New landmark medical report proves more guns do not cause more crime
Study also debunks anti-gun laws that target law-abiding citizens.
by Lee Williams
A recently published study by a team of physicians and medical researchers found no link between increased legal gun sales and increased violent crime rates. Moreover, the study concluded “it is unclear if efforts to limit lawful firearm sales would have any effect on rates of crime, homicide, or injuries from violence committed with firearms.”
Dr. Mark E. Hamill, a trauma surgeon at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, is one of the lead authors of the report, which was published in the Journal of Surgical Research, titled: “Legal Firearm Sales at State Level and Rates of Violent Crime, Property Crime, and Homicides.”
Dr. Hamill is not your typical academic. He spent seven years as a police officer in New York City, and three years as a parttime police officer upstate while attending medical school. He served in the Emergency Medical System from the late 1980s to 2002 as both an EMT and a paramedic. He is also a member of the Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership — the only DRGO member on the 10-man research team.
Methodology
The researchers compared state and national crime rate data from 1999-2015 — obtained from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — to National Instant Criminal Background Check System or NICS checks, which were used to show gun sales even though they do not include private sales.
“Nationally, all crime rates except the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention–designated firearm homicides decreased as firearm sales increased over the study period,” the report states. “Using a naive national model, increases in firearm sales were associated with significant decreases in multiple crime categories. However, a more robust analysis using generalized estimating equation estimates on state-level data demonstrated increases in firearms sales were not associated with changes in any crime variables examined.”
Conclusions
Their findings completely debunked the theory that more guns cause more crime.
“Robust analysis does not identify an association between increased lawful firearm sales and rates of crime or homicide. Based on this, it is unclear if efforts to limit lawful firearm sales would have any effect on rates of crime, homicide, or injuries from violence committed with firearms,” the study states.
Their team’s data is incontrovertible:
Discussion
This was not an easy study to publish. One medical publication peer reviewed the team’s findings and completed one round of edits but chose not to publish the work, because guns.
“Getting this published was a tour de force,” Hamill said. “There is so much bias in medical literature against guns.”
Hamill took his team’s findings one step further. Not only do anti-gun laws targeting law-abiding citizens do nothing to reduce crime, he said, they may actually lead to more crime, because such laws reduce the deterrent affect that an armed citizenry poses to criminals by making it more difficult for the good guys to get guns.
“Vilifying legal gun owners for the actions of people who use guns illegally is probably the wrong tact to take. The firearms I own haven’t gone out and committed violent crime,” he said. “That’s the point. Addressing people who want to legally own firearms is not the answer.”
In addition to Dr. Hamill, the authors include: Matthew C. Hernandez MD, Division of Trauma, Critical Care, and General Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota; Kent R. Bailey PhD, Department of Health Sciences Research, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota; Caleb L. Cutherell MD, Department of Surgery, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Roanoke, Virginia; Martin D. Zielinski MD, Division of Trauma, Critical Care, and General Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota; Donald H. Jenkins MD, Department of Surgery, UT Health San Antonio, San Antonio, Texas; Douglas F. Naylor MD, University Hospitals of Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio; Miguel A. Matos DO, Department of Surgery, University of Nebraska Medical Center, Omaha, Nebraska; Bryan R. Collier DO, Department of Surgery, Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Roanoke, Virginia and Henry J. Schiller MD, Division of Trauma, Critical Care, and General Surgery, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.
The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project wouldn’t be possible without you. Click here to make a tax-deductible donation to support pro-gun stories like this.
I'm sure they worked very hard on it, but this reminds me of the landmark study concluding that people who are sexually attracted to members of the opposite sex tend to wear scents (perfume or cologne) that appeal MORE to their preferred gender than to their own. Also, water is wet.
>>Hamill took his team’s findings one step further. Not only do anti-gun laws targeting law-abiding citizens do nothing to reduce crime, he said, they may actually lead to more crime, because such laws reduce the deterrent affect that an armed citizenry poses to criminals by making it more difficult for the good guys to get guns.
Not only are people less able to respond to violent crime with armed force, but the PERCEPTION of criminals is affected. In areas with laws that limit an individual's access to firearms for self-defense, the PERCEPTION of criminals is that victims are less likely to be armed. This becomes part of their evaluation of the risk of committing a crime. Seeing that the risk is apparently lower, criminals will be more likely to attempt crimes.
Wright and Rossi did a study of convicted felons for the Department of Justice decades ago. The consensus among convicted felons is that a "smart criminal tries to find out if his victim is armed". About half admitted that they aborted a criminal attempt because they thought their intended victim might be armed. This is not about the reality of facing an armed victim. It's only about the PERCEPTION. In areas where firearms are freely accessible to law-abiding people, even those who are NOT armed enjoy a measure of protection by reason of the criminals' belief that they MIGHT be armed.
Those advocating to disarm American citizens also enjoy this protection. If they were honest advocates, they would post signs at their homes reading,
***** THIS IS A GUN-FREE HOME. *****
YOU WILL NOT BE SHOT IF YOU DECIDE
TO BEAT, ROB, RAPE, STAB, TORTURE
OR KILL SOMEONE WHO LIVES HERE.