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The Big Pile of Gun Facts to Share with People
America is once again going to spend the next fortnight in the grips of a debate which is, unfortunately, all too common: the role of guns in our society in light of the horrific events in Parkland, FL.
Depressingly, many people — particularly, many on the Left — are ignorant regarding guns, how they work, what they are and what the facts regarding gun violence in this country are. Ignorance is not stupidity and is remediable, so this article will be mostly aimed at people on the left because this is where remediation is most in demand.
In the interest of cutting through some of the chaff that exists out there regarding guns, I’ve put together some facts so that people can discuss the topic from a point of common knowledge.
Part one: Guns and terminology
(Again, I apologize if this is remedial learning for Conservatives who own or are familiar with guns; the genuine ignorance regarding them demands that we have a brief talk about this.)
When an incident like the Parkland massacre happens, one of the very first terms that the media throw into the mix in order to describe the weapon used by the killer is “assault rifle” or “AR-15.” The first term is politically charged, bringing to mind the rifles carried by soldiers in combat. Any weapon used to commit violence could be accurately described as “an assault _____.” Assault Brick. Assault Bat. Assault Battery Acid. The second term “AR-15” is actually a reference to the product line of a specific manufacturer – the ArmaLite Model 15 rifle. This term doesn’t stand for “Assault Rifle,” contrary to popular opinion.
The main difference between these AR-15 rifles and their more traditional-looking counterparts is their use of plastics and other alloys on the stock, handle and barrel, in addition to frequently having a pistol grip rather than a traditional trigger guard and stock assembly.
See below for a depiction of the differences between a more traditional-style hunting rifle and an AR-15:
On the left is a Ruger Mini-14, .223 caliber rifle, and on the right, an “AR-15” version, the Ruger SR-556 with pistol grip and other features associated with that style of weapon.
Each of these guns fires the same ammunition (the same caliber, in this case, the .223 Remington shell) and each of these weapons is “semi-automatic,” which means that when a round is loaded in the chamber and the shooter fires the gun. The gases from the burning of smokeless powder in the cartridge both propel the bullet down the barrel, and actuate the ejection mechanism. This removes the spent shell and loads the next round into the firing chamber, recocking the firing pin, allowing the user to fire the weapon again by pulling the trigger.
These are not machine guns. Machine guns fire at very high rates of speed in an “automatic” fashion, meaning that when the user pulls the trigger, the weapon will continuously reload itself and continue to fire until the user releases the trigger.
The differences between the two weapons above are essentially cosmetic; operationally, they are practically identical. Yet the one on the right is considered an “Assault Rifle” in the parlance offered by the media and the one on the left, a more benign-looking “hunting rifle.” Obviously, the rifle on the right is shown with a larger capacity magazine (essentially a spring-loaded box which allows the feeding of each subsequent round into the firing chamber.)
Other examples of semi-automatic firearms include most commonly known handguns such as the Glock 9mm or any double-action revolver. There is a practically infinite variety of such long and handguns, including semi-automatic shotguns.
Estimates vary, but by some reckonings, there are between 250-300 million guns of all types in the hands of private owners across the United States today.
Part 2: Guns and Crime in America
When thinking about crime in the United States, it’s impossible to not consider guns and the effect that they have. We are the third largest nation in the world by population and have by far the world’s largest GDP. The US is an outlier in a variety of measures.
Beginning with the general, however, it should be noted that in that after peaking in or around 1993, the rate of Reported Violent Crime in the United States has declined by almost half:
(Annual Rates reported in incidents per hundred thousand people; Source: The FBI Uniform Crime Reporting Data system)
This result is most frequently a surprise to partisans on the right; Conservatives of a law and order bent, having been raised on tales of the vast epidemic of crime which bedevils inner cities have trouble adjusting themselves to the fact that the nation hasn’t seen rates of criminality this low since the halcyon days of the 50’s. How did this seemingly paradoxical result occur?
Criminologists have debated the root cause of the secular decline in crime and arrived at a variety of conclusions. Some of them point to improved economic conditions in depressed areas; others point to improved policing techniques and longer prison sentences for violent criminals. Still others like Stephen Levitt hypothesized that the legalization of abortion in 1973 resulted in an overall reduction of the population which was most likely to engage in criminal careers; indeed, in 1993, a man born in 1975 would have turned 18, which is the prime age for the initiation of serious criminal activity… and coincidentally that just happens to be the year in which American crime began its remarkable fall.
