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Friday, March 30, 2001
...Others Fear
Being Placed at the Mercy of Criminals
By JOHN R. LOTT JR.
Hardly
a day seems to go by without national news coverage of yet another
shooting. Yet when was the last time you heard a story on the national
evening news about a citizen saving a life with a gun?
Few people realize that civilians use guns
defensively to stop about 2 million crimes a year, five times more often
than guns are used to commit crimes, according to national surveys.
Last week, a police officer received
national attention for stopping a school shooting in El Cajon. Where was
the similar national news coverage when equally heroic civilians used
their guns to stop other school shootings, such as the ones in Pearl,
Miss., and Edinboro, Penn.?
Some of this lopsided coverage is
understandable. An innocent person's murder is more newsworthy than when a
victim brandishes a gun and an attacker runs away with no crime committed.
Unlike the crimes that are avoided, bad events provide emotionally
gripping pictures. Yet covering only the bad events creates the impression
that guns only cost lives.
Even the rare local coverage of defensive
gun use seldom involves more than very brief stories. Newsworthiness also
dictates that these stories are not the typical examples of self-defense,
but the rare instances where the attacker is shot. In fact, in 98% of the
cases, simply brandishing a gun is sufficient to stop a crime. Research at
Florida State University and at the University of Chicago indicates that
only one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses results in the attacker's death.
Here are some of the 20 defensive gun use
stories that I found reported in their respective local media in a single
week, March 11-17:
* Clearwater, Fla.: At 1:05 a.m., a man
started banging on a patio door, briefly left to beat on the family's
truck, but returned and tore open the patio door. At that point, after
numerous shouts not to break into the home, a 16-year-old boy fired a
single rifle shot, wounding the attacker.
* Columbia, S.C.: As two gas station
employees left work just after midnight, two men attempted to rob them.
The sheriff told a local television station: "Two men came out of the
bushes, one of the men had a shovel handle that had been broken off and
began to beat [the male employee] . . . about the head, neck and then the
arms." The male employee broke away long enough to draw a handgun
from his pocket and wound his attacker, who later died. The second
suspect, turned in by relatives, faces armed robbery and possible murder
charges.
* Little Rock, Ark.: By firing one shot with
a rifle, a 19-year-old man defended himself against three armed men who
were threatening to assault him. One of them was treated for a flesh
wound.
* Detroit: A mentally disturbed man yelled
that the president was going to have him killed and started firing at
people in passing cars. A man at the scene, who had a permit to carry a
concealed handgun, fired shots that forced the attacker to stop shooting
and run away. The attacker barricaded himself in an empty apartment, fired
at police and ultimately committed suicide.
* West Palm Beach, Fla.: After being beaten
during a robbery at his home just two days earlier, a homeowner began
carrying a handgun in his pocket. When another robber attacked him, the
homeowner shot and wounded his assailant.
* Grand Junction, Colo.: On his way home
from work, a contractor picked up three young hitchhikers. He fixed them a
steak dinner at his house and was preparing to offer them jobs. Two of the
men grabbed his kitchen knives and started stabbing him in the back, head
and hands. The attackers stopped only when he told them that he could give
them money. Instead of money, the contractor grabbed a pistol and shot one
of the attackers. The contractor said, "If I'd had a trigger lock,
I'd be dead."
* Columbia Falls, Mont.: An ex-boyfriend is
accused of entering a woman's home and sexually assaulting her. She got
away long enough to get her handgun and hold her attacker at gunpoint
until police arrived.
* Salt Lake City: Two robbers began firing
their guns as soon as they entered a pawn shop. The owner and his son
returned fire. One of the robbers was shot in the arm; both later were
arrested. The shop owner's statement said it all: "If we did not have
our guns, we would have had several people dead here."
* Baton Rouge, La.: At 5:45 a.m., a crack
addict kicked in the back door of a house and went in. The attacker was
fatally shot as he charged toward the homeowner.
What advice would gun control advocates have
given these victims? Should they have behaved passively? Unfortunately, by
making it difficult for law-abiding people to get the most effective tool
to defend themselves, gun control often puts victims' lives in jeopardy. -
- -
John R.
Lott Jr. Is a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University Law School
and the Author of "More
Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000)
Wednesday, June 13, 2001
Zero Tolerance
Equals Zero Thinking
By JOHN R. LOTT JR.
Welcome
to the brave new world of "zero-tolerance" schooling, where
young minds are molded to abhor aggression.
Schools are banning dodge ball and tag
because the games encourage "violent behavior." Some schools are
removing any references to the military from their libraries, and some
high schools are banning military recruiters.
Elementary students in Texas and Louisiana
have been suspended for pointing pencils and saying "pow" and
drawing pictures of soldiers. Students in Mississippi were held in jail
for trivial infractions, such as throwing peanuts at one another. A
fifth-grader in St. Petersburg, Fla., was arrested for drawing pictures of
"weapons."
Recent victims of this witch hunt include an
exemplary high-school student, a National Merit Scholar, jailed in Fort
Myers, Fla., because school authorities found a kitchen knife under her
car seat. The knife had accidentally fallen there during a move between
apartments. "Terrorist threat" criminal charges were filed
against two 8-year-olds in Irvington, N.J., for "playing cops and
robbers with a paper gun."
Second-graders have been arrested for
bringing toy guns to school. And while juvenile records can be expunged,
in some cases, such as for Brady law background checks, they last a
lifetime.
Fear over school shootings is legitimate,
but common sense is needed. Since the most recent school shootings started
in the fall of 1997, 32 students and three teachers have been shot to
death at U.S. elementary or secondary schools, an annual rate of less than
one death per 4 million students. This includes deaths from gang fights,
robberies and accidents as well as from incidents such as at Columbine
High School in Colorado. By contrast, during that same period, 53 students
died playing high school football.
What are we really teaching children by zero
tolerance? To see evil where none exists? Or that justice is arbitrary and
authorities are waiting to get you?
Who is really out of control?
John R.
Lott Jr. Is a Senior Research Scholar at the Yale University Law School
and the Author of "More
Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 2000) |