Guns Put Children, Women At Greatest Risk

I wrote this for the Cap Times on 3/15/2004 when I was a monthly op-ed contributor.  If I could format a boxed inset, it would include these grafs:

Simply put: for every time a gun in or around the home was used in self-defense, or in a legally justified shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides. 

     That's one self-defense shooting for 22 accidental, suicidal or criminal shootings -- hardly support for the notion that having a gun handy makes people safer.
 

    Other studies show that women and children are disproportionately the victims of such gunshots, and that when children commit suicide, guns in their home or at their friends or relatives' homes are used.



GUNS MAKE US LESS SAFE

     Gov. Jim Doyle's barely sustained veto of the bill to legalize the carrying of concealed weapons in Wisconsin guarantees that the gun lobby will push even harder for the right to put guns in wider circulation.

 
     Proponents and their mouthpieces in the Legislature have pledged to sweep opponents of concealed carry out of office. It's important for the opponents to hone their message because the National Rifle Association and pro-guns groups in Wisconsin have made concealed carry a top priority.


     One of the problems with the recent debate was its focus on whether states that have concealed carry laws have seen declining crime rates. Both sides cited studies that showed crimes either declining or increasing in concealed carry states.


     But there is no uniform scientific method to study crime occurrence, rates and trends. Time frames, databases, definitions and outside variables differ from state to state and from study to study, and the result is a fight among experts without a clear winner.


    The opponents of concealed carry, however, do have one irrefutable statistical and argumentative advantage. So remember these two questions and one number, and make it the core of opposing concealed carry:


     Q. Do guns that are available for self-defense make people safer?


     A. No.


     Q. How much less safe?


     A. 22 times less safe.


     A gun in the home -- thus available for self-defense -- is 22 times more likely to be used in an assault or homicide, an accidental shooting or a suicide or attempted suicide.


     Researchers reached this conclusion by studying hospital admissions, emergency medical technician reports, police and medical examiner files in 626 shootings in or around a residence in three cities: Galveston, Texas; Seattle, Wash.; and Memphis, Tenn., for between 12 and 18 months.


    The study was published in The Journal of Trauma, Injury, Infection and Critical Care, in August 1998, by Dr. Arthur Kellerman of Emory University in Atlanta and four other authors. Their study was supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


    In those shootings studied by Kellerman and the co-authors, only 13 were in self-defense or were legally justifiable, and that included three shootings by law enforcement officers acting in the line of duty.


    By contrast, 54 shootings were unintentional, 118 were attempted or completed suicides, and the vast majority of these shootings -- 438 -- were assaults or homicides.

 
     Simply put: for every time a gun in or around the home was used in self-defense, or in a legally justified shooting, there were four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.

     That's one self-defense shooting for 22 accidental, suicidal or criminal shootings -- hardly support for the notion that having a gun handy makes people safer.


    Other studies show that women and children are disproportionately the victims of such gunshots, and that when children commit suicide, guns in their home or at their friends or relatives' homes are used.


    These facts, the sad headlines, and the huge medical bills and family traumas behind them, are even more numbing when you consider that guns kept at home are supposed to be locked away to prevent their misuse.

    Common sense would dictate that a lethal weapon be kept secure and unavailable, but the rates of accidental and suicidal shootings suggest these guns are not kept under lock and key.


    Instead they are readily, and recklessly and painfully, available to the wrong hands -- which Kellerman and his colleagues showed happens -- by a factor of 22.


     Now consider that the gun lobby wants to make it legal to bring some of these guns out of the house, without a closet door or trigger lock to prevent their accidental or criminal use, and into the stresses and surprises of everyday life.

    Put those guns in someone's pocket, or in the car, or a briefcase, backpack or purse and you logically increase the likelihood that there will be an accidental or wrongful discharge. Such as a split-second and irrevocable pull of a trigger in response to a perceived threat or in a moment of road rage.


   Or when someone is handed a pink slip. Or in a domestic argument after one too many beers.

    * The core of the argument for concealed carry is that guns make people safer. The presence of guns in the home -- by a factor of 22 on the wrong side of the equation -- shows that firearms that could be used in self-defense actually make many more people unsafe, injured and dead.


    Isn't that number 22 already big enough?