Guns, Privacy, and Crime
nber.org
nber.org
To be honest, I was more comfortable that none of my a-hole neighbors were armed, because they would have pulled a gun on you for leaving out the rubbish an hour too early or talking to loudly after 8pm.
It would go like this: 1) I leave trash out 2) Neighbor yells and pulls out gun 3) I put up trash 4) I call police, neighbor is arrested and gun is taken away forever.
I think there’s a perception of “crazy people owning guns” means they are just randomly doing things. Gun owners are typically pretty responsible or self-destructive.
Half the US owns guns and there aren’t many crimes percentage wise. So the vast, vast majority just never do stuff with their gun.
The actual argument is about the extreme outliers who murder people and commit mass shootings. There’s 20M firearm homicides [0] so that’s still super rare as a rate but the impact of each event is super impactful.
"Doesn't" is a strong word:
* https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/colorado-cop-who-pulled...
* https://www.fox4now.com/news/local-news/cape-coral-resident-...
> I think there’s a perception of “crazy people owning guns” means they are just randomly doing things. Gun owners are typically pretty responsible or self-destructive.
The problem is there is no filter in the US for the people that are not "pretty responsible or self-destructive." Just about any rando can get a gun in many states.
> The actual argument is about the extreme outliers who murder people and commit mass shootings.
No, it's about the 'background noise' of destruction that is on proverbial page 17 of the newspaper:
> A member of our well regulated militia allows a juvenile access to a loaded gun. The juvenile brings the gun to the home of a 14 year old friend, who shoots himself in the head unintentionally. He doesn’t survive.
* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/15183659425894113...
> A member of our well regulated militia moves a loaded gun from a bedroom to a bathroom, then leaves it there. Her 6 year old son finds the gun when he goes to take a shower and shoots himself in the head. He does not survive.
* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/15229931050662502...
> A (drunk) member of our well regulated militia spots her neighbor grilling burgers, so she walks over and points a handgun at his face and says "bang bang." When police arrive at her home, she points a cane at them and pretends it's a long gun.
* https://twitter.com/Well_Regulated_/status/15158166918082273...
See also:
If everyone was armed then society's short-fused lunatics are the ones most likely to misjudge a situation and start shooting first over something trivial.
Goes a long way to explaining most shootings by the police too.
What’s “commit” here? Accusation, conviction, something else?
Gun crimes are so much more prevalent in the US vs practically any other developed country. Usually by leaps and bounds. Australia used to have around 20% of US gun death rate for years. In 1996 they introduced strict gun control laws. Decline in gun deaths was gradual, but over some 15 years they went down by some 70%.
Gun control can work.
Gun deaths worldwide fell precipitously during that same time frame, including in the US. 1994 was the peak of gun violence, and fell almost every years since then until the BLM riots and the ACAB crowd scared cops out of doing their job.
Australia is a highly ambiguous example of gun control success for numerous reasons.
It's also worth noting that the funding and law enforcement capacity to disarm the US were stringent gun control legal is borderline impossible, if not just impossible, from a purely mathematical perspective when compared to things the like the war on drugs and considering the sheer number of guns owned.
the 90's were not the same at 2009 and not the same as 2021 by many means.
I just searched : https://www.startpage.com/do/dsearch?query=Pittsburgh+2008+w... - and even the left wing news is saying that gun rights folks are accurate in that most gun crime is committed by non-legal-firearms owners, like 8 out of 10.
It's a weird stat to consider anyhow. In my experiences, many crimes are not officially reported, and many are not reported completely - so all that is screwed anyhow. There is no way to know how many crimes are committed in each city with illegal gun possessors.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/crime-law/2018/09/21/you-pull...
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/artic...
https://www.pnj.com/story/news/crime/2022/03/04/three-charge...
https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/lake-county-man-shot-kille...
https://www.waaytv.com/news/update-man-shot-accidentally-in-...
Etc.
Unholstering or otherwise displaying a firearm is assault by definition unless there’s a justifiable reason to do so.
Edit: re: assault: https://www.findlaw.com/criminal/criminal-charges/assault-an... “In most states, an assault or battery is committed when one person physically strikes or attempts to physically strike another, or when they act in a threatening manner to put another in fear of immediate harm.”
