From: andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman)
Subject: Re: Guns and Rape
Organization: Computer Science Department,  Stanford University.
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 08:06:43 GMT

In article <LAMBERT.92Apr15021440@nankeen.spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au> lambert@spectrum.cs.unsw.oz.au (Tim Lambert) writes:
> On 6 Apr 92 17:53:12 GMT, andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) said:
>> While we can safely ignore Lambert's "If I were a criminal ...", we
>> can't ignore "I do ..." from actual criminals.  (BTW - I suspect we
>> can also disregard his "criminals do not think of the future" as
>> elitist fantasies as well,
>
>If non-criminals form an elite in the US, your crime problem must be
>worse than I thought.

In many cases, different socio economic groups in the US commit
different types of crimes.  (Of course, some crime rates appear to be
uniform across socio-economic classes and in some cases, we think that
the reporting rates vary.)  For example, armed robbery is less common
among the well educated/off than it is among the "disadvantaged",
while the "disadvantaged" are far less likely to commit large-scale
"non-violent" theft such as looting a bank internally.  Both
class-crime differences may be due to opportunity differences, but it
isn't obvious what that has to do with the severity of the crime
problem.

Of course, if Oz millionaires are as likely to knock off a bank gun in
hand as lower income sorts, then we've found another difference
between Oz and the US.

BTW - The elitist fantasy being referred to is the one that states
that violent criminals do not consider their actions, that they're
mere animals immediately reacting and never considering the future or
the consequences, let alone planning.  One can be a non-criminal
without believing it.

>The theory was advanced by Kevin Langston.  Are you suggesting that we
>are the same person?

Lambert asserted it and took it as his own.  Regardless of who had it
first, the fact that others share that theory doesn't collapse them
into one being.  I have no idea why Lambert thinks that I might be
suggesting that it does.  Is this is another difference between the US
and Oz or something peculiar to him?

>> See Wright and Rossi's "Armed and Considered Dangerous" for one
>> study of how criminals react to the threat of armed victims.
>> Summary: they are deterred.
>
>I take it by this that you mean the following:
>
>1. Most (or at least a majority) of criminals
>2. are often deterred from committing crimes
>3. because victims might be armed.

No, I don't mean that.  (Hint: there can be a positive and significant
effect even if only a minority are affected positively, and even if
more react.)

>(These would all seem necessary if deterrence is going to explain the
>drop in the rape rate in Orlando.)

No, they aren't necessary for deterrence.  (BTW - the orlando
experience included some displacement ....)

>So Andy's summary is wrong on all three points that it implies.

Since andy's summary didn't imply any of those three points, let
alone rely on them ....

>Furthermore, the primary reason why most of the criminals carried
>firearms was not for the purpose of committing crimes, but for
>self-defence.  35% of criminals reported that they thought regularly
>or often about the possibility of getting shot by their victims, so
>some of these criminals may have armed themselves to defend against
>armed victims.

And others responded by taking up another line of work.

Note that prison surveys necessarily deal only with folks who weren't
deterred by the threat of prison.  They can't tell you anything about
the general population.  They also only include folks who have been
arrested, so they can't tell you about criminals who haven't been
arrested.  (And, since we know that they've committed crimes that they
weren't arrested for ....)  One might call these errors the "warden's
fallacy".

In the US, arrests/crime is small, so if encountering an armed victim
is a "sobering experience" for some ....  (Note that some might well
consider encountering an armed victim as worse than being arrested and
imprisoned.)

-andy
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