Date: Thu, 6 Apr 2000 13:41:53 -0700
From: apfanning@psn.net ("Alan Fanning")
Subject: [lpaz-repost] Interview with John Lott
To: lpaz-repost@onelist.com ("lpaz-repost")
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory040300b.html
4/03/00 6:45 p.m.
Yale's John Lott Says...
The bottom line should be not whether we strike a blow against the gun
industry, but what impact we are going to be having on peoples safety.
By Kathryn Jean Lopez, NR associate
editor------------lopezk@nationalreview.com
John R. Lott Jr. is a senior research scholar at the
Yale University Law School and the author of
More Guns, Less Crime:
Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws.
National Review: To a New York Times reporter, one official from the
Massachusetts attorney generals office said the new rules that went
into effect in Massachusetts on Monday "mark the sharpest blow yet to
the gun industry." How pernicious are these rules? Do you see states
lining up to follow suit?
John Lott: Its sad that they phrase it in that way, as a "blow to the
gun industry." The bottom line should be not whether we strike a blow
against the gun industry, but what impact we are going to be having on
peoples safety. I have real concerns about these rules in
Massachusetts. When they decide to essentially ban so-called "Saturday
Night Specials," inexpensive guns, like they have here, it is the poor
people in high-crime urban areas who arent going to be able to defend
themselves.
As for the impact this might have on other states, its interesting to
note that these restrictions werent part of a law that was passed. It
was, rather, an attorney general who issued these rules unilaterally. I
dont think they could pass. In fact, there have been attempts to pass
similar types of safety rules in Massachusetts--and they havent been
successful.
These rules generally whether they be effectively banning certain
types of guns or mandating "childproof locks" will create future
problems. Theres no such thing as a lock thats impossible to tamper
with. Im concerned that there will be a mandatory "tamper-proof" lock.
Then, at some point in the future, someone will discover that the lock
can be tampered with, so there will be legal action against companies
that are selling the guns with the locks. The [government] will say,
"Did you realize that this lock was not tamper-proof?" And the gun
manufacturers will say, "Yes." But theyll face violations of the law
for having sold the guns even though they knew that their guns were not
able to stand up to this "tamper-proof" standard. I think that whats
largely going on here is an effort to raise the price of guns, make it
impossible to sell many types of guns if not handguns completely and
make it so that over time the number of law-abiding citizens who own
guns will decline, and make it easier for more stringent rules to pass
in the future.
NR: In one news story, the author ends the article by explaining that
"less than of all handguns models have load indicators or magazine
disconnects." And then it says that a "GAO study of accidental shootings
found that 30 percent of them could have been prevented with the
devices." Is it disingenuous to throw out numbers like that?
Lott: The author is referring to a GAO study that was done during the
early 90s when the Democrats were in control of Congress. Youve got to
multiply these percentages by the numbers that are involved. Lets say
even if I accept 30 percent which, to be honest, I have a hard time
believing--there are two things to bear in mind: First of all, the GAO
study said that gun locks were only reliable in stopping accidental
shootings for children under the age of seven. Now, the number of
accidental gun deaths for children under the age of seven is actually
very small. Theres no direct breakdown for six-year-olds and under, but
there is a breakdown for under age five. And for children under age five
in 1996, there were 17 accidental gun deaths in the United States. So,
lets say 30 percent of those 17 would have ben eliminated, well then
youre talking about something like six. Thats important. It would be
nice to eliminate those. When youre talking about handguns, youre only
talking about a couple that are identified as involving handguns. So, it
s not even clear how many of those you can get rid of. Secondly, I don
t really think the GAO study went into whos firing these guns. Even
when youre talking about young children dying, its rarely a young
child who is firing the gun. Its almost always somebody who is in their
twenties or who is an alcoholic or a drug addict or somebody who has a
history of arrest for violent crimes. I have a hard time understanding
how if you impose these rules--if I have a lock on the gun how its
going to stop somebody who is in their twenties who is an adult from
firing his own gun. Surely they are going to be the ones who are going
to be able to unlock them.
Finally, the studies out there that have looked at either the
accessibility of guns or storage rules for guns don find an impact on
accidental gun deaths. The main reason for that in particular with
regard to the storage law--is that the type of people that these laws
would affect, law-abiding citizens, are the ones for whom the risk of an
accidental gunshot involving a child is essentially zero to begin with.
The types of families where you are likely to see something bad occur
are the ones which have drug problems or other criminal activities going
on. I dont really think you are going to be able to affect their
behavior very much by passing these laws. When you look at the
safe-storage laws you have in 17 states now in the United States, they
had increases in violent crime occurring after the passage of those
laws--because they made it more difficult for people to be able to
defend themselves. It seemed to be of no benefit in terms of reducing
accidental gun deaths. My concern is, what is the net effect on deaths?
Even if one believes there might be some small impact the people that
keep on arguing that are talking about just a few deaths a year.
NR: At last weeks annual Childrens Defense Fund conference, just about
every main event was prefaced with the same rallying cry to "stop the
violence." It became chant-like by the end of the weekend that 12 kids
die every day because of guns. How dangerous is this kind of talk?
Lott: Its very dangerous, because it causes people to think that having
guns around the home is much more dangerous than it actually is. I think
that causes people to make mistakes that endangr their safety.
President Clinton has mentioned this claim over and over in the last
month after the Kayla Rowland death in Michigan, essentially using the
number of deaths per day as a justification for trigger locks. What he
doesnt point out, and what is misleading about this, is that when you
look at the public-service ads that the Clinton administration has put
out within the last couple of years they have pictures or voices of
young children, who are under ten always, usually seven or eight years
old. Thats the impression that people get that these are these young
kids that are dying when they talk about these 11 or 12 deaths per day.
The problem is that that is a complete misrepresentation, because about
70 percent of those deaths involve 17,- 18-, and 19-year-olds. The
deaths that they have are for people under the age of 20. The 17-, 18-,
and 19-year-olds are primarily homicides in high-crime urban areas,
primarily involving gangs. To go and argue that trigger locks are going
to be relevant in stopping 19-year-old gang members from getting into a
gang fight in an urban area seems bizarre to me. When you break down the
numbers to correspond to the images that people are trying to make, you
find that just a little bit over 2 percent of the deaths involve
children under the age of 10. Thats a significant 2 percent, but its
probably a lot smaller than people are getting the impression of when
they hear these claims bandied about. I think its sad that they have to
go and distort these numbers.
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