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The following article is under submission.  Reproduction

on computer bulletin boards is permitted for informational

purposes only.  Copyright (c) 1995 by J. Neil Schulman.

All other rights reserved.



              NEWS MEDIA PROMOTES BOGUS CCW STUDY

                      by J. Neil Schulman



    Let's start with the following AP wire story from March 13,

1995, titled, "Relaxed Gun Laws Mean More Deaths":



                              ***



    WASHINGTON--More people were killed with guns after

concealed gun laws were relaxed in 4 of 5 urban areas studied by

University of Maryland researchers.



    The university's Violence Research Group studied homicides

by gun and other means before and after new, relaxed concealed

gun laws took effect in Jacksonville, Miami and Tampa, Fla.,

Jackson, Miss., and Portland, Ore.



    Average monthly homicides by gun increased 74 % in

Jacksonville, 43 % in Jackson, 22 % in Tampa and 3 % in Miami.

Portland had a 12 % decrease, the researchers announced Monday.



    They found that while homicides by gun increased after the

less restrictive laws were adopted, homicides by other means

remained steady.



    "While advocates of these relaxed laws argue that they will

prevent crime, and suggest that they have reduced homicides in

areas that adopted them, we strongly suggest caution," said

University of Maryland criminologist David McDowall. "When states

weaken limits on concealed weapons, they may be giving up a

simple and effective method of preventing firearm deaths."



    Alaska, Arizona, Tennessee and Wyoming adopted relaxed

concealed weapons law in 1994; Idaho and Montana, in 1993. The

Virginia, Texas and Colorado legislatures are working on measures

that would ease restrictions on concealed guns; the governors of

Virginia and Texas have indicated they would sign such

legislation. El Paso County, Colo., just adopted that state's

most lenient concealed weapons policy and was flooded with

applications.



    National homicide rates by gun and other means were going up

during the study period, but, when those figures were factored

in, the overall pattern of 4 increases and one decrease remained

the same with only slight changes in magnitudes, said Brian

Wiersema, one of the researchers.



    Average monthly homicides between January 1973 and December

1992 were studied in each city, except Miami. For Miami, the data

covered monthly homicides between January 1983 and December 1992.

Florida relaxed concealed guns laws Oct. 1, 1987; Oregon, Jan. 1,

1990; and Mississippi, July 1, 1990.



    McDowall said the results support other research showing

that policies to discourage firearms in public may help prevent

violence. One such study, by University of Maryland criminologist

Lawrence Sherman, found that gun crime fell during a Kansas City

program he devised to confiscate guns from people who traveled

with them outside their homes. Sherman is now conducting a

similar program and study in Indianapolis, Ind.



                                         (From AP)



                              ***



    This is a typical media story intended to make you think

that the more guns you have, the more endangered you are.  It has

already been the basis for the Los Angeles Times to editorialize

against reforming California's laws which currently make it

impossible for most Californians to carry firearms for self-

protection without threat of arrest and prosecution under

Penal Code Section 12025.



    The AP story is carefully crafted to pull selected data from

a study designed by anti-gun zealots who cloak themselves in the

lab coats of medical research being conducted for the federal

government; then it goes even further to misrepresent the study

authors' own conclusions to make them seem firm and sweeping

proof of the evil of guns.



    It won't work this time.  I read the study.



    It's titled "Easing Concealed Firearm Laws: Effects on

Homicide in Three States."  Authors are David McDowall, Colin

Loftin, and Brian Wiersema.  Th paper is dated January, 1995, and

marked "Violence Research Group Discussion Paper 15."  You can

get a copy from the Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice,

2220 Samuel Lefrak Hall, College Park, MD  20742-8235 /

301-405-4735.



    The fourth paragraph on page 1 states: "In 1985 the National

Rifle Association announced that it would lobby for shall issue

laws."



    Footnote 1 on page 1 states: "This research was supported by

grant R49-CCR-306268 from the U.S. Public Health Service.

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."



    Well, we know a couple of things right off.  The funding

came from federal tax dollars which were designated for the

control and prevention of DISEASES.  Instead, it was diverted

from disease control and prevention into LOBBYING against NRA-

proposed CCW reform laws USING TAX MONEY. Using tax money for

lobbying is ILLEGAL.  Since we have a U.S. attorney general in

this country who is on the side of the anti-gun conspirators in

the CDC, I suggest writing to the appropriate Congressional

oversight committees for the CDC, demanding a special

prosecutor.



    Next, who do we see listed as a researcher on this study?

We see Colin Loftin -- a gun-control zealot whose previous

"study" tried to prove that a decrease in Washington D.C.'s

homicide rate was a consequence of D.C.'s passage of increased

gun prohibitions.  That Loftin study has been shot full of holes

on grounds that the decrease in homicide in D.C. was a trend

established BEFORE the D.C. law was passed, that it didn't study

homicide RATES because it failed to take into account the

decrease in Washington D.C.'s population during the study period,

and that Loftin carefully cut off his study at the point when

homicide in D.C. started CLIMBING again.