Brandishing alone could be considered an assault I suppose, but I don't really see that much in case law. I think because its pretty rare for somebody to brandish a weapon with intent to harm and then not follow up with further criminal actions.
Surely other factors could contribute to make such a situation more or less a threat - things said, or even a particular location compared to another.
I understand the GP comment person feels that such a thing is threatening, but I disagree with the blanket statement there too.. someone holding a firefarm does not mean they intend to, or are threatening to use it, imho..
just like someone pulling a phone out of their pocket and holding towards the ground does not mean they are going to call 911 - now that would be different if they pulled it out and said they were going to call.. but the act of pulling it out of one' pocket and holding it doesn't not imply they are going to use it for nefarious purposes in of itself.
Although I would consider them more ready to - and therefor deserving more acute attention and awareness.
Not a lawyer so I don't know for sure.. I just feel that someone holding a firearm in a downward position is not a direct threat like someone pointing it at a person - which then becomes brandishing / illegal in most circumstances afaik.
* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saQ72NZtrS0
Never ending:
I thought the major pro-gun argument was that criminals don't care for law? You know, the whole "If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns" thing. (Which is also patently false, by the way. Criminals in Germany usually don't have guns.)
Um, that doesn't invalidate "If you outlaw guns only outlaws will have guns".
∀ gun-holder | gun-holder ∈ criminals
∃ criminal | criminal ∉ gun-holder
∀ criminal | criminal ∈ gun-holder
BTW in general I think we should have some saner restrictions on firearms in the US even if we have to amend the BOR to do it. But I will concede that the abundance of legal firearms will be challenging to suddenly prohibit and could certainly flourish among criminals. I'd like to consider your argument but "Criminals in Germany usually don't have guns" doesn't help much.
anyway the saying is still true - outlaw X and only outlaws will have X - just like we outlawed drugs and have had a big expensive war on them for a long time - they are outlawed and wow, outlaws have them.
Sure you'd see some street crews using guns less if very few people had them, but you'd defeinely have gangs that had guns, there's just too much money in the game, and you already have supply chains getting kilos of other things to you that are not supposed to exist in the country.
Also if the criminal groups in Germany had Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador and their neighbors a train ride away, they would absolutely be using guns more imho.
Every place on earth is apples to oranges when trying to compare the situation in the US in regards to these interconnected issues.
There is a chance I could beg for charity at Vanderbilt to donate $10,000 hemophilia treatments (of which it may take several for days) to keep me from nonstop internally bleeding to death - and there is a chance it would prevent death and just keep me in excruciating pain physically, mentally and emotionally instead of complete death.
There is a chance I could get charity to live through it, although I put the chances at less than 50%. There are other possible outcomes - partial treatment, and lawsuits over the hospital bills, and doctor bill. I would likely try to skip the hospital, apply ice every other 10 minutes and try to meditate my blood to flow slower. This could lead to nerve damage, and PTSD plus, but maybe not death.
Frankly I'd rather them have a gun or knife and let things get decided faster.
Many of the women I know would rather have the option to be armed to prevent twisted arms, and threats of severe violence.
However I can understand that there are people int he world who would rather be at risk of mugging via force to prevent their neighbors from having firearms. I do think this varies much depending on the amount of localized violence and is likely different for the folks living in nice parts of the world then people who live in cheaper parts of the world / cities.
I've also never thought when walking through New Orleans, SE D.C., or Memphis or St Louis that if one was to engage in a physical altercation with 'thugs' - that a simple 'twisted arm' would be the result.
Wish I had the resources to poll the locals to know how many of them think that would be a common result.
I understand things are different in different places, maybe parts of Germany and Russia have strong guys that twist arms and they get compliance. I would not expect that around here.
Edit: If I’m somehow wrong I respectfully ask that you please correct me.
I found some of the Berliners/Germans near where I lived (less affluent part of the city) to be very quick to extreme anger over any perceived social slight, amplified more so if done by an obvious foreigner like myself.
Mostly it's these older guys, who grew up in a totally different culture, and absolutely it's only a tiny fraction overall.
For example, I read this only today, and it really resonated with what I (very very occasionally) experienced.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/22/in-no-city-hav...
