Select Committee on Home Affairs Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 18

Further supplementary note by the Gun Control Network

FIREARMS OWNERSHIP AND FIREARMS CRIME: THE EVIDENCE FOR THE REGULATORY POSITION

  The debate over firearms control in the United Kingdom has been beset by the absence of serious, systematic or sophisticated studies conducted in this country as to the relationship between firearms ownership and the prevalence of different forms of firearms crime or of other violence (including, for example, self-injury and suicide) resulting from the use of firearms. Our knowledge as to the impacts of firearms ownership in Britain is also bedevilled by the absence of any national register of firearms or of firearms owners, and by the devolution of responsibility for firearms certification to 47 different police forces in England and Wales and a further six forces in Scotland, each of them making use (as the enquiry by Lord Cullen in 1996 into the Dunblane massacre revealed) of quite different practices in respect of firearms registration (without access to any one computerised data bank or agreed system of firearms identification). Given the absence of sophisticated domestic research studies, supporters of the recent moves towards tighter regulation of firearms, and, in particular, the banning of handguns under the Firearms Amendment Act of 1997, have been confronted by angry voices from the shooting fraternity of Britain, claiming that such moves towards enhanced regulation of firearms are "irrational", "emotional" and without any basis in social scientific evidence (or in what the shooting lobby likes to call "the facts"). We rehearse here the evidence that has been presented in five different studies, primarily conducted in North America, which clearly lend support to the regulatory arguments of the Gun Control Network, and of other bodies representing the majority opinion in the United Kingdom, as to the dangers that are presented for civil society by the widespread prevalence of guns in private hands.

1.  FRANKLYN ZIMRING AND GORDON HAWKINS CRIME IS NOT THE PROBLEM: LETHAL VIOLENCE IN AMERICA

(1997)

  In what has been described as "the most important book about guns and violence in America in years", Professors Zimring and Hawkins advance the argument that crime-rates and homicide-rates are independent phenomena, and that the rates of homicide and other violence (like robbery) are best understood as an effect of the general availability of the instruments of violence in private hands (ie not as a measure of levels of "criminality" in the population). The comparison between the United States and Britain is the most dramatic example of this argument. Analysis of official rates of crime in New York City and London in 1990 shows that:

    "London has more theft than New York City and a rate of burglary 57 per cent higher. But the robbery rate in London is less than one-fifth of the robbery rate in New York City and the homicide rate in London is less than one-tenth the New York City figure." (Zimring and Hawkins, 1997:6)

  The prevalence of homicide in New York City in 1990 was 8.9 per 100,000 citizens, compared with 2.7 per 100,000 in London. In the United States as a whole in 1993, the homicide rate was about 9.9 per 100,000, with no other advanced industrial society (according to the U.N.'s International Crime Survey of 1993) having a prevalence rate above 3 (Finland). In England and Wales as a whole, the prevalence was 0.5 per 100,000 (van Dijk and Mayhew 1993).

  Zimring and Hawkins make the important observation that 70 per cent of all homicides in the United States involve the use of firearms, whether legally owned or illegally obtained. They also argue that the levels of fear of crime that are encountered in the United States, even in the context of continuing secular decline in rates of property crime, are an expression of the "life-threatening" character of the inter-personal crime that continues to be a significant risk in many American cities, as a result of the widespread distribution of firearms in the general population, and the ease of availability of such firearms.

2.  THE EMORY UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR INJURY PREVENTION STUDIES

  Some of the most detailed work on firearms ownership as a "risk factor" in other human experiences has been conducted by Arthur Kellerman and his associates at the Centre for Injury Prevention in the School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. In one particularly important study, Kellerman and his associates carried out a detailed analysis (in respect of 1,860 homicides in Ohio) of whether the impact of firearms ownership in the home increases or decreases the risk of violent crime in those homes (Kellerman et al 1993). In this respect, the study was seen as an investigation of claims made for firearms-ownership as a defence against homicide and violence. After controlling for other potentially influential factors (like drug-abuse, histories of violence in the home, etc, etc), the study concluded that "keeping of a gun in the home was strongly and independently associated with an increased rate of homicide" in those homes. Homes where guns are kept were in fact almost three times more likely to be the scene of a homicide than comparable homes without guns, in particular from use of firearms by a spouse, other family member or acquaintance. In a further study on the involvement of firearms in suicide, Kellerman shows that firearms suicides in the United States increased by 36 per cent between 1968 and 1985, during a period in which the suicide rate by all other means remains constant (Kellerman et al 1992).