    Okay, let's get to this new "study" from Dr. Loftin and

friends.



    First of all, it was highly selective in what areas it

looked at.  It looked at "several urban areas within Florida,

Mississippi, and Oregon."



    It did not study homicides statewide in states which had

modified its CCW issuance laws.



    By focusing on urban areas, the study was sure to select

data from areas where criminal gangs are increasingly using

firearms in their drug wars -- cases where criminal gangsters are

shooting each other.  Since both offenders and victims in these

cases are criminals who wouldn't apply for CCW licenses, data

from these areas are irrelevant to ordinary people legally

carrying guns for protection.



    It did not study murder, it studied homicides.  It did not

study whether these homicides were murders, justifiable homicides,

or excusable homicides.  The source of the homicides was not even

from police investigations; the study says "we used death

certificate data compiled by the National Center for Health

Statistics."



    And it did NOT study homicides linked to holders of CCW

licenses.  There is no statement anywhere in this "study" that a

single homicide was committed by a CCW license holder in the

states studied.



    The "theory" under which this statistical correlation

between easing of CCW's and the increase in homicide is as

follows:



       "[S]hall issue licensing might raise levels of criminal

    violence.  This is so because it increases the number of

    persons with easy access to firearms. Zimring and Cook argue

    that assaults are often impulsive acts involving the most

    readily available weapons.  Guns are especially deadly

    weapons, and higher numbers of firearm carriers could

    therefore result in more homicides.



       "Advocates of shall issue licensing often cite figures

    showing that few legal carriers misuse their guns.  Yet

    greater tolerance for legal carrying may lead to higher

    levels of illegal carrying as well.  For example, criminals

    have more reason to carry firearms -- and to use them --

    when their victims might be armed Further, if permission to

    carry a concealed weapon is easy to obtain, citizens and law

    enforcement may be less likely to view illegal carrying as a

    serious offense."



    What linkage is claimed for the study?  NONE.  These two

paragraphs are based on "might raise," "could therefore result,"

"may lead to," "for example ... have more reason to," "may be

less likely to view."



    This isn't science -- it's speculation.



    And it's not even speculation grounded in anything -- it's

exactly the sort of speculation gun-control advocates use every

time easing of carry prohibitions is proposed: every argument

following a traffic accident is speculated to degenerate into a

shootout -- despite the fact that in the twenty-some states which

have easy carrying, IT DOESN'T HAPPEN.



    There is NO EVIDENCE collected or presented in this study

that holders of CCW licenses are the types of people who commit

"impulsive acts" in which easier availability of firearms would be

likely to increase violence.  The "study" didn't look at CCW

license holders at all.



    Why?



    Because if the study HAD looked at CCW license holders, it

would have found that this speculation is UNGROUNDED.  The sorts

of "impulsive" people to whom easier access of firearms might

result in increased violence are those with no self-control: in

other words, exactly the sort of criminal psychopaths that this

"study" went out of its way to locate by concentrating on inner

cities occupied by criminal gangsters.



    The figures from the Florida Department of State clearly

show that the criminal misuse of their firearms by CCW license

holders is so rare as to be statistically NONEXISTENT: perhaps

one case in 12,000 for ANY misuse -- even technical violations --

and perhaps only one criminal homicide in 180,000 some persons

issued CCW licenses since October 1, 1987.



    The speculation as to whether criminals will be more likely

to carry guns if their victims are armed can be quantified by

data from the Wright-Rossi study reported in the book ARMED AND

CONSIDERED DANGEROUS: A Survey of Felons and Their Firearms, by

James D. Wright and Peter H. Rossi.  This study was conducted

for the Carter Administration, and at the time of their research,

Wright and Rossi were gun-control advocates looking for proof

that gun-control reduces crime.  When their data contradicted

their opinions, they were honest enough scientists to report

what they had found and advocate public policy based on the

actual scientific findings.



    Wright and Rossi discovered that while 50% of the gun

criminals they surveyed did give as a reason carrying a gun

because their victim might be armed, 60% of gun criminals agreed

that "most criminals are more worried about meeting an armed

victim than they are about running into the police," one-third

said that they had personally been "scared off, shot at, wounded,

or captured by an armed victim," and "About two-fifths reported

having decided at least once in their lives not to commit a crime

because they had reason to suspect that the intended victim was

armed."



    Wright and Rossi note: "Many of these men's 'victims' are in

all likelihood men much like themselves.  The armed victim

encounters reported by this sample may well be confrontations

between two men with equally felonious histories and motives as

between hard-core perpetrators and total innocents."



    Yes, I noted the "may well be" in the above paragraph -- but

this speculation, published in 1986, was confirmed in 1992 by

MURDER ANALYSIS by the Detective Division of the Chicago Police

Department, which found that 65.53% of the murder victims in

their study of all murders they investigated in the previous year

had a previous criminal record.