Come on man. This is a stupid stereotype.
To relate to the initial post, it is also very wrong that only police and the most dangerous parts of organized crime are armed. Germany has masses of inherited guns. They are just not visible. Breaking and entering are also a very real and common thing, although focused on when the owners are (presumed) away.
[0] No seriously, this guy puts up intentionally inflammatory yard signs.
Aside from that I also caught a stray bullet in the hand when I was 15. I was in the woods, it was hunting season, I should have known better, etc etc. Hundreds of miles of beautiful nature that it was my fault I was injured while exploring.
The rural american attitude towards guns is indefensible. It just is. I'm as much a product of that culture as anyone, and in some ways as country as they come. But the problem isn't "crazy people" it is the guns.
Case closed! Damn, all that time wasted arguing. lol
Same here, rural America Deep South: Most people I know are armed and concealed carry almost all the time. In over 4 decades here, I have never seen a person even brandish a weapon.
Almost all international statistics on gun ownership and gun violence in developed countries show a direct relationship between the two...at least until you take out the largest outlier, the United States. Then that relationship completely disappears.
Because you aren't more likely to die because more people own guns. You're more likely to die when your neighbors are poor. A more rigorous approach, which keeps the US "outlier" but also doesn't discard developing countries shows an extremely strong relationship with crime: poverty. Specifically the number of people living below the poverty line. The US, despite it's level of wealth and development, has a huge poverty problem, and that poverty problem turns into violent crime problems in the US just like it does literally everywhere else in the world.
Your neighbors in Austria, Finland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Norway have figured it out: actual functioning gun regulation that still liberally allows for gun ownership (even scary assault weapons!), but stronger emphasis on a well functioning economic society. It's quite a bit ironic that the gun control policies that the US left so vigorously pushes for won't really have a measurable effect, but the poverty-reduction measures that they have all but abandoned actually would. I really wish they could be steered in the right direction, but I've given up hope.
there are no more guns in austrian cities than there are in germany, or as far as i could tell, anywhere else in europe. maybe more people in the country side have guns because they use them for hunting. a lot of guns are also used for sport. you would only see those on shooting ranges. otherwise they are locked away.
i do agree with the idea about poverty. that makes a lot of sense and is sometimes that can and should be addressed.
Edit: Would it be different if the publication didn't bin by zip code?
If no one answers and no dog barks..
Anecdotally, was in Nashville for a work training event at a Fairfield near the new Grand Ol’ Opry.
Of the 2 dozen attendees, all with anything remotely “gun” suggestive had their trucks burglarized at the hotel. Several lost weapons during the burglaries.
Would you prefer that they take them into the business, regardless of whether it is posted to not allow carry?
One being that we currently can not (currently legally) use deadly force to protect property like they can in Texas..
Although the desire to change that is changing bit by bit every week as hundreds of cars are broken into every week (and have been).
Two is that cops here have not pursued car break-ins very well imho. Even when you call them with video evidence, a license plate, full description of act in progress.. crickets.. everyone knows this - and it makes it worse.
I went to a MNPD meeting a couple years ago and they had proof that criminals were targeting two particular locations in the area in which the business had the TSA thing Posted saying you have to leave guns in your car, can't being them in.
Another factor is that juveniles have particular high reward and low risk of punishment. Everyone knows it - and they use it to their advantage a lot. There's nest cam video of one woman following her kids in her car while they hit car after car / house after house.
Every other week the cops put our a report saying lock your car, so many guns stolen this week - blah blah.. it's like they are blaming the victims instead of helping to do more policing.
This isn't a dig at the cops - I get it, they are understaffed, have lots of priorities and even when they catch people they often do no time.. so why go chasing after some kids that are likely to shoot back at you (which they did to some cops about 18 months ago or so)
Yes other reasons include that there are lots of guns in and around Nashville. So the odds of getting one when you break into a car are higher than in NY or Frisco I guess.
Another thing is that gun safes for a car are not optimal at this time. Sure if you have a one of the few vehicles they make direct fit safes for, you can spend a couple bills and get a good one - but we need better options.
