More Guns Less Crime by John Jr (best free e book reader .txt) 📕

when gun-carrying adults are physically present, they may able to protect some youngsters in threatening situations.

Could some other factor be lowering the juvenile murder rate— something that is unrelated to concealed handguns? Perhaps, despite all the factors accounted for, the results of any research may be affected by unknown factors. But it is wrong to conclude, as Ludwig does, that "these findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that shall-issue laws decrease crime through a deterrence effect." 34

16 Are changes in the characteristics of victims consistent with the theory?

Lott and Mustard offer data on the character of victims in homicide cases. They report (astonishingly) that the proportion of stranger killings increases following the enactment of right-to-carry laws, while the proportion of intrafamily killings declines. That right-to-carry laws deter in-trafamily homicides more than they deter stranger homicides is inconceivable. (Albert W. Alschuler, "Two Guns, Four Guns, Six Guns, More: Does Arming the Public Reduce Crime?" Valparaiso University Law Review 31 (1997): 369)

Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Prevention Center noted that most murders are committed by people who know each other. "Concealed-weapons laws are not passed to protect people from people they know," Sugarmann said. (Doug Finke, "Sides Stick to Their Guns, Concealed-Carry Bill Set for Showdown in General Assembly," Springfield State Journal-Register, March 31, 1997, p. 1)

As noted in the first chapter, the category of acquaintance murder is extremely broad (encompassing shootings of cab drivers, gang members, drug dealers or buyers, and prostitutes or their clients). For the Chicago data that we discussed, the number of acquaintance murders involving friends was actually only a small percentage of the total number of acquaintance murders. If the breakdown found for Chicago provides even

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the remotest proxy for the national data, it is not particularly surprising that the relative share of acquaintance murders involving friends should rise, because we expect that many of the murders in this category are unlikely to be affected by law-abiding citizens carrying concealed handguns. Family members may also find that concealed handguns protect them from other estranged family members. A wife seeking a divorce may find that a concealed handgun provides her protection against a husband who is unwilling to let go of the relationship, and attacks by such people do not always take place in a home. Surely there are many cases of spousal abuse where women fear for their lives and find that a handgun provides them with a significant degree of protection.

A recent case involving a woman who used a handgun to protect herself from an abusive husband created an important new legal precedent in California: for the first time, women are now allowed to use self-defense before they suffer serious blows. The San Francisco Examiner reported as follows:

[Fay] Johnson, a 47-year-old mother of four, said that on July 2, 1995, she feared her 62-year-old husband, Clarence, would beat her as he always did after a weekend of drinking and hanging out with his motorcycle buddies.

She had overspent her budget on supplies for a Fourth of July barbecue and didn't have dinner ready, and the house was not clean—so when she heard her husband's motorcycle pull into the driveway, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Johnson said she grabbed a loaded gun ... [and fired, ] hitting her husband five times. He survived and testified against her. She was arrested and spent 21 months in prison until her acquittal.

"I regret being in jail, but I just wouldn't tolerate it anymore," said Johnson, a friendly, articulate woman who is celebrating her freedom with her children and six grandchildren. "It would have been suicide."

Johnson said she had endured nearly 25 years of mental and physical abuse at the hands of her husband, whose usual form of punishment was slamming her head into a wall. The beatings got so bad, she said, that she had to be hospitalized twice and tried getting counseling until he found out and forced her to stop. She said the pressure of the abuse had culminated that fateful day. 33

Pointing to women who use handguns to protect themselves from abusive husbands or boyfriends in no way proves that the primary effects of concealed-handgun laws will involve such uses of guns, but these cases should keep us from concluding that significant benefits for these women are "inconceivable."

With reference to Alschuler's discussion, however, two points must be

made clear. First, the diverse breakdown of these groupings makes it difficult to predict on theoretical grounds how the number of murders among family members, acquaintances, strangers, or unknown cases should necessarily change relative to each other. Second, as Alschuler himself has noted, these estimates are suggestive; they are not statistically significant, in that we cannot say with much certainty how concealed-handgun laws have affected the proportions of victims across the categories mentioned above.

An additional response should be made to Sugarmann's claims. Even if one accepts the claim that nondiscretionary concealed-handgun laws do not reduce the number of murders against people who know each other (and I do not concede this), what about other types of murders, such as those arising from street robbery? For Chicago during the period from 1990 to 1995, 16 percent of all murders involved nonacquaintance robbery. Moreover, one must ask about nonfriend acquaintance murders (excluding prostitution, gang, and drug cases), murders by complete strangers, and at least some of those murders still classified as mysteries (an additional 22 to 46 percent of all murders). Since permitted handguns are virtually never used in crimes against others and they do not produce accidental deaths, should not the reduction of these other types of murders still be deemed important? 36

17 Do nondiscretionary concealed-handgun laws only affect crimes that occur in public places?

Handguns were freely available for home and business use in all the "shall-issue" jurisdictions prior to the new laws. The new carrying privilege would thus not affect home