Very interesting stuff here. The info regarding Venezuela may open some eyes out there...
'Breakdowns in society'
A CDC-sponsored study from 2013 found that "guns are used in self-defense anywhere from 500,000 to 3 million times a year," Pratt said. "That means that compared to the CDC figures for 'firearm homicides' in 2016, guns are being used 35 to 208 times more often to save [lives]."
For this reason, then, the new chart tells us only "part of the story," he said. "It would be like only focusing on deaths resulting from doctor's negligence -- which are around 250,000 per year -- and ignoring the overwhelming amount of good that physicians do."
Gun injuries fall during NRA conventions, study says
Gun injuries fall during NRA conventions, study says
Webster said the number of civilians who carry guns is another form of gun contagion or basic social influence, especially with changing gun laws.
"Just like we admire people's clothes or haircuts or whatever -- 'I think I'll do that' -- the same thing happens with civilian gun carrying," he said. "We now have 12 states for which you can carry a loaded concealed gun with you or in your vehicle with no license or no vetting, no nothing." He noted that these laws apply only in cases in which the armed person is not a convicted felon and doesn't fall into other prohibited categories.
"The available data suggests that as we make it easier and easier for more and more civilians to carry guns wherever they want, we end up with more homicides and other firearm-related crimes," Webster said. He added that infectious diseases share similar outbreak patterns, going up very rapidly and then coming down very rapidly.
Will a signal from the top mean more gun violence research?
Will a signal from the top mean more gun violence research?
"If restricting access to firearms made people safer, then Venezuela should be a utopia," Pratt noted. "The country banned the private ownership of guns in 2012 and then later enforced that ban with gun confiscation. And yet they now have a murder rate that is almost 20 times higher than the murder rate in the U.S."
Webster agrees that "Venezuela has a problem; Mexico has a problem; there are a number of places where, even with strong gun control laws, they have rising rates of violence."
A lot of that violence is connected to "literal breakdowns in society," he said: "You have cartels who have basically either bought or intimidated many people within the law enforcement criminal justice apparatus. You've got a whole other set of conditions that come into play when you think about Venezuela or Mexico or some other places."
If laws in the US make it easy for cartels, criminal organizations, domestic violence offenders and troubled teens to access guns, violence will increase, Webster believes.
Pratt counters that "more good guys with guns will serve as a deterrent to criminals."
"Consider that between 2007 and 2016, the number of concealed carry permits in the country rose by 256%, and yet the murder rate dropped almost 10% and the violent crime rate dropped almost 20% (as seen in the FBI's figures here)," he wrote.
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Webster said that "risk is the bottom line. It's only guns in the context of risk."
A different outcome would probably occur if you gave loaded guns to a group of drunken people versus the same group when sober, he said. The same applies if you gave guns to a group of people at a soccer game versus at a figure skating competition or a group of Quakers versus a group of former felons.
Although the majority of people who carry guns may be "perfectly safe and law-abiding people," there's always a "subset" who are not, Webster said: "Where there are more guns, more people get shot by them."
