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-   -   The Good Guy With A Gun Theory, Debunked (https://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=321365)

arthwollipot 10th July 2017 05:05 PM

The Good Guy With A Gun Theory, Debunked
 
I already know how this is going to end, but...

The Good Guy with a Gun Theory, Debunked

Quote:

At the heart of this campaign for the hearts, minds, and holsters of America has been an article of faith that the NRA and its allies have preached since at least the 1990s: that people enhance public safety by carrying guns to defend themselves. Economist John Lott first developed this "More Guns, Less Crime" theory in his 1998 book of the same title, and has since popularized it via frequent legislative testimony and op-eds. The NRA has deployed Lott's work to beat back calls for new curbs on guns and their use. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, when NRA leader Wayne LaPierre made his infamous assertion that the "only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," he was tapping into the already well-seeded notion that hidden guns at arm's reach of their private owners increase public safety.

It's a powerful, seductive idea, particularly to Americans who favor personal liberty over communitarian ideals. It's also completely wrong, according to a new analysis of nearly 40 years' worth of crime data.
Here are a couple more relevant quotes from the article, which you should totally go read:

Quote:

"For years, the question has been, is there any public safety benefit to right to carry laws? That is now settled," said paper's lead author, John Donohue. "The answer is no."
Quote:

Since lowering the bar for concealed-carry licenses gradually leads more people to get those licenses (Florida alone has nearly 1.8 million people permitted to carry concealed guns, and Pennsylvania and Texas each have around one million), and because more guns in public is supposed to reduce crimes, then we should expect states to see less crime as "Shall Issue" laws kick in.

The Stanford team found precisely the opposite: "Ten years after the adoption of RTC laws," they write, "violent crime is estimated to be 13-15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law."
Quote:

The problem with drawing a connection between the rise of concealed carry and the drop in the national crime rate, as Donohue and his co-authors point out, is that crime has not fallen equally in all parts of the country. Instead, the decline in violent crime has been most pronounced in states that maintained strict control over the right to carry guns, like New York and California. When other states decided to make it easier for residents to pack firearms, they appear to have missed out on reductions in crime of the same magnitude. Yes, in raw terms, crime declined in those right-to-carry states as well—but not nearly as much as it could have.
The upshot of this last point is that while violent crime statistics have been falling all over America, it has fallen more slowly in states that have "Shall Issue" laws.

Since this is a comprehensive and rigorous study, backed by forty years' worth of crime data, I expect that those members on this forum who have previously repeated the NRA's propaganda that gun ownership reduces crime to change their minds, completely recant this idea, and start arguing for greater gun control, now that we have hard scientific evidence to support it.

*beat*

Hahaha. Who am I kidding? Of course they won't.

theprestige 10th July 2017 07:08 PM

That's that, then.

Good work!

This signature is intended to irradiate people.

BobTheCoward 10th July 2017 07:28 PM

Then we're back to the obvious question, if guns don't help, should cops carry them?

Kid Eager 10th July 2017 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BobTheCoward (Post 11915370)
Then we're back to the obvious question, if guns don't help, should cops carry them?

"Obvious question???"

That's a rather odd conclusion to draw, and an even odder question.

How did you arrive at that particular thing from the data?

BobTheCoward 10th July 2017 08:04 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kid Eager (Post 11915398)
"Obvious question???"

That's a rather odd conclusion to draw, and an even odder question.

How did you arrive at that particular thing from the data?

A set of people with guns did not lower crime rates. We should check other sets of people with guns and find out if the same, or if different, why is it different.

The Great Zaganza 10th July 2017 08:57 PM

Handing out guns like candy nullifies the Monopoly of Violence that only the state, legitimized by the voters, should have.

BobTheCoward 10th July 2017 09:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza (Post 11915430)
Handing out guns like candy nullifies the Monopoly of Violence that only the state, legitimized by the voters, should have.

Even if they should have it, it doesn't mean it helps if they exercise it.

casebro 10th July 2017 09:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthwollipot (Post 11915274)
.....
The upshot of this last point is that while violent crime statistics have been falling all over America, it has fallen more slowly in states that have "Shall Issue" laws.

....

False dichotomy- what about the paces where the violent crime rate has risen?

smartcooky 10th July 2017 09:52 PM

I think you are all missing the really obvious question... has the increase in overall wealth of Americans, which has naturally lead to and increase in the number of houses with swimming pools, lead to a decrease in pool drownings?