    Again, all this speaks to the issue of why this study

focused on urban areas where you'd be likely to find criminals

shooting at each other -- and where gun-carrying by ordinary

people is statistically irrelevant because they aren't involved.



    Finally, the speculation that easing CCW license issuance

might lead to a relaxation of enforcement of non-licensed gun

carrying is refuted by Florida's own laws.  Carrying a concealed

firearm in Florida WITHOUT a Florida CCW license is a FELONY.



    Conclusion: since the McDowall-Loftin-Wiersema "study" isn't

reporting any linkage of an increase of shooting homicides to

persons holding CCW licenses having been involved in these

shootings as either perpetrators or victims -- and since the

authors' speculations on a linkage are refuted by other

criminological work -- it ends up as a meaningless statistical

comparison, akin to comparing the rise in the Dow Jones Index to

the raising of women's hemlines: no rational mechanism for the

linkage is even being offered.



    The study concludes: "The stronger conclusion is that shall

issue laws do not reduce homicides, at least in large urban

areas."



    Well, how could they -- when the criminals are avoiding

encounters with possibly armed strangers -- as Wright-Rossi found

-- and shooting other criminals whose carrying of guns is

unaffected by the change in carry laws which they don't pay

attention to anyway?



    "The weaker conclusion is that shall issue laws raise levels

of firearm murders.  Coupled with a lack of influence on murders

by other means, the laws thus increase the frequency of

homicide."



    And this conclusion is not only "weaker," it is utterly

unfounded because the study's bogus design didn't look at the

question of homicides involving CCW license holders and has

produced no grounded linkage between the increasing gun-homicide

trends between and among criminals, and the ordinary people who

carry guns for protection who might have started doing so when

they could do so without risk of legal penalty.



    And even the authors are afraid to do more than speculate,

perhaps fearing that making refutable claims will interfere with

their getting more federal bucks next time: "Despite this

evidence," McDowall, Loftin, and Wiersema write, "we do not

firmly conclude that shall issue licensing leads to more firearm

homicides.  This is so because the effects varied over the study

areas.  Firearm homicides significantly increased in only three

areas, and one witnesses an insignificant decrease.  In

combination, the increase in gun homicides was large and

statistically significant.  Yet we have only five replications,

AND TWO OF THESE DO NOT CLEARLY FIT THE PATTERN."  [Emphasis

added by Schulman.]



    In other words, even their bogus design study couldn't find

the data they were looking for to battle the NRA.



    Yet, does the AP wire story report that the study's authors

consider their conclusions "weak" and that two of the five cases

they looked at do not support their conclusions?  Do they

quote the authors stating, "we do not firmly conclude that shall

issue licensing leads to more firearm homicides"?



    Is the headline, "Researchers Fail to Establish Linkage

Between CCW Licenses and Homicide"?



    Nope.  The Associated Press headlined its story, "Relaxed Gun

Laws Mean More Deaths."



    Let's do this right for once.  The Associated Press, one of

the premiere news reporting organizations in the world, lied.



    I eagerly await their retraction.



    "Easing Concealed Firearm Laws: Effects on Homicide in Three

States" by David McDowall, Colin Loftin and Brian Wiersema is

bogus science at best and criminal misuse of federal tax dollars

at worst.



    It was designed to produce the headline of the AP wire story

-- "Relaxed Gun Laws Mean More Deaths."  The Associated Press

wants you to believe that a new scientific study proves that

making it easier for the public to carry guns legally will

increase gun-related murders of innocent people -- a conclusion

which is completely unsupported even by the claims of the

researchers.



    This is further proof that in the absence of any provable

case that the increase in availability of guns by ordinary

civilians will have adverse effects on society, gun-ban zealots

will lie, under cover of science, in an attempt to provide their

willing co-conspirators in the mass media soundbytes to try to

fool the American people into being passive victims relying on

the government to save them from armed and dangerous criminals.





   Reply to:

J. Neil Schulman

Mail:                 P.O. Box 94, Long Beach, CA 90801-0094

Voice Mail & Fax:     (500) 44-JNEIL

JNS BBS:              1-500-44-JNEIL,,,,25

Internet:             softserv@genie.geis.com





"Mr. Schulman's book is the most cogent explanation of the

gun issue I have yet read. He presents the assault on the Second

Amendment in frighteningly clear terms. Even the extremists who

would ban firearms will learn from his lucid prose."

--Charlton Heston





STOPPING POWER: Why 70 Million Americans Own Guns

by J. Neil Schulman



Foreword by Criminologist and Civil-Rights

Lawyer Don B. Kates, Jr.



Published by Synapse--CenturioN

Price: $22.95 USA / $29.95 Canada

ISBN: 1-882639-03-0

Hardcover, 288 pages



Post as filename: CCWCRIME.TXT









== Johann Opitz      e-mail:  johann_opitz@smtp.svl.trw.com ==

== All Disclaimers Apply (so as to protect my employer) ==



 

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