What ought to discomfit liberals about this data just as much as it confounds conservatives is whom these improved policing techniques, longer prison sentences, and abortions are being practiced on: typically, residents of inner cities and ethnic minorities. Disentangling correlation from causation in this regard is complicated by the fact that these policies are routinely decried as “racist” today, yet their adoption coincided with that fall in crime.
Whatever the cause of this decline in criminality, another factor remains unaccounted for, yet is germane to the discussion: the number of guns in private hands.
As was already discussed, the number of guns in America is fairly phenomenal; Pew research has studied the question of gun ownership for decades, and come to the conclusion that between the years of 1973 and 2013, there was only a negligible decline in the number of households where there was a gun. Consequently, there doesn’t seem to be a causal link between the rate of criminality and the percentage of households that report owning a gun.
Digging further into the data, one should next want to know just how many people are being killed and in what manner. Again, the FBI’s data is incredibly illuminating:
This tabulation of 2014’s homicides are not atypical – I invite you to review the data from past years on the FBI website. The first, surprising bit of data which ought to jump out at you first is that only about 2/3 of murder victims in the country died due to gun violence. Even if we assumed that there weren’t readily available replacements for guns and we could wave a magic wand causing all guns to evaporate, there were still quite a few murders by other means.
Surprise number two: Just in case you thought that rifles were a scourge upon the land and responsible for vast quantities of death and destruction, keep in mind how much more frequently other modes of death than rifles were chosen in 2014:
You were 6 times as likely to be stabbed to death
3 times as likely to be punched or kicked to death
Twice as likely to be bludgeoned to death
I point this out not to minimize even a single death — but merely to make the point that the problem of murder in America is much larger than the single issue of rifles, which account for around 2% of the total reported wrongful homicides – far less than the proverbial tip of the iceberg.
Handguns are by far the single, largest category of weapon used in murders. This makes a certain sense: they’re small, easily concealed and hugely multiply the force of their owner, which explains their prevalence in wrongful deaths. Of course, an honest accounting of that shockingly large number would lead a person to notice that huge numbers of these deaths were the result of gang-land activity; turf-wars, initiations and the like.
If you were to strip such killings out of the overall numbers, the US murder rate begins to draw much closer to that of its OECD partners. The thesis of many social scientists in this regard is that ready access to guns in the US has the effect of escalating situations and making the consequences of the sorts of encounters mentioned above far more serious. I think that for a certain subset of people that is true – a very tiny bump of them highly likely to use violence to settle disputes. Fortunately, we know they’re an outlier. How?
Have a peek at this graphic:
Presented without comment. pic.twitter.com/fS4KdzZcfm
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 19, 2018
If you believe what such social scientists have to say about “guns causing violence,” the American murder rate must be an incredible outlier… incredibly low given the number of guns we have as a whole.
Part 3: Potential Remedies to Mass Shootings
Following in the wake of any one of the modern scourge of mass-killings that have occurred since the 24-hour news cycle began — essentially, Columbine in 1999 — the calls have been fairly consistent from one side of the aisle: for restrictions on gun rights, including and up to gun confiscation.
Well before Columbine, (late in 1994) the Clinton Administration championed and managed to pass the apple of many gun control advocates’ eyes: the Assault Weapons Ban. By the time any measurable effect from that ban could be seen, crime was already well into its post-1993 collapse phase. Add to this the fact that “assault weapons” comprise such a tiny percentage of overall murders, it would hardly make sense for such legislation to have an effect on the overall murder rate.
As an observation purely of the political tactics involved, this legislation was folly; Calling it “Wishful thinking” on the Democrats’ part cannot describe what a meaningless appeal to the emotions of people lacking in knowledge of firearms it truly was. What’s worse for Democrats was that it’s hard to argue that it was effective in any real way, given that when the Act expired in 2004, it was not accompanied by anything like a surge of murders.
It’s also arguable that the Assault Weapons Ban did serious damage to the Democrat party’s electoral prospects, as a scant two months after its passage, Republicans swept into control of both Houses of Congress in an historic wave election. Obviously, there were other issues at hand but ’94 marks the first time that the Democrats’ naked hostility to gun owners spurred voters to go to the polling place — and to the gun store, as in the case of President Obama.
As an interesting counterfactual exercise: is there anybody who thinks that a vociferously pro-gun Hillary Clinton campaign could have lost the 2016 election?
