I keep calling for more stringent gun laws in the U.S.; in fact, I would, if I were in charge, take the U.S. to the British system, in which private ownership of handguns is prohibited and rifles can be owned only for sports shooting or hunting—and under strict licensing. In contrast, many gun advocates say that the U.S. would become more dangerous should such legislation be enacted, and, regardless, the Second Amendment guarantees us private ownership of guns (the Supreme Court agrees; I don’t).

There is one “natural” experiment in banning guns: that in Australia, where, after mass shootings, stringent gun control was imposed in 1996. (Actually, the UK did another, but I know of no data like what I’ll show below.) And the data on homicides and suicides for periods of roughly two decades before and after the ban has just been analyzed and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Simon Chapman et al. (reference and free download below).  The upshot is that there are some data suggesting that gun-related suicides and homicides decreased after the ban, but in some cases it didn’t reach statistical significance.

There are two problems here. First, firearm-related homicides and suicides were already decreasing before the gun ban, so the analysis had to determine whether the rate of decline of gun-related deaths increased after the gun ban, and that method involves estimating regression coefficients—an insensitive way to detect anything other than big changes in rate.

Second, there may have been other changes over time that decreased gun-related deaths after the ban, namely the wider use of cellphones, which allow one to report shootings faster, possibly saving more lives and thus reducing the homicide rates, as well as improvements in medical care, so a suicide or shooting is less likely to cause death. Since the data analyzed involve only deaths and not injuries, the authors can’t rule out these factors.

That said, the data show that the number of mass shootings (defined as shootings in which more then five people die) dropped to zero after the ban (19 years after the gun ban was enacted), while there were 13 such incidents in the 18 years before the gun ban was enacted. That itself is a significant difference if you use a simple two-sample chi-square test assuming equality of numbers, but that difference may reflect only the same trend of reduced homicides over time. However, the overall data show that in every case the rate of decline in gun-related deaths increased after the ban, and didn’t increase in any case, as the gun-lovers would have us believe. Moreover, in some cases the faster decline was statistically significant.  The report then, is heartening but not decisive. It certainly gives us no cause to think that if a Western nation suddenly tightened its gun policies, gun-related deaths would rise.

First, the facts (all quotes from the paper):

In addition, by January 1, 1997, all 8 governments commenced a mandatory buyback at market price of prohibited firearms. As of August 2001, 659 940 newly prohibited semiautomatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns had been purchased by the federal government from their civilian owners at market value, funded by a one-off levy on income tax, and destroyed.  From October 1, 1997, large criminal penalties, including imprisonment and heavy fines, applied to possession of any prohibited weapon.

You can see that both suicides and homicides involving firearms were already decreasing before the ban (vertical line), while suicides and homicides not involving firearms were either increasing or steady. In the latter case, though, both kinds of deaths decreased after the gun ban, suggesting that better medical care, increased cellphone use, or other factors were involved.

Here are the statistical analyses:

The column to look at is the P values in the RT column (ratio of trends happening before and after gun control; “RL” looks for a step change occurring in 1996). You can see that in every case (5 out of 5 non”total” cases involving separated firearm and nonfirearm deaths: rows 2-4 and 6-7 in Table 3), the death rates declined more steeply after than before gun laws. That alone is nearly statistically significant, but remember that two of these statistics are deaths not involving firearms. In one analysis of firearm deaths—suicide—the drop was significantly steeper after 1996, and for all homicides it was almost significant (p = 0.06). But the drops in non-firearm deaths also accelerated after 1996, which again may reflect other factors (including, in the case of suicide, better prevention techniques).

Largely because of the contribution from fewer suicides, the rate of decrease in total firearm deaths, involving both suicides and non-suicides, was larger after gun control than before. All of this shows that easy access to firearms, at least in Australia, seemed to promote more suicides than homicides.

What’s the lesson? As I said, it’s a bit problematic because of other factors, factors that could be reflected in a decrease in nonfirearm deaths as well. Nevertheless, there are no data here suggesting that firearm deaths will increase after guns are largely banned. In other words, these data show that such a ban is worth trying, as there appears to be no downside.

Ideally, we’d want more data from other countries, but we can’t get it from the one country everyone’s concerned about: the U.S. Until the Supreme Court interprets the Second Amendment correctly, and the legislature gets the moxie to buck the National Rifle Association and enact meaningful gun laws, we simply won’t know what will happen in the U.S. if we followed Australia’s lead. The data above, however, suggest that we should.

________

Chapman, S., P. Alpers, and M. Jones. 2016. Association between gun law reforms and intentional firearm deaths in Australia, 1979-2013. J. Am. Medical Association. doi:10.1001/jama.2016.8752 Published online June 22, 2016.

A new Texas law that goes into effect on August 1 will allow all students to carry concealed weapons on public university campuses and inside classroom buildings (some exceptions can be made by university administrations). It’s a dreadful idea, predicated on the notion that if the students are packing heat, it will deter terrorists or other crazies who want to attack campuses. (I can imagine the carnage in a classroom shootout like that!) Private universities are exempt—for the time being.

