Inductivist

 Some anti-gun people think owning a gun is a sign of some kind of mental abnormality. According to General Social Survey data, gun owners are not more likely to have ever suffered from some sort of mental health problem.

Many people who saw armed white citizens in the Michigan Statehouse recently assumed they were violent-prone, and that armed black men would not be given the freedom to act that way. (I remember seeing armed black men unmolested at conservative rallies.) 

The General Social Survey asked participants if they own a handgun and also if they have ever been arrested (male sample size = 5,194). The percent of male handgun owners with at least one arrest is as follows:

Percent of men with a handgun who have ever been arrested
Whites  18.4
Blacks  28.3
Other race  26.7

Let's keep things simple and call arrestees criminals.  The conclusion we can draw here is that if all we know about a man is that he has a gun, our best bet is that he is NOT a criminal. Second, a black man with a handgun is 1.5 times more likely to be a criminal than a white man, and the increased risk for a man of another race is 1.45. 

Research indicates that black males are more reluctant than white males to admit to ever having been arrested, so the actual racial gap might be even bigger. Studies of large cities like DC or Philadelphia have found that roughly 50% of black men have ever been arrested.

I am currently putting together a large cross-national data set and will report interesting correlations. Let me begin with the relationship between civilian gun availability and homicide. I calculated the Pearson correlation between the two rates using data from the Small Arms Survey and WHO's recent study of homicide. For a sample of 181 countries, the correlation is -.25. That means that countries with more guns tend to have less lethal violence.

Gun ownership is strongly related to per capita GDP (.48). Countries with many guns like the United States (which is the world's leader with 88 firearms per 100 people) are typically wealthy. We Americans usually think of Europe as being practically gun free, but they have significantly higher levels than many poor countries. And two of the poorest regions are also the most violent--Latin America and especailly Sub-Saharan Africa. An African country might have less than one gun per 100 people, but that doesn't stop it from having a homicide rate many times the global average. I might get different results when I conduct a multivariate analysis--gun availability might lead to more violence when GDP is controlled, for example--but guns are not a serious enough factor to overwhelm more important causes of homicide.  

This Pew graph shows recent growth in support for private gun ownership. I suspect this is part of larger trend that favors maximum individual lifestyle freedom. Other examples include more people favoring legalization of marijuana and gay marriage. How nice it would be to see the acid of individualism attack minority race-loyalty.

This graph shows the percent of U.S. households that have at least one firearm (GSS data). From 1973 to 2010, the figure has dropped from 48 to 32 percent. Over the period, ownership has fallen by one-third. This is another indicator of the country's move in a liberal direction.

I had a good giggle today. Some stats from Pew show the ability of liberal slander to influence public opinion. After about a week of propaganda about how polarizing conservatives caused the Tucson shooting, a poll reveals the share of Americans that accept the liberal view:

The Tucson shooting reflects...

polarizing rhetoric 0.6%
media coverage of politics/talk shows 0.6%
extremists in the Republican party 0.6%

My guess is that about 0.6% of Americans are liberal pundits.

Americans are getting more and more sensible about these mass shootings:















Compared to 2007, more Americans are focusing on the individuals. 

And there's even growing support for the Second Amendment:

















Who says the country is going to hell in a handbasket? (Okay, okay, much of the time I do).

Criminals and guns: The recent Supreme Court decision on the Second Amendment got me thinking about guns. One argument you hear all the time is that criminals will always have their guns regardless of how many law-abiding folks have them. Frankly, I don't believe it.

While it is true that having a gun makes sense in the places where street criminals are likely to spend their time (not to mention to facilitate their crimes), but the truth is that these guys, as a class, are a lazy, unresourceful, opportunistic lot.

I remember when I read the book Monster, the autobiography of mega-Crip Kody Scott, half the time that he committed a violent crime or was a victim, he was for one reason or another unarmed, and this guy is the hardest of the hardcore. Many criminals are anything but professional--they just occasionally wander into crime--so we can't expect them necessarily to have the proper tools of the trade.

The General Social Survey asked 10,552 people if they have aver been arrested (not a perfect measure of criminality, but it's the best available) and if they have a handgun at home. Here are the percent who do by region:


Percent with a handgun

New England
Criminals 8.8
Non-criminals 6.9

Middle Atlantic
Criminals 12.2
Non-criminals 11.4

East North Central
Criminals 21.1
Non-criminals 18.3

West North Central
Criminals 18.7
Non-criminals 17.0

South Atlantic
Criminals 31.7
Non-criminals 27.2

East South Central
Criminals 28.0
Non-criminals 33.6

West South Central
Criminals 35.6
Non-criminals 31.0

Mountain
Criminals 40.0
Non-criminals 30.4

Pacific
Criminals 22.5
Non-criminals 19.7


There are two things to immediately take note of. First, most criminals do not have a gun. In New England, it's less than 10%, and in no region is it more than 40%. This contradicts the idea that handgun ownership among lawbreakers is widespread, much less universal. (I'll concede that many in our sample are not serious crooks). Second, ownership levels for both groups are similar within region: illegal gun ownership seems to follow legal levels. Let's get more precise and run a Pearson correlation: not too impressive--it's only .92.

This finding contradicts the idea that gun possession among criminals is independent of ownership levels among law-abiding folks. Now, it is theoretically possible that this correlation is a reflection of non-criminals responding to criminal gun ownership by acquiring guns for self-defense, but I strongly suspect that the causal arrow in the opposite direction is more important. (As an example of what I mean, around 500,000 guns are stolen each year.)

Don't get me wrong--I'm all for gun rights and agree with the court's decision, but I'm a conservative--the type of person who realizes that life is always, always trade-offs.

Those hell-raising Finnish-Americans own the most guns: The Virginia Tech. massacre got me thinking about the connection between ethnicity and being into guns. The General Social Survey asked 13,000 Americans about whether they keep a gun in the house. Here are the percent who said "yes" by ethnic group:


Percent with gun in house:

Finns 53.0
Dutch 50.9
American Indians 50.7
Scots 50.6
English/Welsh 50.2
French 49.9
Danes 49.7
Germans 49.2
Swiss 48.4
Norwegians 47.9
Belgians 47.4
Swedes 46.5
Czechs 45.3
Irish 45.2

USA 40.9

French Canadians 39.7
Hungarians 39.3
Austrians 39.0
Yugoslavs 38.1
Poles 32.8
Italians 30.5
Blacks 28.9
Portuguese 28.4
Mexicans 24.5
Japanese 23.8
Lithuanians 24.4
Greeks 23.8
Arabs 21.3
Russians 19.9
Filipinos 14.0
Jews 13.3
Indians 11.7
Chinese 10.0
Puerto Ricans 9.1
West Indians 7.0

It looks like northern and western Europeans have the highest rates, while eastern Europeans and various non-white groups are toward the bottom. This reflects the orientation toward hunting and target shooting. Notice how Amerindians are an exception among non-whites: their rural status and hunting heritage probably explain the pattern. You might expect urban folks to have high possession rates for self-defense purposes, but just the opposite is true. Looks at Jews, for example. I'm sure urban rates of pistol ownership (as opposed to rifles and shotguns) are higher.

On the Virginia Tech. massacre: Pop quiz--name as many female mass murderers as you can in 30 seconds--go....I'm still waiting. The libs are already calling for LaPierre's head on a platter. Funny thing is that women have as much access to guns as men. Did I miss all the stories of the Sally Slaughterers?