3.  THE UNITED STATES/CANADA COMPARISON

  A distinctive body of research literature on firearms has focussed on the comparison in firearms crime and violence across the border between the United States and Canada, a country with a significantly stronger regulatory regime in the field of firearms than the US. The pioneering study in this tradition was conducted by J H Sloan and his associates in Seattle, Washington and Vancouver, British Columbia—two major cities 150 miles apart on the Pacific North West in North America (Sloan et al (1988)). Sloan's study was able to show that the two cities had almost identical rates of burglary, assault and robbery, as well as similar rates of homicide and assault without a gun. But in Seattle the rates of assault with a firearm and of homicide with a handgun were seven and 4.8 times higher respectively than the rates in Vancouver. The authors of this study concluded that these differences could only be explained in terms of the frequency with which gun licences were issued in these two cities, in particular, and also the ease with which handguns could be purchased.

  At a symposium organised by the New York Law School of International and Comparative Law in 1992, in the context of rising concern about firearms violence in the United States, a number of scholars and spokespeople from public interest organisations came together to explore these differences between Canada and the United States in more depth (New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law 15 (nos 2-3)(1995)). The preoccupations of the conference were powerfully signalled in the opening address by Karen Burstain, candidate for the New York State Attorney General position, indicating that in 1992 some 329 people were killed by guns in Canada, when some 23,000 people were killed by guns in the United States. Another presentation to this conference by Wendy Cukier of the Canadian Coalition for Gun Control showed that:

    "Murders without guns in Canada and the United States are roughly comparable. In Canada, there are 1.9 murders without guns per 100,000 people; in the United States, it's 2.5 per 100,000. In the United States, the rate of murder without guns is less than 50 per cent higher. Next, look at murders with handguns. In Canada, it's .2 per 100,000; in the United States, it's 3.8 per 100,000. You have roughly 20 times as many murders with handguns on a per capita basis in the United States than we have in Canada. And if you look at robberies with guns, I would really reject any notion that arming is making you safer. You have more than three times the rates of robberies with guns than we have in Canada, again on a per capita basis." (Cukier, 1995: 254-255)

  The importance of the comparative analysis of the impact of firearms in Canada and the United States should be clear. These two societies, cheek by jowl north and south of the 49th parallel, share a similar land space. They are both societies of immigration and cultural pluralism. They are inundated by similar television channels and many other aspects of consumer culture in the Americas. But as organised modern societies, they have quite distinctive political traditions, and, in particular, very different attitudes to the relationship of "the individual" and the State. So firearms ownership in Canada is generally not accompanied by powerful libertarian arguments with respect to "the right to bear arms" (as articulated by the National Rifle Association and other organisations), but is generally discussed in terms of the utility of firearms for certain agricultural and sporting pursuits.

4.  THE KILLIAS STUDY

  One of the most controversial studies to have been produced on the relationship between firearms ownership and firearms violence is the study released by Professor Martin Killias of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland in the early 1990s (Killias, 1993). Killias' work arises out of the telephone interviews conducted with 28,000 randomly selected individuals across 14 countries as a part of the International Crime Survey of 1989. In the course of these interviews, individuals were asked whether there were any guns (except air rifles) in their household and, if they answered in the affirmative, they were asked to identify the kind of weapon being retained. Interviewees living in Switzerland were asked whether the firearm being retained in the household was a private or military weapon. For each of the 14 countries the rates of ownership were weighted for the respondents' sex, age, household composition and region. Killias then proceeded to collect data on homicide and suicide from these same 14 countries, making use of World Health Organization data, for the period 1983-85. The results of these investigations are presented below:

Country
Homicide
(overall)
Per 1 million
Homicide
(with a gun)
Per 1 million
Suicide
(overall)
Per 1 million
Suicide
(with a gun)
Per 1 million
Per cent of
households
with guns
Australia
19.5
6.6
115.8
34.2
19.6
Belgium
18.5
8.7
231.5
24.5
16.6
Canada
26.0
8.4
139.4
44.4
29.1
England and Wales
6.7
0.8
86.1
3.8
4.7
Finland
29.6
7.4
253.5
54.3
23.2
France
12.5
5.5
223.0
49.3
22.6
The Netherlands
11.8
2.7
117.2
2.8
1.9
Northern Ireland
46.6
35.5
82.7
11.8
8.4
Norway
12.1
3.6
142.7
38.7
32.0
Scotland
16.3
1.1
105.1
6.9
4.7
Spain
13.7
3.8
64.5
4.5
13.1
Switzerland
11.7
4.6
244.5
57.4
27.2
United States
75.9
44.6
124.0
72.8
48.0
West Germany
12.1
2.0
203.7
13.8
8.9


  (Killias, 1993, Table.)