Given that it’s a law, there’s not much one can do but challenge it in court. But one professor, and someone I know and respect, is simply committing civil disobedience, telling students he won’t allow guns in the classroom.

According to PuffHo, renowned and Nobel-winning physicist Steven Weinberg (also an atheist) has announced that he’ll try to ban guns in his University of Texas at Austin classroom this fall:

Steven Weinberg, who won the top prize in science in 1979, said at the university’s faculty council meeting that he understands the decision could leave him vulnerable to a lawsuit. Most university task forces across the state have found that Texas’ new campus carry law prohibits such a ban. But Weinberg said he believes that he would eventually win that suit, because forcing professors to allow guns quashes constitutionally protected free speech and academic freedom.

“I am willing by my own actions to expose myself to this,” he said. “Let’s have it heard. We should allow the courts to decide it.”

Yes, I think he’ll be sued, and I’m glad he’s willing to take the heat (so to speak) and fight this thing up through the courts (I’m sure the American Civil Liberties Union will help, although I can’t really see this as a free-speech issue.) But Weinberg’s in for a hard time, for even the University’s lawyers disagree with him:

UT-Austin officials charged with reviewing the law were unconvinced. Steven Goode, a UT-Austin law professor and chairman of the university’s campus carry task force, said his group reviewed banning guns in classrooms and decided that it violated the new law. Attorney General Ken Paxton has agreed in a written opinion issued last month.

“I think that the notion that a First Amendment claim would win in court against [the campus carry law] is an illusion,” Goode said. “I think it is an extraordinarily weak argument.

. . . At UT-Austin, President Greg Fenves appointed a task force to review the law and suggest rules. That task force has recommended banning guns in dorms and allowing professors to ban guns in their individual offices. But it said that bans in classrooms went too far.

Fenves, who hasn’t yet weighed in, said on Monday that he expects to propose his rules by mid-February. But in comments to the faculty council, he indicated that he would have to stick with state law. When asked whether professors can require students with handguns to sit in the back of the classroom, for example, Fenves said he didn’t think so.

“As a public university, I am obligated to seeing that we carry out the law,” Fenves said.

I have a lot of friends who teach at UT Austin and other public universities in Texas, and I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes. I simply can’t imagine teaching knowing that students are sitting in front of me with pistols. What if they get mad?

At any rate, Weinberg has guts, and although he’ll probably lose, I applaud his chutzpah.

Things appear to be winding down on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, but it’s not over yet. I heard on the news this morning that jailed leader Ammon “I am Liberty” Bundy asked the rest of his thugs to leave, and this is verified by KATU in Portland, Oregon and the New York Times.  Three more protestors have turned themselves in and have been arrested, and Ammon B. issued the following statement:

“To those remaining at the refuge, I love you. Let us take this fight from here. Please stand down. Go home and hug your families. This fight is ours for now in the courts. Please go home.”

The authorities have blockaded the roads, so protestors can no longer come and go as they please or head into town for snacks. While some have been reported leaving the area (they’ll get arrested when they do so), the NYT reports that others seem to be digging in for a longer haul. It won’t work.

What did they accomplish? Nothing. I hope other gun-toting libertarians think about that. What they did was piss off most of the rest of America, get clapped in jail, and one of them got himself killed. I hope the feds slap the group with fines for the damage they did to the preserve, which I hear is considerable. The next move should be confiscating the cattle of Ammon’s father Cliven.

I haven’t found much out about the shooting death of LaVoy Finicum; that scenario is being kept under wraps while the police (and perhaps lawyers) investigate. There’s still the possibility that he was killed in cold blood, though I doubt whether the police, with the eyes of the U.S. on them, would fire without some provocation.

Meanwhile, courtesy of the Multnomah County sheriff, we have mug shots of the first eight arrested, all being held without bond until at least tomorrow:

For once, I think, the National Rifle Association (NRA)—a group of unrepentant evildoers—is feeling beleaguered. Americans, traumatized by a series of terrorist shootings here and abroad—many involving assault weapons—are starting to wonder if largely unrestricted access to guns is really so great after all. The governor of Connecticut has just issued an executive order banning sales of guns to those on the “no fly” list—about the weakest kind of gun reform we can enact, yet one opposed by Republicans. And the New York Daily News, a tabloid but also the fourth most circulated paper in America, has come out swinging against the NRA and in favor of gun control.

The headline after the Paris attacks:

The headline the San Bernardino shootings:

Of course the NRA being the unreflective and odious organization that it is, they immediately mustered one of their flaks, Dana Loesch, a conservative radio host, commentator, and author of that famous screed Hands Off My Gun: Defeating the Plot to Disarm America, which makes her eminently qualified to be the Voice of Evil.  And so she put out a video, which I’ve embedded below and which The Washington Post describes like this:

I can only imagine what Europeans would think of that video! But it embodies everything you need to know about the NRA

If you can handle any more of Loesch’s gun-nuttery, here’s a one-minute video in which she argues why a good American Mom should have a gun:

Loesch says “I am the National Rifle Association of America,” which is extremely scary. But the sick thing is that it’s true. I can only hope to see a day when the NRA loses all its credibility. Once an organization promoting gun safety, it’s now become a vicious pit bull defending the rights of anybody to have a gun of any kind, including assault rifles.

h/t: jsp

A group of gun nuts has just had a demonstration on the University of Texas at Austin campus, promoting gun rights and calling attention to Texas’s new law allowing concealed handguns not just on college campuses, but inside college buildings. Unfortunately, the UT Austin campus is where Charles Whitman killed sixteen people with a rifle, firing from atop the campus tower.