Suffice to say, there is very little taste in this nation for restrictions on gun rights. In fact, it’s gone the other direction. The following graphic displays how states have successively voted for ever greater gun rights for their citizens over time, switching inexorably from “No Issue” for concealed carry, to “Shall Issue” to “unregulated” in many cases which means that people are free to carry concealed firearms in that state without a license.
https://twitter.com/ATabarrok/status/964199662004723712
So, it seems discussion of outright gun bans, gun confiscation or gun buyback programs as a means of curbing violence — particularly the sort of violence that we saw in Parkland — are going to fail utterly, because not only do gun owners have no interest in participating, but the sort of violence we’re seeking to curb doesn’t lend itself to being solved via high-handed action at the Federal Government level. The guns which these perpetrators purchased have routinely been obtained legally. So how can we begin to move the needle in the opposite direction?
As a conservative, I believe people respond to incentives. Even people who are crazy; at least, “crazy” in the sense that they want to carry out a mass-casualty attack. To that end, we have to examine the incentives that we have created for such persons.
The current crop of potential mass-killers seems to be driven by two things: severe mental illness or the desire to obtain fame and rack up a body-count in excess of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold at Columbine. To that end, the policy of media outlets ought to be to not use the name of mass-killing perpetrators in order to deny them the thing they so desire.
The second is that we need to shift the incentive structure around the targets themselves. As it stands, we have created what amount to vast, target rich and resistance-free environments for sufficiently motivated would-be murderers. That needs to end.
When my family and I recently visited Washington, DC what I noticed immediately at our national monuments, museums and capital was the universal presence of armed security. The same was true for our visit to the theme parks in Florida. Attempted mass-killers don’t attack places like “police stations” or other locations where highly-armed and trained resistance is readily apparent.
If a potential mass-killer knew that walking into a school with a gun meant that within a few seconds they would be facing down well-armed and trained resistance in the form of a gun-wielding security guard or police officer, this ought to shift the calculus in their minds. The window which they would potentially have to kill would be shortened sufficiently that it seems unlikely many would attempt it, given that their primary goal (mass killing) would be denied them.
The paradox of security is that attacks which are deterred by it are a dog that doesn’t bark. The argument that armed security would turn schools into “shooting galleries” or “fortresses” ignores utterly the lack of such killings or attempted killings going on at other locations where you have large numbers of unarmed people, yet where security is efficient and obvious.
When you deny people the right to defend themselves, the expectation is that you will provide security for them in lieu of their own prerogative. We’ve seen enough of these killings to know that doing the same thing repeatedly is going to generate similar results. Let’s hope that sooner rather than later, policy-makers will notice this insanity and change it.
Published in General
Bringing facts to the discussion – but that’s just not done!
I’m often frustrated by the persistent mythology that we live in the middle of an ever-growing crime wave. It seems every other day, I hear someone make a reference to how dangerous things are “these days.” On the one hand, it’s the ever-present media
covfefecoverage. On the other hand, I think the high crime rates of the 60s-90s – the fear of ever-present, ever-worsening crime – left a mark on our culture that we’re still handing down.Yes, didn’t we just read, right here ay Ricochet, of two potential shootings that were foiled by the relatives of the kid?
How much airplay are those stories getting right now?
Excellent post, though I slightly disagree with this section:
Some schools might be able to afford full-time, designated security, but my guess is that this would be prohibitively expensive for smaller schools. Moreover, a perpetually-bored security guard eager to make himself useful sounds like an invitation to other sort of problems. Worse, if if there’s only one of him, he makes for an easy first target.
To my mind, allowing teachers and staff to get training and carry concealed should be a much higher priority. Utah already has such a program, and I imagine at least a few other states do as well.
I don’t disagree with this – but in the case of most small-to-midsized high schools, people like the football or PE coaches, assistant principals and other individuals who volunteered to do this duty in addition to their other tasks seem like the most logical individuals to offer this to.
The point is that when your population becomes large enough, it gets hard to have people “multitask” and do their normal duties in addition to serving as regular security as well.
I think this is fantastic. And I’ve learned a lot on other threads this week too.
I think the post is right about the biggest problem in the national discussion about guns. A lot of people–including me–know nothing about them.
Yup. If the only person in the school with a weapon is the guy wearing a uniform, find him and take him down first.
The whole point of concealed carry is you don’t know who might have a weapon.
Here are some facts about those mass shootings that never happen in other countries.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/27401/democrats-say-america-worst-western-country-mass-hank-berrien
I have had two problems in gaining understanding of how guns work. The people I’ve asked to explain it to me have not been able to grasp how little understanding I have so they start in the middle of the instruction. :) And I’m afraid to Google this subject. The way my mind works, one bit of information would raise ten more questions, and I’d be on the Internet all night trying to put it all together. And the FBI would be at my door in the morning. :)
Maj, great post. There is little to add.