  Killias then undertook a correlational analysis of the relationships between levels of gun ownership in these 14 different countries, using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. All correlations investigated were positive, other than the relationship between gun ownership and rates of homicide and suicide by means other than a gun. Killias concludes from this analysis that there is every reason for supposing that the presence of guns in the household, independently of any other consideration, is a primary influence on the likelihood of homicide and/or suicide occurring in that household. There was no evidence in his data for what is called the "compensation" process—that is, of residents of countries with low rates of gun ownership using "means other than a gun" more frequently to commit homicide and suicide "making up for the absence of guns" (Killias, 1993: 1724). Killias's study is also important for the light which is shed on the relationship between firearms in the household and suicide: the correlation between the presence of firearms of any kind in the home (rifles, shotguns, military and private firearms, as well as handguns) increases to 0.900 on the Spearman scale (a highly significant ranke correlation). Killias is aware that his study is open to methodological critique (not least for the fact that the homicide and suicide rates for these 14 countries were collected several years before the gun ownership rates) and he is also aware that levels of gun ownership ought to be separated out as variables from issues of "culture" (it is possible to identify societies with high rates of gun ownership, like Switzerland itself, with a very different attitude towards guns in the general culture than that which is to be found in the United States). From the perspective of critics in the shooting lobby in the United Kingdom, the shortcomings in Killias's study (which are admitted by Killias himself) are grounds for dismissal of his study entirely (Stevenson 1996: 92-94), although one is hard pressed to find examples of his study being severely criticised on scholarly criminological publications (as Stevenson proclaims). It is tempting to compare the protestations that are made about the limits of the Killias study to the protestations that have been made in recent years about the absence of conclusive proof with respective to the casual relationship between smoking and cancer, or between infected beef and the spread of BSE in cows and the human population. The Killias study remains an important marker of what he calls the "serious consequences" (the demonstrable risks) that appear to be related to the availability of guns in private hands.

5.  THE CANADIAN FIREARMS CONTROL TASK GROUP

  The Firearms Control Task Force of the Department of Justice Canada was established in the early 1990s, in the aftermath of growing concerns over the private ownership and use of firearms in that country, resulting, in no small measure, from the massacre of 14 women students at the University of Montreal in 1989 and a national debate over the relationship between "masculinity" and guns (the so-called "White Ribbon" campaign). Amongst many other reports produced by this national task force was a review of firearms statistics and regulations in eight selected countries, based on information collected between January and April 1995 (Department of Justice Canada 1995). The information collected by the Firearms Control Task Force was presented in a summary form, as below:

Country
Suicide
Rate/
(per100,000 (N)
Suicide
with
Firearm
Rate/
100,000 (N)
Homicide
Rate/
100,000 (N)
Homicide
with
Firearm
Rate/
100,000 (N)
Accidents
with
Firearms (N)
Firearms
Ownership
Rate/
100,000 (N)
Canada
12.8

(3,709)
3.6

(1,048)
2.2

(630)
0.67

(193)
63
24,138

(7 m)
Australia
11.6

(2,081)
2.5

(435)
1.8

(326)
0.36

(64)
18
19,444

(3.5 m)
New
Zealand
14.5

(493)
2.5

(86)
2.6

(90)
0.49

(18)
4
29,412

(1 m)
Japan
19.3

(23,742)
0.14

(175)
1.2

(1,500
0.06

(74)
??
414

(517,675)
Switzerland
20.4

(1,416)
5.8

(407)
1.5

(105)
1.41

(96)
842
42,857

(3 m)
Britain
8.6

(4,284)
0.4

(191)
1.3

(675)
0.14

(74)
8
3,307

(1.7 m)
France
20

(11,403)
4.9

(2,793)
4.943
2.324

(1,324)
Unavailable
22.6 per cent
of households
United
States
12

(30,810)
7.1

(18,526)
9.3

(24,273)
6.4

(16,704)
1,441
85,385

(222 m)
1  Includes attempted and completed murder.

