Sometimes the core idea for a post originates in a forum, amidst a discussion already in-progress. That’s what happened with this post, too, which is here with some slight modifications for better out-of-context reading. For reference, the sources for some of the data cited below are here and here.
Custer County, Colorado. That’s where we live. More guns here, per capita, than the national average, by far. Less crime here, per capita, than the national average, by far. Is it a fluke? If you’re inclined to say it is a fluke, I’d like to see some justification for that. Custer County isn’t alone in the US (although it is unique in many other areas).
Custer County is the sort of place where stupid criminals get taken out of the gene pool by citizens. Cook County (location of Chicago) is not. In Custer County, the vast majority of those with handguns are law-abiding citizens. In Cook County, the vast majority of those with handguns are law-breaking people (some not even citizens).
I did a little scrounging around the internet to see what I might turn up on areas somewhat familiar with me–so I could get a bit of a mental corollary and see what the numbers might indicate. I found data for “serious crimes known to police” for three counties, plus the populations of each of those counties. If we count the following as “serious crimes” (have to patch together data from several sites and spreadsheets) we get interesting results: murder, rape, robbery, aggravated assault. For each, I divide the “serious crimes” by the county population:
Custer County, CO, 3,999 people
Rate: 0.00075
Cook County, IL, 5,096,540 people (home of Chicago)
Rate: 0.0127
Maricopa County, AZ, 2,611,327 people (home of Phoenix)
Rate: 0.0065
Some of the numbers are a few years old (what can you do when looking for census-based statistics?), but I find them interesting.
Whatever the true reason, I find highest crime (by far) in the most handgun-restricted places. I threw in the Phoenix area, since comparing Cook County to Custer County is a bit odd–huge difference in population. But Maricopa is one of the most populous counties in the nation and serves as the best comparison I could think of where I know the handgun laws to be relatively lax.
So–almost no crime in our county, with Cook County doubling the crime in Maricopa County. DOUBLING! Hmmm. I get the feeling that “serious crimes known to police” often involve things like handguns. Isn’t it strange such crimes might happen where such guns are banned? (I don’t think so.)
It seems to me that crime finds difficulty thriving where the citizens of an area tend to be better armed. This makes sense, right? If we use a bit of hyperbole, it’s obvious. Let’s take a look at two cities–one with 100% armed citizens, the other with 0% armed citizens.
In Armed City, a rapist is loose, often arming himself with a knife. Unfortunately for this scumbag, he’s now operating in Armed City. His potential victim hears his forced entry into her residence and the idiot’s career as a living scumbag is converted into a career as a dead scumbag.
In Unarmed City, a rapist is loose, often arming himself with a knife. This scumbag is used to getting whatever he wants since he’s been operating in Unarmed City for several months. His potential victim hears his forced entry into her residence and immediately calls the police. Unfortunately, the headlines in the evening paper the next day cite yet another grim statistic.
Look, it’s obvious not all potential crimes can be prevented merely by having a firearm at hand. This is true. But think of the many crimes that can be either prevented or deterred or at least fought by having a firearm. And with law-abiding citizens, this will happen only with lax laws on firearm possession. (Certainly, violent criminals care little about such firearm laws.) I don’t understand how disarming the law-abiding citizens ever helps reduce crime. From the quick numbers I dug up, it doesn’t. I’d imagine there could be some exceptions to what I found, but there are exceptions to everything, so what’s that prove?
Ask yourself the question, “Which woman in which city would I rather be in the extreme examples above?” What about in a real-world situation you can think of from recent headlines? What about a couple of years ago at Virginia Tech?
Those citizens “trusted” by their government to govern themselves with fewer restrictive laws tend to have less difficulty with crime and a more healthy embrace of freedom itself.
We have an absurd situation that’s grown slowly over the last few decades in some areas of our great nation. An irrational network of laws have combined with increases in violent crime to the degree that it’s truly illegal to be a citizen protected from violent crime. Chicago’s Mayor Daley seems bent on keeping bans on handguns that can only possibly disarm the law-abiding citizens while allowing the violent criminals to continue in their crimes–unobstructed by citizens able to defend themselves on equal ground.
What does this leave us with? Total reliance on the police force. Is this a realistic solution to spontaneous violent crimes? I don’t think so. How can the police possibly protect every citizen in Chicago? They cannot. But that’s really not the point of having police, either. The violent criminals have guns, the law-abiding citizens cannot have guns, the police cannot defend these citizens. Where is this going? The citizens of Chicago cannot possibly be legally protected from criminal vermin.
How is this a good thing? This is a great question. The only thing I can see anyone getting out of this in governmental echelons is control over a population increasingly dependent on local authorities and governmental services–services that fail them, but are nonetheless forced upon them. Is this an issue of control?