Arth, its a nice try old chum, but you know that the "I godda hav'muh gunz" crowd will just handwave away any scientific evidence that doesn't support them holding on to things which have no purpose other than to kill people.

SezMe 10th July 2017 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by casebro (Post 11915447)
False dichotomy- what about the paces where the violent crime rate has risen?

I fail to see how the sentence you quoted leads to a false dichotomy. Perhaps you could explain it.

Thermal 10th July 2017 10:11 PM

I think that the NRA's mantra of 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun' is being twisted a little. The U.S. has more guns than people, and that genie is irrevocably out of the bottle. The CCW crowd wants to be able to legally defend themselves from a criminal with a usually illegal weapon. I would not expect the ability to respond to violence to necessarily correlate to lowered violence.

The Great Zaganza 10th July 2017 10:19 PM

Only a good guy with a swimming pool can protect you from a bad guy with a swimming pool.

Puppycow 11th July 2017 12:53 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthwollipot (Post 11915274)
I already know how this is going to end, but...

The Good Guy with a Gun Theory, Debunked



Here are a couple more relevant quotes from the article, which you should totally go read:







The upshot of this last point is that while violent crime statistics have been falling all over America, it has fallen more slowly in states that have "Shall Issue" laws.

Since this is a comprehensive and rigorous study, backed by forty years' worth of crime data, I expect that those members on this forum who have previously repeated the NRA's propaganda that gun ownership reduces crime to change their minds, completely recant this idea, and start arguing for greater gun control, now that we have hard scientific evidence to support it.

*beat*

Hahaha. Who am I kidding? Of course they won't.

Some things to point out. The article says:
Quote:

In a new working paper published on June 21 by the National Bureau of Economic Research, academics at Stanford Law School ran that data through four different statistical models—including one developed by Lott for More Guns, Less Crime—and came back with an unambiguous conclusion: states that made it easier for their citizens to go armed in public had higher levels of non-fatal violent crime than those states that restricted the right to carry. The exception was the narrower category of murder; there, the researchers determined that any effect on homicide rates by expanded gun-carry policies is statistically insignificant.
A "working paper" means a paper that has not yet been through peer review. Cite


Here is a response (from Lott himself)

One excerpt:
Quote:

Take Michigan, where Donohue claims that right-to-carry laws increased the violent crime rate by 8.8 percent. During 2015, 22 of Michigan's roughly 600,000 permit holders were convicted of violent crimes, and many of those had nothing to do with guns. Permit holders accounted for 0.053 percent of violent crime in the state. Therefore, Michigan experienced an increase in crime that was 166 times greater than permit holder’s share of violent crimes. And all this assumes that permit holders didn’t stop or deter any crimes.

For these results to be plausible, Michigan police departments would have to be missing 99.4 percent of cases where permit holders have committed violent crimes.

smartcooky 11th July 2017 01:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MostlyDead (Post 11915464)
I think that the NRA's mantra of 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun' is being twisted a little. The U.S. has more guns than people, and that genie is irrevocably out of the bottle. The CCW crowd wants to be able to legally defend themselves from a criminal with a usually illegal weapon. I would not expect the ability to respond to violence to necessarily correlate to lowered violence.

I'd like an answer to a question (if anyone knows)

Police and LEOs excluded, how many times each year does "a good guy with a gun" actually shoot "a bad guy with a gun actually doing something bad", compared with how many times a good guy with a gun

1. Accidentally discharges his gun, killing or injuring someone?
2. Accidentally discharges his gun, killing or injuring himself?
3. Intentionally shoots someone he thought was a bad guy with a gun, only for it turn out that it was actually another good guy with a gun, or someone who didn't even have a gun at all?

The Great Zaganza 11th July 2017 01:19 AM

Why exclude law enforcement?
The police deliberately doesn't keep track of shootings, which strongly suggests that we wouldn't like the data if it was available.

Also, what about someone accidentally killing a bad guy?

To quote a famous policemen:

Quote:

Commissioner Anabell Brumford: Ladies and gentlemen, I would now like to introduce a most special American. Tonight, he is being honoured for his 1000th drug-dealer killed.
Lt. Frank Drebin: [to applause] Thank you. But, in all honesty, the last three I backed over with my car. Luckily, they turned out to be drug-dealers.

smartcooky 11th July 2017 01:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza (Post 11915522)
Why exclude law enforcement?

Because I didn't want some wag to use it as an excuse for trotting out the old "if I cant have muh'guns then the cops can't have ther'guns either" chestnut.