The gun nuts were outnumbered by protestors and the media, but the law still stands, and it frightens me (as it frightens many of my colleagues at UT), to think of the consequences of students walking around with handguns like it’s the Wild West. The reports below come from today’s New York Times and the PuffHo:

Pro-gun advocates doused fake victims with fake blood outside the University of Texas on Saturday in what they called a theatrical event to show the need for firearms on campus.

One of the mock mass shooting organizers, the group Come and Take It Texas, said allowing gun-free zones on campuses eliminated a human right to personal protection.

“Our goal is to instill the importance of everyone to be able to defend themselves in any way they choose,” the group said in a statement posted on its website.

“Come and Take It Texas” has a Facebook page here, where I found the following video. It would be amusing if it didn’t show how far these gunophiles will go—even brandishing assault rifles—and if Texas hadn’t passed that odious law, which happens to take effect next summer, on the 50th anniversary of Whitman’s massacre.

The Times gives some more background:

The dueling positions echoed divisions that have flared on college campuses since the Legislature passed a bill to make Texas the ninth state to permit campus carry. The Texas law will go into effect on Aug. 1, coincidentally the 50th anniversary of what is regarded as the nation’s first on-campus mass shooting — a 1966 rampage by the sniper Charles Whitman from the University of Texas Tower that killed 16 people.

Texans who meet the state’s requirements to carry concealed handguns have long been permitted to carry firearms on campus grounds; the new law allows gun permit holders who are at least 21 to carry the weapons inside college buildings.

The law requires all tax-supported public universities to comply with the requirements, although amendments that were opposed by gun-rights advocates allow campus administrators to establish gun-free zones.

Private universities are not required to follow the requirements. Two such schools, Texas Christian in Fort Worth and Rice in Houston, have opted out of the law, and Southern Methodist University in Dallas is expected to decide in the coming week. The board of Texas Wesleyan University in Fort Worth plans a vote in January, and Baylor University in Waco is reviewing the law.

Some lovely photos of the gun nuts:

Although New Yorker writer Adam Gopnik and I have differed on some issues, most notably whether there are “ways of knowing” that come not from science but from the humanities, we’re both in synch on the need for stringent gun control. Among the good articles he’s written on the issue lately are these, all worth reading:

“The simple truth about gun control”

“Six snowballs thrown in the gun-control debate”

“Our shared blame for the shootings in San Bernardino“

The first one is the latest, and is eminently sensible. An excerpt:

There are complex, hand-wringing-worthy problems in our social life: deficits and debts and climate change. Gun violence, and the work of eliminating gun massacres in schools and movie houses and the like, is not one of them. Gun control works on gun violence as surely as antibiotics do on bacterial infections. In Scotland, after Dunblane, in Australia, after Tasmania, in Canada, after the Montreal massacre—in each case the necessary laws were passed to make gun-owning hard, and in each case… well, you will note the absence of massacre-condolence speeches made by the Prime Ministers of Canada and Australia, in comparison with our own President.

The laws differ from place to place. In some jurisdictions, like Scotland, it is essentially impossible to own a gun; in others, like Canada, it is merely very, very difficult. The precise legislation that makes gun-owning hard in a certain sense doesn’t really matter—and that should give hope to all of those who feel that, with several hundred million guns in private hands, there’s no point in trying to make America a gun-sane country.

If Scotland, Canada, and Australia can do it, why can’t we?

In a new piece at Salon, Nevada state legislator Michele Fiore defended her odious Christmas “card”—representing the month of December in her “we love guns” calendar—showing her entire family, save the babes in arms, packing heat. Naturally she was given a sympathetic hearing by Fox News. As Salon reports (my emphasis):

Fiore received criticism after she posted the photograph on Facebook, but she insisted that she only intended to send the festive message that “Christmas is a family affair, I think giving firearms as a present and getting firearms as a present is a great present, and I think because Christmas is a family affair, our ultimate responsibility is to protect and make sure our family is safe.”

[Interviewer Steve] Doocy noted that the other months in the calendar feature her alone bearing a firearm, whereas in the December photograph “the little boy in the front has a pistol.”

 “He actually has a Walther P22, my grandson Jake,” she replied, “and number one, that gun is unloaded, and number two, Jake is quite familiar with Eddie Eagle, which is an NRA gun safety program for children.”

And on TPM Memo, Fiore suggests that perhaps she doesn’t have the greatest control over her mouth (my emphasis):

Finally, here are some more pictures from Fiore’s calendar, thoughtfully reproduced on Guns.com:

God help America!