What I don’t like about this is the culture of fear of the gun itself. Sure, any necessity to have guns is a grim reminder of the degraded human condition–but this condition is best confronted head-on instead of ignored. Why hide from reality? Why not instead change reality? When a culture of fear of a neutral (but powerful) tool is created and sustained for more than a generation, changing this culture is extremely difficult, and therefore unlikely. The culture of fear, then, may become the primary obstacle to the only realistic solution available.
The statistics I’ve cited above are stark reminders of the high correlation between the legality of defending one’s self with tools on par with those of the violent criminals and low violent crime rates. Yes, guns can, and often do, kill people. But the numbers also suggest the mere presence of guns in citizens’ possession also saves lives (quite often without even firing a single shot).
Why make it easy–why not make it dangerous–to be a violent criminal? In 1996 in Cook County alone, we had 64,746 violent crimes committed. Could this have possibly been the same number if the citizens of Cook County were armed like the citizens of Custer County? I don’t think so.
Those criminals would have moved on to greener pastures.
Your points are well made. Robert Heinlein, author, says, “An armed society is a polite society.” This is and always be true. Gun control laws protect the law breakers and punish the law abiding. Laws, particularly federal laws, are one-size-fits-all. This has never made any sense to me. In an attempt to be fair, laws are totally unfair.
The strength of the “shall issue” gun laws in about 40 states have had a deterrent effect. The bad guys don’t know who is armed and who isn’t. For their own safety, they must assume that all are armed. What a great outcome.
Sociologist-Democrat, John Lott, interviewed many prisoners in his research. Virtually all admitted that they would rather face an armed cop than an armed civilian. Why? Cops have rules of engagement, civilians do not. I like a world where the criminals fear the public. I do wish that they feared the police too, but that will have to wait for a reawakening of common sense in America.
Joe Cascarelli
This is a fantastic article. Unfortunately, most people in this country think idealistically, not practically. When the mayor of Chicago (I lived there for five years) says, “Less guns, less crime”, it sounds great, and makes perfect sense… on the surface. Most people I’ve met, including those who are pro-long gun (i.e. rifles and shotguns), are still against handguns, and obviously heavier arms as well, because they themselves do not think of the possible necessity of such weapons. Because they have not been trained with weapons, or they have lived in cities that warn against their dangers without discussing their benefits, or have never experienced the loss of a person who may have been saved had he or she been armed, they can easily ignore the depth that is required to see guns for what they are: an unfortunate necessity required to protect ourselves from the oppression of any kind.
Speaking of Chicago, I saw a special earlier this year on TV (I believe it was 60 Minutes) that was dedicated to highlighting the gang violence that is rampant in Chicago. This was just a month or two after moving back to Arizona from Chicago (quite a difference in gun laws) and it was easy for me to recall the almost daily news articles I found saying another person had been shot, and how removing guns is the only cause. In the TV special, they interviewed the parents of many of the victims of gang violence. All parents had the same solution: get rid of the guns. I sympathize with these people tremendously, their losses are nothing short of heart-breaking. But they are either ignoring or unaware of the fact that Chicago has the most strict gun laws in the entire country. It is illegal to OWN a handgun in the city. Even if you keep it disassembled, buried in a vault 1,000 feet underground, it’s still illegal. Clearly, as you said, restricting guns restricts the ability of good people to defend and protect, and enhances the ability of bad people to offend and assault.
Lastly, I find it interesting that no one discusses the use of firearms for the protection of oppression by one’s own government. As the text says, “being necessary to the security of a free state”. Many people forget that one of the biggest fears of the founders was that a large federal government would infringe on the rights of individual states and its people. This was an absolute necessity, as they had just lost thousands of lives freeing themselves from a tyrannical government. In America, it seems easily forgotten that there are countries all over the world who presently, and many in the past as well (such as our own), fight for freedom from the oppression of their rulers. I’d say the United States is ahead of the curve in allowing freedom for its citizens, but that is the current state of things. It takes one president, one charismatic Congressman, one governor, or dictatorial mayor or sheriff to change the fortune and freedoms of the American people. As we can see with many recent laws, our government has infinitely more power to impose on and restrict our freedoms than any thief, rapist, or murderer. The Second Amendment was meant to protect us from oppression on all fronts, including, and most especially, from those who seek to rule us.
The right of self defense is such a basic tenet of liberty that one would think it needn’t be necessary to expound upon it. Yet fuzzy-headed thinkers have confused many people into believing that weapons are the cause of crime; therefore, they argue, eliminate weapons and you eliminate crime. This is totally wrong, as Jeff shows us as he focuses in on this erroneous argument in this excellent article.
The right to keep and bear arms is the primary protection against government becoming the master of the people. Thank you, Troy for so cogently adding this to the discussion, for we must never allow this right to be taken from us for the reasons you have stated.