In Election Season, Mum's the Word about Gun Control

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Thursday, January 31, 2008

In Election Season, Mum's the Word about Gun Control

By Don B. Kates Jr.

Are this year's U.S. presidential candidates avoiding the gun issue?

Last week, San Francisco's First District Court of Appeal struck down that

city's two-year-old law that confiscated all handguns and rendered all other

guns useless by banning ammunition sales. And on March 9 of last year, a

federal court of appeals invalidated District of Columbia laws that banned

handguns and precluded keeping any gun for defense in the home. That case is

now in the Supreme Court, which many expect will hold that such laws violate

the Constitution's guarantee that law-abiding, responsible adults may have

guns to defend their homes and families.

Ironically, though these laws represent the ultimate goals of the gun

"control" (actually gun ban) movement, they epitomize that movement's

political downfall. For Democratic candidates, an Eleventh Commandment has

evolved: "Don't mention guns"-while formerly anti-gun Republicans Romney and

Giuliani now declare themselves faithful advocates of gun rights.

Democratic politicians are well aware that (as Bill Clinton himself says)

Congressional Democrats' anti-gun efforts caused the 1994 voter revolt

which-for the first time in 50 years-gave Republicans control of both houses

of Congress. Democrats regained Congress in 2006 because of the unpopularity

of the Iraq war. But generally the Democratic victors either said nothing

about guns or openly declared their support for gun rights.

Preceding or accompanying these developments, some 40 states now require

that permits to carry concealed handguns be issued to any trained,

law-abiding, responsible, adult applicant. A huge, 25-year study of crime

rates credits these laws for the 1990s' vast reduction in violent crime:

Criminals, unclear on who is armed, are afraid to attack. Instead they turn

to less dangerous crimes, such as burglarizing unoccupied homes. These

conclusions are controversial, though other studies have confirmed them. One

thing is beyond doubt, however: Contrary to what anti-gun advocates

predicted, after 5,000,000 carry permits have been issued, violent crime has

dropped dramatically-and virtually no gun-related crimes have been committed

by ordinary people with carry permits.

This result has produced a sea change in criminological opinion. As a young

criminologist, Prof. Hans Toch of the State University of New York believed

that "reducing the availability of the handgun will reduce firearms

violence." Thirty years of research later, he repudiated that: "When used

for protection firearms can seriously inhibit aggression and can provide a

psychological buffer against the fear of crime. Furthermore, the fact that

national patterns show little violent crime where guns are most dense

implies that guns do not elicit aggression in any meaningful way. Quite the

contrary, these findings suggest that high saturations of guns in places, or

something correlated with that condition, inhibit illegal aggression."

[Toch, "Research and Policy: The Case of Gun Control," in Psychology and

Social Policy, edited by Peter Sutfeld and Philip Tetlock (NY Hemisphere,

1992).]

Likewise, Prof. David Mustard wrote recently in the University of

Pennsylvania Law Review: "When I started my research on guns in 1995, I

passionately disliked firearms.... My views on this subject were formed

primarily by media accounts of firearms, which unknowingly to me

systematically emphasized the costs of firearms while virtually ignoring

their benefits. I thought it obvious that passing laws that permitted

law-abiding citizens to carry concealed weapons would create many problems.

[but research has convinced me that]...laws that require [gun carry] permits

to be granted unless the applicant has a criminal record or a history of

significant mental illness reduce violent crime and have no impact on

accidental deaths." [David B. Mustard, "Culture Affects Our Beliefs About

Firearms, But Data Are Also Important," 151 U. Penn. L. Rev. 1387 (2003).]

Thus, modern criminological research confirms the wisdom of our Founding

Fathers, who gave us our Constitution's guarantee that all law-abiding,

responsible adults may have guns for defense of their homes and families. As

Thomas Paine put it: "The peaceable part of mankind will be continually

overrun by the vile and abandoned while they neglect the means of

self-defense. The supposed quietude of a good man allures the ruffian; while

on the other hand, arms like laws discourage and keep the invader and the

plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world as well as property....

Horrid mischief would ensue were one [good people] deprived of the use of

them; ...the weak will be come a prey to the strong." [Writings of Thomas

Paine 56 (M. Conway ed. 1894).]

The issue of national defense is helping fuel the 2008 presidential election

season. But individual defense, in certain candidates' campaign speeches, is

not only easily overlooked, but judging by political history, its avoidance

actually may be in the candidates' best interest.