There are of course many other factors, income inequality and so many other things of course, it's a long list, I hate to see people try to point at any one thing and say 'yeah if that then this would't be a thing' -
So I've been brainstorming this now again for a while, and chatted with an auto-body shop guy for a bit and am thinking of a combination of an existing safe option that is around 20 bucks combined with a metal U that goes around the part of the passenger seat thing and locks similar to a clamp on cables like a dog runner - this kind of thing could make a huge impact and I should spend some more time on it.
Contrary to some popular rhetoric, people with guns effectively never stop crimes in progress.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/intruder-shot-in-armed-...
Have you considered the possibility that your media sources intentionally withhold such news cases such that you’ve evidently been left with a confused view of the reality?
The idea that having a gun in our home is ample protection from a burglar, for instance, is rooted in an egotistical vision of ourselves saving the day from the bad guy. Not any sort of reality. It happens, but it is exceedingly rare and you’re much more likely to have that gun stolen or injure someone by accident than you are to stop a home invader.
disagree that they never stop crimes. many of the times they stop crimes they are not reported, and even if reported would not make it to any stats.
It's easy to see this if you just think of the hundreds of stops each day in every city in which an armored car pulls up to get money. Literally hundreds of times every day people with guns are preventing crime that would be progress.
https://www.tn.gov/safety/tnhp/handgun/eligibilityrequiremen...
Even so I recommend getting a permit because carrying a lethal weapon is an awesome responsibility and needs to be treated with respect. The classes teach much useful knowledge.
On one hand, the state shouldn’t block one’s civil rights because one is disabled.
On the other hand, blind gun-owner.
How can a blind person shoot a gun in a responsible way?
Don’t be simple-minded. Blind people can shoot a gun responsibly the same as anyone else: be sure of your target and what’s behind it. Yes, that’s more difficult for persons that have impaired or even no usable vision, but knowing many legally blind persons I can assure you that they are responsible firearms owners.
How?
People who aren’t blind have the same exact considerations, except they orient themselves with vision, whereas the blind use their other senses.
Edit: Also legally blind != completely blind.
Provided you have someone pointing you in the right direction and making sure that downrange is clear, there's nothing wrong with this.
Or alternatively, the same exact thing you’d do as a responsible gun owner who was not blind.
We find that burglaries increased in zip codes with fewer gun permits, and decreased in those with more gun permits, after the database was publicized.
So to reduce my chances of house robbery just get a gun permit. You don't even need to own a gun and all the hazards that come with it.
Or if you're looking where to live, move to a zipcode with fewer gun permits so you can worry less about a stray round coming from a neighbor's house.
I mean, if you're going to rob someone, it's often better if they're not armed.
[Edit] I forgot about the "good and bad neighbourhood" thing that is present in some US cities. I mean, all cities everywhere have rough neighbourhoods or estates; but I was shocked when I first arrived as a guest, to be advised: "Don't cross the road at the end of the block, that's a bad neighbourhood".
I wonder how permit levels correlate with the "good/bad" ranking of a neigbourhood.
Any statistics on how often this happens? Feels like a “shot by a swimming dog” scenario.
About 48 results (0.32 seconds)
It looks like there aren't many great matches for your search
If, say, a neighbor did try to stop a robbery by shooting at the perpetrators, and in the process a bullet hit a neighboring home, that would probably be reported as a "shootout" or an "act of heroism" or something, not a "stray bullet".
Arguments and differences escalating to shoot outs.
Sounds like Utopia... in the 5th circle of hell.
I also do not think lethal force is the primary reducer of crime for a country, I think it has more to do with social safety net available and income inequality and things like that - and guns won't help with those factors.
Then of course you have to add El Salvodor, Honduras and their neighbors being a free train ride away to the mix.
One thing to reduce violent crimes is not going to stop all crime anywhere, especially here.
You may wish to actually look up the Heinlein quotation and its context:
> To begin with, the quote isn’t a Heinlein quote any more than “I seen that black n****** yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!” is a Harper Lee quote. The “polite society” line comes from a Robert Heinlein character in the novel Beyond This Horizon. That character is a privileged product of generations of eugenics. He lives in a society where genetic manipulation has extended lifespans and overpopulation is a prime concern. In that world, dueling has been re-introduced not because it makes people “polite” but because it kills people. And the character likes it because he believes it specifically kills those lesser people, those genetically inferior people, who need to be weeded out to make room for the übermensch to thrive.