I think that there’s something else at work. Nihilism. You might classify this as part of “severe mental illness,” but I think that there is an ideological element involved that is worth considering as a separate cause.
I’m not an expert on the issue, but it seems to me that people with “severe mental illness” are generally incapable of doing anything effective. The mass-murderers are horribly effective. Positing “severe mental illness” as a cause may be concealing the real causes: malevolence and despair.
Both the Aurora shooter and the Virginia Tech guy have been described as really significantly incapacitingly mentally ill (especially the Virginia Tech guy). They were both pretty effective.
They define ‘incapacitatingly mentally ill’ as unable to fit into society normally. Doesn’t
reallynecessarily speak to their ability to plan and execute that plan.Great article Majestyk! Thanks.
Is this a recent interest? Have you done any shooting? There is quite a bit to learn, and unfortunately, a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding gets spread around. I’m afraid I can’t think of any one clearing house online, for gun information. There are some results that pop up, if you search for “gun wiki,” but I’ve no experience with them. I’m not much help, am I?
On the contrary. You’ve been lots of help.
I don’t want to ask just one person a whole lot of questions because I don’t want to annoy people.
I don’t need to be able to shoot a gun. I work from home, so I’m not in places too often where people would be shooting at me.
I love seeing so much explanation getting out there into the media world though. I am convinced that Democrats hear “semiautomatic” and they imagine Al Capone’s machine guns. There’s a lot of confusion.
The more that conservatives can talk about this with people, the better.
@marci, send me a private message. If I don’t know the answer, I can ask someone else to help
I asked about shooting, because I’ve always found hands-on learning to be really effective, especially when you want to learn about a physical object.
When you say Al Capone’s machine guns, do you mean Tommy guns, like this one?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4QWrha3HLw
Our side has been trying to clear up the confusion for a long time, but many of the other side seem to ignore these attempts. Semi-auto, full-auto; it’s just all bad to them, it seems. Sometimes, unfortunately, they seem to be purposely conflating the two, to stoke fear.
As all conservatives secretly know, guns emit a type of radiation which is deadly in any dose.
This varies a lot with the type of mental illness.
That makes sense, doesn’t it? After all, they say if you keep guns in your home, you’re more likely to die.
I don’t think it is the publicity the shooters get that is causing the problem in the cases of mentally ill people. I think it is a fantasy they are living out. So I think the more people come to understand how and why these mentally ill people do this, the better.
I think there are two ways to prevent these crimes: (a) develop an understanding in the public about these cases so that people like the smart grandparents who notified the authorities when their grandchild was building up an arsenal in his closet and alert psychiatrists to not ignore the early warning signals in these cases and (b) step up the armed security in schools in the same way we now have armed marshals on airplanes.
The more information the general public has, the better able we will be to defend against this type of crime. That’s what I think at this moment. :)
Yes. :)
I agree. I think that’s why posts like this are so important right now.
That, and the NRA needs to launch a series of ads on the number of lives that have been saved by private gun owners (which I think it did a few years ago).
Thank you. :)
#BanAllPools!
To the Left-leaning people I’ve talked to, the problem isn’t the words “automatic”, “semi-automatic”, or even “Muzzle-loader”.
The problem is the word “gun”.
Another suggestion—in this case, at least, there were a whole lot of red flags noticed by many people and reported, dutifully, to authorities. How about, in addition to calling the apparently feckless FBI, the principal at the school takes steps to harden the target pro tem?
That is, even if you don’t want or need armed security all the time, maybe you’d hire them when a specific threat is detected?
And, by the way, I really like the way schools with armed teachers advertise the fact with large signs saying “this school has armed adults prepared to protect our students.” At the very least, they could take down the “Gun Free Zones” signs?
This is similar to the fact that the best investment you can make in home security is purchasing a sign saying that your house has an alarm.
It simply isn’t worth it for most burglars to go to all the trouble of setting off an alarm and needing to run. They’ll move on to a less hardened target.
These sorts of shifts in the incentive structure are what I’m talking about and would be easy to achieve if we simply stopped looking as if we were constantly in a defensive crouch in the face of these aggressors.
Which part are you having trouble with? The pointing, or the pulling the trigger? :)
Actually, Arizona P., my problem is in loading, “racking” and ejecting the shell and whatnot. It’s all the fiddly bits that have to happen before you point and pull.
But I’ll work on it.
My daughter will teach me.
If I may:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSiOq_uvCmg
https://www.corneredcat.com/article/running-the-gun/rack-the-slide/
Very helpful, Sock Monkey! Thank you!