2  Number of firearms injuries: data on accidents were not available.

3  Includes attempted and completed murder.

4  Includes attempted and completed murder.


  (Department of Justice Canada (1995): Table 1.1)

  The Firearms Control Task Group report is presented as "a brief overview" of the firearms statistics and systems of regulation investigated by the working group in a four month period—presumably, as background for discussions takng place at the time within the Canadian federal government around the continuing adequacy of firearms legislation in Canada. The data presented are all "secondary data"—taken on trust from a variety of sources—and in no sense the result of systematic comparative primary research in these eight countries, using trans-national definitions and universalistic or ideal-typical criteria for comparing the eight different examples. For this reason, and for others, the Firearms Control Task Group's report, like the Killias study, has been signalled out for a dismissive review by Mr Jan Stevenson, in the evidence he presented to the Cullen Enquiry (Stevenson 1996), Stevenson's concerns, like those of his collaborator in a subsequent privately-published volume (Munday and Stevenson 1996) appears, firstly, to be that some of the figures presented for levels of gun ownership are not "credible" either to him or to his collaborator, Richard Munday, and, secondly, that the relationships which are outlined in the Canadian report are merely "suggestive" and that the suggested relationships are less clear in some cases (Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Switzerland) than in others. Buried beneath the intemperate rhetoric that Munday and Stevenson try to marshall against the Canadian study—and all other studies which suggest the good sense involved in the proper societal regulation of lethal weaponry—is a quite extraordinary, early nineteenth century positivist belief in the idea a detailed formal model that would be capable of explaining the detailed relationships between very conceivable variable and outcomes.

CONCLUSION

  It has not been the purpose of this particular paper to identify or discuss the different methodological issues involved in the assessment of these particular social scientific enquiries—or the studies which are routinely cited in support of libertarian arguments with respect to "the right to bear arms" or the alleged benefits of firearms, for example, for self-defence and/or burglary-deterrence. These debates continue apace, especially in some more positivistic North American social scientific journals. It is not our concern to argue, in this resume, that there could be a straightforward causal relationship, for example, between levels of gun ownership per se and the prevalence of firearms violence in any individual society. There is unquestionably a complexity of relationships between the systems of legal control with respect to firearms in any individual society, the trends within the broader culture (including, it must be said, the influence of globalised popular culture as they impact within an individual society) and the actual prevalence of firearms violence in those societies. But the complexity of such relationships should not lead us to believe that no influential links can be demonstrable—for example, between the general availability of lethal weaponry—whether legally owned or otherwise obtained—and the risk of serious personal or interpersonal violence. This paper has been concerned to rehearse the evidence presented in five significant studies for the presence of such a level of risk, and the associated arguments for continued attention by responsible governments, acting in the public interest, to underwrite appropriate and effective systems of regulation over such a risk.

Professor Ian Taylor

December 1999

  Bibliography

  Cukier, Wendy (1995) Untitled address to International Symposium on "Guns at Home, Guns on the Street: an International Perspective" New York Law School Journal of International and Comparative Law 15 (Nos. 2-3): 253-258.

  Department of Justice Canada (1995) A Review of Firearm Statistics and Regulations in Selected Countries Ottawa: Department of Justice (Firearms Control Task Group).

  Kellerman Arthur L et al (1992) "Suicide in the Home in Relation to Gun Ownership" New England Journal of Medicine 327 (13 August : 467).

  Kellerman, Arthur L et al (1993) "Gun Ownership as a risk factor for homicide in the home" New England Journal of Medicine 329 (7 October 1993): 1084-1091.

  Killias, Martin (1993) "International Correlations between Gun Ownership and Rates of Homicide and Suicide." Canadian Medical Association Journal 148(10): 1721-1725.

  Munday, R A I and Stevenson, J A (eds) (1996) Guns and Violence: the debate before Lord Cullen Brightlingsea, Essex: Piedmont Publishing.

  Sloan, J.H. et al (1988) "Handguns regulations, crime, assaults and homicides" New England Journal of Medicine 319: 1259-1262.

  Stevenson, J A (1996) "Evidence into Issues Concerning the Control of Firearms arising from the Dunblane Tragedy" in Munday and Stevenson, op cit: 77-179.

  van Dijk, Jan and Mayhew, Pat "Criminal Victimization in the Industrialized World" in A A del Frate, U Zvekic and J Van Dijk (eds) Understanding Crime: Experiences of Crime and Crime Control Rome: United Nations Regional Interregional Crime and Justice Institute.


 
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