* https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/9/2/1881430/--An-armed...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_This_Horizon#In_popular...
Further:
> There are two problems with this line of thought. First, there is plenty of evidence that it is not true. Second, even if it were true, we shouldn't settle for this kind of "politeness."
* https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/ethics-everyone/2022...
When you live in a society without guns everywhere, the notion that law-abiding citizens don't need and don't want guns is just plain obvious, like "water is wet and the wind blows". Civilized life is life with low crime so you don't need guns. They're far more trouble than solution.
But talk an American talk about gun control and they go full crazy on "socialist tyranny" and "from my cold dead hands!". They just can't grasp it.
We have no defence against the government and its agents. You may think the government is benign - I do not.
I could ignore government a lot easier, and its abilities to write special laws to sanction it doing whatever it likes, if I had the ability to defend myself.
So, you and I had better convince ourselves that the government really does have our interests at heart, because we have no other options.
Oh, I am sorry to hear that. In both my native (Portugal) and adoptive (Canada) country we do have defences: votes, freedom of assembly and speech, passports,...
They're far more effective than guns.
But, as long as the governance system has you convinced its a good thing, it's all fine.
Non-violent civil resistance has greater odds of working than violent resistance.
Over the last century movements that used violence only succeeded about 25% of the time, and generally resulted in autocratic regimes when they did. Non-violent movements succeeded about twice as often, and generally resulted in non-autocratic systems afterwards (main exception probably being Iran).
See the book Why civil resistance works by Chenoweth which does a review of the literature.
Never met wolves, but did meet a lot of bison, moose, elk and even one black bear.
But a disclaimer, I was carrying a bear spray/pepper spray can. You might think that qualifies as a gun...
How?
>it's still legal to enslave prisoners
You mean other countries just let prisoners go free, or what are you getting at? Other countries don't have work farms for prisoners?
> How?
USA had slave soldiers up to 1973. And it could happen again.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_the_United_Sta...
Interesting find. Although this doesn't mean guns prevent burglaries just by mere presence. And if anything it ends in bloodshed because thieves get shot at upon a breach and it's not necessarily a safer scenario.
> after the database was publicized
It seems they couldn't confirm if burglaries were prevented or merely moved the burglaries to low gun zipcodes, but they felt they had weak evidence for a drop in burglaries in total
> In Kennesaw, Georgia, local law says that “every head of household residing in the city limits is required to maintain a firearm.” “If you're going to commit a crime in Kennesaw and you're the criminal – are you going to take a chance that that homeowner is a law-abiding citizen?” asked Kennesaw Mayor Derek Easterling
https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/06/us/kennesaw-georgia-gun-owner...
Further exempt from the effect of this section are those heads of households who are paupers or who conscientiously oppose maintaining firearms as a result of beliefs or religious doctrine, or persons convicted of a felony.
It’s safer overall if it means there are fewer people willing to rob a home, whether it’s because (1) they’ve seen what happens to other people when they try, or (2) they themselves tried, and now cannot try again.
I definitely attribute the lack of household break ins to be a correlated to the number of gun households. Areas with a high degree of gun ownership and castle laws, there is a pretty big deterrent to the criminal to find their prey elsewhere. Just too much risk for the minimal rewards you find in most homes.
You can still claim a lot of things, but not that.
Though as to why burglaries went down, I wonder if people got more alarm systems or took other deterrent countermeasures after the database was published?
[1] A DOJ special report PDF https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/vdhb.pdf
You need more information beyond that to assess -- e.g. are people living in remote areas or next to a police officer?
Sounds like we need to make it easier to obtain suppressors so that the victim's guns do not blind or deafen them as much.
If you break into my obviously occupied house, then you aren't doing it to steal $100 of shitty electronics.
Put another way, you saw that my dwelling was occupied and felt that made it more of a good target than any of the other houses around me.
I don't use lethal force to protect stuff. I use lethal force to protect my family.
I think you may mean that a socioeconomic factor could be responsible for the correlation.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-...