely enough, I have used a broom to defend myself once in my life, to great effect. How about if we provide law-abiding citizens with stun guns? Or something else that will an effective self-defense mechanism for the frail and elderly without lethal results? I think we agree a more effective court/prison/punishment system would be a good start.

[andyfox]

My rights would be most protected if nobody had a gun with which to shoot me for no (good) reason.

[andyfox]

Seems to me any government, no matter how benign, involves some surrender of inidividual liberty and freedom. The better governments (like ours) do not involve onerous encroachments on liberty. The worser governments (see the article on Saudi Arabia in the current New Yorker, where, for example, music is seen as such a no-no that it is forbidden on cell phones) do involve such encroachments. The question, as I said before, is where the line is drawn. Where unlimited possession of weaponry allowed, I would think my rights would be threatened if not curtailed by whomever had the bigger weapons. Which is fundamentally how certain parts of L.A., where over 500 of my fellow Angelinos were murdered [mostly drug/gang related] last year, work.

[Boris]

I think you're overstating the case about Lott being unethical. He posted favorable book reviews under an alias on Amazon. Clearly the intent here was to sell more books and not to add any meaningful measure of credibility to his work. Amazon is a commercial book selling website so Lott is definitely guilty of shameless self promotion but that in no way is a basis for academic fraud. I should also point out, again, that Lott has been published several times in highly respected, peer reviewed academic journals. Can you say the same thing about Michael Moore? lol

[MMMMMM]

Well why couldn't they just stab you then? Less noise so less attention, too. It's actually more dangerous being mugged at knifepoint than at gunpoint as Ray Zee pointed out months ago.

[MMMMMM]

"My rights would be most protected if nobody had a gun with which to shoot me for no (good) reason."

Well why couldn't they just stab you then. Less noise so less attention, too. It's actually more dangerous being mugged at knifepoint than at gunpoint as Ray Zee pointed out months ago.

[Bill Murphy]

Far more destructive than guns. The social costs and number of deaths ain't even close.

The booze ban worked quite well the first time; I'm sure Bush & Ashcroft could do an even better job now, what w/technology and all.

[MuckJagger]

I'm not saying there's anything criminal about the guy, but how good can his stuff be if he's gotta conjure up supporters?

The following is apparently a quote from Science magazine (April 18, 2003?):

"Here is John Lott: ex-University of Chicago Law School, now at the American Enterprise Institute. His book More Guns, Less Crime claims that on 98% of the occasions in which citizens use guns defensively, the mere production of a weapon causes the criminal to desist. These data were allegedly based on some 2000 interviews conducted by Lott himself. But when pushed for the survey data, Lott gave a hauntingly familiar explanation: His hard drive had been destroyed in a computer crash. Apparently the dogs in this controversy eat everyone's homework."

Yeah, I know if my life's work and reputation were on the line, I sure wouldn't dream of having a backup copy available.

Nah, there's definitely something hinky about Mr. Lott. Choose not to believe it as you wish. Maybe he's a legitimate scholar, and everything else is just good ol' American hucksterism. All I know is I'd have a tough time separating the wheat from the baloney.

Do you consider Michael Moore a scholar, Boris? /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Mike

[Jim Kuhn]

'Take all the nonviolent drug users out of our prisons and fill them up with gun users. Mandatory jailtime (despite what Mr. Rehnquist says). '

That is the dumbest statement I have ever read on 2+2. I thought Andy was smarter than that. I am sure if our government says everybody turn in their guns we will all turn them in. We all trust that our government would always do what is right for us and never look out for PAC's, and other lobbyists - right? Andy, I have a two for one sale today on bridges. Better hurry as they are going fast. I only have two left!

Why would we want to take guns away from law abiding citizens? Why not keep criminals in jail after they are caught instead of turning them back out into our neighborhoods. I think that only sneaky criminals having guns is a great way to make society safer. I would feel much safer if I was the criminal. When they are robbing places they have nothing to worry about.

[MMMMMM]

andy, I don't think you are looking at the function of government in the best manner possible. Government exists in order to secure the rights of the individual to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. And besides providing for the common defense, that should be about it.

A gun does not endanger you any more than a car endangers you--in fact, a lot less. It's people who transgress against you, or who fail to obseve basic safety precautions when using potentially dangerous machinery, that are the problem; the problem is not inanimate objects.

[Jim Kuhn]

Very well said!

[Zeno]

Andy,

I think that we will just disagree on this issue. Which is OK. Disagreements make a good poker game and I love you still also. Others have answered your posts and I pretty much agree with M, HDPM, Ray, etc. and etc.

You may be letting your passions about this issue cloud your usual good judgment and arguments. We have been over all this ground before and sometimes I grow weary of it. The common good has been used throughout history for the purpose of curtailing and/or denying inherent freedoms and liberties and the setting up of tyrannies. Whenever I hear an official talk of the common good my skeptical meter goes up. Anyway, I have stated my position and will live and die by it. Let’s do a post and thread on Poets.

Regards as always,

-Zeno

[andyfox]

I note the hunting crowd recently caused Bush to rethink some of his more egregious environmental positions, such as repealing the endangered species act. Politics indeed makes strange bedfellows.

[MMMMMM]

"Let’s do a post and thread on Poets."

A fine idea.

By the way, I was seriously grieved (well almost;-)) when I saw that the thread "More Shelley" got no responses, and worse, drew hardly any views--while the e.e. cummings thread drew a crowd. This helps support my previously stated view that art, and appreciation of art, has overall declined greatly in the modern world. With the exception of Frost, I consider 20th century Western poets to be, generally speaking, mere jugglers and casual observers, as opposed to truly great artists. Interestingly, I recently read an essay on Frost which pointed out that his poetry is not "modern" in any sense.