Puppycow 11th July 2017 01:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smartcooky (Post 11915516)
I'd like an answer to a question (if anyone knows)

Police and LEOs excluded, how many times each year does "a good guy with a gun" actually shoot "a bad guy with a gun actually doing something bad", compared with how many times a good guy with a gun

1. Accidentally discharges his gun, killing or injuring someone?
2. Accidentally discharges his gun, killing or injuring himself?
3. Intentionally shoots someone he thought was a bad guy with a gun, only for it turn out that it was actually another good guy with a gun, or someone who didn't even have a gun at all?

I don't know a definitive answer, but a little googling found this Breitbart article (yeah, I know):

20 Times Bad Guys Were Stopped by Armed Citizens in 2016

They also claim that the list could have been many times longer.
Quote:

It is important to note that this list of armed citizens using guns for self-defense could have been many, many times longer than 20 examples, but we chose to keep the list concise
I assume that's not an exhaustive list, but maybe we could use it as a first approximation? It's probably a 2-digit number, maybe a 3-digit number? Maybe we can say that?

As far as accidental shootings, I don't know (did you mean only CC permit holders or all accidental shootings?)

The Great Zaganza 11th July 2017 01:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smartcooky (Post 11915530)
Because I didn't want some wag to use it as an excuse for trotting out the old "if I cant have muh'guns then the cops can't have ther'guns either" chestnut.

The reason why the German police is getting so much flak for possible brutality is that they do mostly have a Monopoly on violence.
In many ways, US law enforcement hasn't. That is why there are cases where using BearCats, tanks and multiple SWAT teams might be appropriate in some places in the US.
The logic is not that the police can't have guns - that would be stupid.
It is that it must have a clearly superior firepower, which obviously leads to escalation with laxer gun laws.
Of course, this is exactly what the gun lobby wants: sell weapons to both sides, just like any gunrunner everywhere.

arthwollipot 11th July 2017 03:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Puppycow (Post 11915532)
I don't know a definitive answer, but a little googling found this Breitbart article (yeah, I know):

20 Times Bad Guys Were Stopped by Armed Citizens in 2016

They also claim that the list could have been many times longer.

I assume that's not an exhaustive list, but maybe we could use it as a first approximation? It's probably a 2-digit number, maybe a 3-digit number? Maybe we can say that?

As far as accidental shootings, I don't know (did you mean only CC permit holders or all accidental shootings?)

20 times, huh? How many people were killed by a gun in America during that same period?

I'll tell you. According to gunviolencearchive.org (which was merely the first site I found that presented such statistics and I have no idea how reliable it is) there were 58,673 total incidents, which included 15,062 deaths - 671 of them children aged 0-11.

20 "good guy with a gun" incidents is utterly insignificant. Even if it's ten times that number, it's still insignificant, just maybe not utterly so.

casebro 11th July 2017 05:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SezMe (Post 11915458)
I fail to see how the sentence you quoted leads to a false dichotomy. Perhaps you could explain it.

The OP used the false dichotomy that there are only two relevant stats, both stats were in places where violence went down. There ought to be two more data points- where crime stayed the same, and where it went up. What were the changes in the CCW rates where crime went up?

Dr.Sid 11th July 2017 05:58 AM

Most uses of gun in self defense do not include shooting the gun. The attack typically stops when the victim shows he/she has a gun and is willing to use it.
What I see as problematic is this .. is ti acceptable to deny guns to people if state can't provide reasonable security ?

Bikewer 11th July 2017 06:33 AM

For many years (since I was a teen, at least) the NRA's publication, The American Rifleman, has published the "Armed Citizen" column monthly.
This consisted of articles culled from local newspapers by subscribers and sent in. Each article had the citations attached. They all concerned the use of weapons by citizens to protect themselves, stop criminals, or dissuade criminals from their activities.
The "Rifleman" would publish 20 or so per month.

Mind, this was only situations reported to local papers and sent in by Rifleman subscribers, very likely the incidence was actually much higher.
This has since, as you might imagine, moved online and here is but one site:

https://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/armed-citizen/

This is constantly updated and there is a considerable archive.

So, it's fairly obvious that "good guys with guns" do indeed succeed in protecting themselves or others or in stopping criminal activity, and on a fairly ongoing basis.
Now, whether these incidents are frequent enough to have an impact on crime rates on even a local level, that's unlikely.
These are isolated incidents and in the overall scheme of things, quite limited.
Still, it happens.

