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Violence Policy Center proves that more guns means less violent crime, murder
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(Photo courtesy of Oleg Volk)
The last article examined how Josh Sugarmann, Executive Director of the Violence Policy Center (VPC), tries to deflect his own failure to influence gun control policy while ignoring the real reasons why VPC has become so ineffective. A recent publication by VPC highlights this point.
VPC issued a press release entitled States with Higher Gun Ownership and Weak Gun Laws Lead Nation in Gun Death. This included a list of 10 states highlighting a purported link between “weak” gun laws and the total “gun death rate,” implying that states with “weak” gun laws have more “gun death.” VPC also included a reference to the “household gun ownership” levels in each state, underlining VPC’s belief that “strong” gun laws correlates with drastically reduced gun ownership rates. Therefore, VPC’s criteria is that guns are a vital causative factor in their reported outcomes.
After three requests to VPC for their gun ownership dataset, apparently this dataset either doesn’t exist or is VPC’s extrapolation of a 2001 survey by the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics. However, a previous article examined how such extrapolations create unreliable estimates of states’ current gun ownership rates.
Skipping data leads to sampling error
The American Association for Public Opinion Research defines “sampling error” as:
The margin of sampling error is the price you pay for not talking to everyone in your population group. It describes the range that the answer likely falls between if we had talked to everyone instead of just a sample.
In other words, deleting most of a dataset makes it easier to select out the data that “proves” a predetermined conclusion. The VPC press release as an excellent example of sampling error, as will be shown below.
Table 1: Firearms and Non-Firearms Death Rates, VPC States* | |||||||
Total | Homicide | Suicide | Violent Crime | ||||
Gun | Non-gun | Gun | Non-gun | Gun | Non-gun | ||
VPC "Strong" states | 4.09 | 44.91 | 1.94 | 1.55 | 2.03 | 5.99 | 334.4 |
VPC "Weak" states | 17.12 | 63.09 | 6.95 | 2.82 | 9.19 | 5.78 | 564.9 |
Percent Difference | 318.9 | 40.5 | 257.7% | 81.9 | 352.7 | -3.4 | 69.0 |
* Because states have unique criminal justice systems, each is considered an equal entity, and therefore averaging is used.
By using less than 20% of the entire dataset, VPC makes its point that “weak” gun laws correlate with higher rates of total firearms death–more than four times as much–and higher rates of homicides using firearms (more than triple). Also, “weak” gun law states have over 4.5 times higher firearms suicide rates. Violent crime rates support VPC’s allegation: “weak” gun laws lead to more crime.
Bait and switch
While VPC cites alleged household gun ownership rates in the press release, they exclude these values in their full table. They also exclude the District of Columbia, which undoubtedly has the lowest gun ownership due to its recently overturned ban on functioning firearms, yet has the highest rate of “gun death” of any state, according to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).
One attribute VPC’s “weak” states have in common is that they are all right-to-carry (RTC) states, where law-abiding citizens have a broad right to carry concealed handguns, whereas four of their five “strong” gun law states are not RTC. VPC confirms this criteria in their press release:
The VPC defined states with “weak” gun laws as those that add little or nothing to federal restrictions and have permissive concealed carry laws allowing civilians to carry concealed handguns. [Emphasis added]
Since VPC is unwilling or unable to share their alleged gun ownership research, RTC status defines the data selection in Table 2.
Table 2: Firearms and Non-Firearms Death Rates, All States | |||||||
Total | Homicide | Suicide | Violent Crime | ||||
Gun | Non-gun | Gun | Non-gun | Gun | Non-gun | ||
Non-RTC states | 8.40 | 45.86 | 4.53 | 2.02 | 3.56 | 5.47 | 513.52 |
RTC states | 11.90 | 57.21 | 3.64 | 1.88 | 7.73 | 6.06 | 402.92 |
Percent Difference | 41.6 | 24.8 | -19.8 | -6.8 | 116.9 | 10.8 | -21.5 |
Examining the entire dataset, VPC’s “weak” gun law states (RTC) still have higher rates of total firearms death (41.6%), but not the 4+ times difference shown in Table 1. RTC states also have higher rates of non-firearms death (24.8%)–but again, far less than in Table 1–indicating that there are other causative factors besides guns. Firearms suicide rates are over double the rates in VPC’s “strong” states (non-RTC), but where the difference was 4.5 times higher in VPC’s select states, here it is 10.8% more. Comparison of both tables underscores VPC’s massive sampling error.
VPC’s Achilles heel
When it comes to homicide and overall violent crime, Table 2 tells a different story. Where “weak” states had much higher murder and violent crime rates in Table 1, the full dataset shows that “weak” states are safer: 19.8% lower firearms homicide and 6.8% lower non-firearms homicide rates. Moreover, the “weak” states had 21.5% less violent crime.
Bottom line: Suicide rates drive the difference between “gun death” in VPC’s “strong” and “weak” gun law states, but since “weak” states also have higher rates of non-gun suicide, VPC must either admit there are other causative factors besides gun availability, or admit that if more guns cause more suicides, then guns also cause less homicide and violent crime. As it stands right now, VPC’s own data proves that more guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens is an effective anti-crime tool.
Previous: Violence Policy Center admits defeat?
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For in-depth analysis of the “creative marketing” used by organizations like the Violence Policy Center, read Four Hundred Years of Gun Control: Why Isn’t It Working?, which deconstructs the gun control agenda and motivates more people to support our civil right of self-defense.
Check out other Gun Rights Examiners:
- Atlanta: Restaurant with anti-gun policy saved by a gun
- Austin: Violence Policy Center admits defeat?
- Boston: Massachusetts: Gun Control in a State of failure
- Charlotte: Armed self-defense: Getting essential training
- Cleveland: Firearm Owners Protection Act anniversary
- DC: Arming sailors on US flagged ships goes mainstream
- Denver: The new Prohibition
- Los Angeles: Gun rights on the air.
- Minneapolis: A great couple of days in the Midwest
- National: McCarthy introduces 'no rights' list
- Seattle: Did record-setting NRA convention cement decline of anti-gun lobby?
- St. Louis: Due process: it's for veterans, too
- Wisconsin: DA decides not to charge armed biker
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