I don't think that it's particularly arguable that if you do have a "bad guy with a gun" situation, it is in fact the presence of good guys similarly armed (be that police or citizens) that puts a stop to the activity.
What else is going to? The so-called "mass shooter" usually continues his activities until the police arrive and then they suicide.
That so few of such individuals have been engaged by citizens is primarily a testimony to the fact that the actual percentage of citizens who are doing regular CCW is very small.

Back when Missouri was considering allowing CCW, the local papers did a very extensive research article which indicated two things. First (as this notes) the enactment of CCW in states had very little if any effect on crime rates.
But on the other hand, it also did not result in the "streets running with blood" scenarios put forth by the "against" folks.
And that's pretty much been the case here. We have a LOT of shootings here in St. Louis. Hardly a weekend goes by without a dozen or so people getting shot. These are all gang/drug related and almost all confined to a very small area of the city.
These are people to whom violence and turf wars and revenge killings are a way of life and they are indiscriminate and vicious.
Legislation will not be effective in controlling this violence, only a sea-change in the social conditions that spawn it.

It's my personal belief that those who are concerned with their own safety, and who are willing to invest the time, training, and mental training to accept the attendant responsibility, they should be able to.
Missouri just made it the case that if you can legally purchase a handgun, you can carry it. No training or permit required.
IMO.... A mistake. We'll see.

Ziggurat 11th July 2017 07:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by smartcooky (Post 11915516)
I'd like an answer to a question (if anyone knows)

Police and LEOs excluded, how many times each year does "a good guy with a gun" actually shoot "a bad guy with a gun actually doing something bad", compared with how many times a good guy with a gun

1. Accidentally discharges his gun, killing or injuring someone?
2. Accidentally discharges his gun, killing or injuring himself?
3. Intentionally shoots someone he thought was a bad guy with a gun, only for it turn out that it was actually another good guy with a gun, or someone who didn't even have a gun at all?

Your question itself is nonsensical. Why are you considering only cases where the firearm was actually discharged? Guns can have a significant effect on a situation even without being discharged. Shouldn't those cases be included too? Yes, obviously they should. So why do you want to ignore them?

Giz 11th July 2017 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthwollipot (Post 11915574)
20 times, huh? How many people were killed by a gun in America during that same period?

I'll tell you. According to gunviolencearchive.org (which was merely the first site I found that presented such statistics and I have no idea how reliable it is) there were 58,673 total incidents, which included 15,062 deaths - 671 of them children aged 0-11.

20 "good guy with a gun" incidents is utterly insignificant. Even if it's ten times that number, it's still insignificant, just maybe not utterly so.

From the 2013 CDC study (that so disappointed hoplophobes):

Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals, with estimates of annual uses ranging from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008.

qayak 11th July 2017 07:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ziggurat (Post 11915717)
Your question itself is nonsensical. Why are you considering only cases where the firearm was actually discharged? Guns can have a significant effect on a situation even without being discharged. Shouldn't those cases be included too? Yes, obviously they should. So why do you want to ignore them?

Then you have to include the times a gun was drawn in error, that is the "good guy" realised there was no actual threat to justify drawing their gun, before they discharged said gun. Common sense tells us that number would be much higher that the number of times the drawing of a gun actually led to deescalation of a situation.

Giz 11th July 2017 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Great Zaganza (Post 11915535)
The reason why the German police is getting so much flak for possible brutality is that they do mostly have a Monopoly on violence.
In many ways, US law enforcement hasn't. That is why there are cases where using BearCats, tanks and multiple SWAT teams might be appropriate in some places in the US.
The logic is not that the police can't have guns - that would be stupid.
It is that it must have a clearly superior firepower, which obviously leads to escalation with laxer gun laws.
Of course, this is exactly what the gun lobby wants: sell weapons to both sides, just like any gunrunner everywhere.

Historically, the German police having a monopoly on violence worked out so well.

Ranb 11th July 2017 07:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthwollipot (Post 11915274)
The upshot of this last point is that while violent crime statistics have been falling all over America, it has fallen more slowly in states that have "Shall Issue" laws.

I read the article and some of the links; some of which I'll read again.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/21/...-carry-states/
Quote:

While that report debunked claims that RTC laws had been shown to reduce crime, the 16 experts on the panel were not able to definitively conclude that carrying concealed weapons had an effect – positive or negative – on violent crime.
Some of their reasoning was a bit over my head. But it seems that perhaps more people need to look at their data and conclusions.

Ranb

qayak 11th July 2017 08:04 AM

This is what really happens when CC holders draw their weapons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T41M7cCqsU&t=19s

Giz 11th July 2017 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ranb (Post 11915757)
I read the article and some of the links; some of which I'll read again.

http://news.stanford.edu/2017/06/21/...-carry-states/


Some of their reasoning was a bit over my head. But it seems that perhaps more people need to look at their data and conclusions.

Ranb

Philosophically, if the evidence shows no clear effect, then I'd prefer to err on the side of more personal freedom rather than less.

Belz... 11th July 2017 08:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthwollipot (Post 11915274)
"Ten years after the adoption of RTC laws," they write, "violent crime is estimated to be 13-15 percent higher than it would have been without the RTC law."

Wait... how can they know what would've happened under a hypothetical alternate reality scenario?

Belz... 11th July 2017 08:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qayak (Post 11915745)
Then you have to include the times a gun was drawn in error, that is the "good guy" realised there was no actual threat to justify drawing their gun, before they discharged said gun. Common sense tells us that number would be much higher that the number of times the drawing of a gun actually led to deescalation of a situation.

Common sense might tell us that, but what do the numbers say?

Giz 11th July 2017 08:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argumemnon (Post 11915778)
Wait... how can they know what would've happened under a hypothetical alternate reality scenario?

Well, they haven't been through per review yet...

plague311 11th July 2017 08:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argumemnon (Post 11915783)
Common sense might tell us that, but what do the numbers say?

Hard to tell since it's all but illegal to collect real information on it. Strange, that.

Belz... 11th July 2017 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by plague311 (Post 11915806)
Hard to tell since it's all but illegal to collect real information on it. Strange, that.

Yes but it doesn't mean you get to make up the answer, does it?

The Great Zaganza 11th July 2017 08:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Giz (Post 11915747)
Historically, the German police having a monopoly on violence worked out so well.

Are you one of the people who fell for the "the Nazis disarmed all the people"-meme?
Only failed states have no monopoly on violence. It's just a question of how much violence is necessary to establish that fact.

Puppycow 11th July 2017 09:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by arthwollipot (Post 11915574)
20 times, huh? How many people were killed by a gun in America during that same period?

I'll tell you. According to gunviolencearchive.org (which was merely the first site I found that presented such statistics and I have no idea how reliable it is) there were 58,673 total incidents, which included 15,062 deaths - 671 of them children aged 0-11.

20 "good guy with a gun" incidents is utterly insignificant. Even if it's ten times that number, it's still insignificant, just maybe not utterly so.

Interestingly though, your link gives 1,917 as the number of "defensive uses". So maybe it's actually closer to 100 times that number. At the same time though there were 2,200 "unintentional shootings".

I believe, for myself at least, that it's safer to not own a gun, even if you just weigh the likelihood of an accidental shooting vs. the likelihood of preventing a crime or using it in self defense.

For better or worse though it's an American cultural thing. I don't think it's going to change.

qayak 11th July 2017 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Argumemnon (Post 11915783)
Common sense might tell us that, but what do the numbers say?

Funny you didn't ask about the numbers used when the argument was in support of CC.

And the point was made that there are no numbers so neither side is supported. I just pointed out that one side was left out of the no numbers claim.

Ian Osborne 11th July 2017 09:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qayak (Post 11915770)
This is what really happens when CC holders draw their weapons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T41M7cCqsU&t=19s

Awesome. :-)

ponderingturtle 11th July 2017 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by MostlyDead (Post 11915464)
I think that the NRA's mantra of 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun' is being twisted a little. The U.S. has more guns than people, and that genie is irrevocably out of the bottle. The CCW crowd wants to be able to legally defend themselves from a criminal with a usually illegal weapon. I would not expect the ability to respond to violence to necessarily correlate to lowered violence.

And then there are the cases like the off duty cop who was recently shot for trying to be a good guy with a gun while black. Friendly fire is the best.

Ziggurat 11th July 2017 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by qayak (Post 11915745)
Then you have to include the times a gun was drawn in error, that is the "good guy" realised there was no actual threat to justify drawing their gun, before they discharged said gun.

One could, but such cases aren't nearly as consequential. And I assume you're looking for a meaningful comparison, not simply some number to wave around.

Quote:

Common sense tells us that number would be much higher that the number of times the drawing of a gun actually led to deescalation of a situation.
Do you have any actual evidence to support this? Plenty of stuff which is claimed as "common sense" turns out to be false.


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