From: pal@xanadu.wpd.sgi.com (Anil Pal)
Newsgroups: ca.news,talk.politics.guns
Subject: Re: Gun control in California
Keywords: n
Date: 18 Aug 92 21:20:23 GMT
Reply-To: pal@wpd.sgi.com
Distribution: ca
Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc.

In article <1992Aug18.182949.2222@CSD-NewsHost.Stanford.EDU>, andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
|> Actually, that study didn't do that comparison, even though it is
|> reported as if it did.  It confused "edged weapons" with knives, but
|> there are significant differences.  (Crooks don't carry spoons.)

The study says "cutting instruments".  You're right, crooks don't carry
spoons, so the crime reports aren't talking about spoons.  They are
talking about knives, switchblades, possibly axes.  To claim otherwise
seems to be clutching at straws.

|> It also didn't account for other differences between the attacks.  For
|> example, knife users who want to convince their victims of their
|> seriousness often inflict "little" wounds.  Gun users with similar
|> intentions merely wave the gun.  Zimring didn't count the waves, but
|> he did count those little wounds, which are lethal.  Guess what that
|> does to the stat.

If those wounds were lethal, it would increase the knife death rate.  I
presume you mean non-lethal.

You are mixing up *assaults* with *robberies*.  Robbers do not, in
general, intend to cause injury, and people are less likely to resist
robbers armed with guns.  *Robbers* using guns can therefore get away
with waving.

But the point of the study I referred to was to compare outcomes of
*assaults*, where injury was intended.  Here guns were *five* times as
likely to result in death as knives (unless you wish to claim that all
the assaults recorded by the police as using  "cutting instruments"
actually involved spoons, rather than knives).  Quoting Zimring:

	"Do attackers who carry guns simply have more lethal intentions
	than assailants who use knives?  The Chicago data indicated
	otherwise:  compared with assaults with guns, attacks with
	knives were more likely to result in multiple wounds, and they
	were equally likely to damage a part of the body where death
	can result.  The 5-1 difference in death rate thus seems to
	stem from the greater dangerousness of the firearm as a
	weapon..."

|> To the extent that disarmed
|> with-gun robbers attempt to maintain their standard of living, the
|> number of deaths and injuries goes UP.

To the extent that people are more likely to resist robbers without
guns, yes, injuries will go up.  But once there are injuries, the
instrumentality effects of guns re-assert themselves, increasing deaths
as a proportion of injuries (by a factor of three, for guns over
knives) in robberies involving injury.

|> How much is Pal willing to bet?  We know that even including quite a
|> few suicides* and some covered up murders, the total is under 1,500.
|> Given the gun ownership rates, that's in the noise.  Feel free to
|> compare it to swimming pools, fire, accidental falls, medical
|> "misadventure", and so on.

Yes, I overstated this one.  The figure that stuck in my mind was from
1968, when it was around 2,500 deaths and 100,000 injuries, and I
assumed that it had risen.  The 1988 accidental death figure is indeed
around 1,500.  I don't know how this compares to othe causes (it is
much lower than automobile accidents).  The suicide death by firearm
figure is around 18,000.

"Given the gun ownership rates".  Surely you're not admitting that the
number of guns around has anything to do with gun deaths?  I thought
the party line was that gun ownership had nothing to do with gun deaths
(just as smoking has no connection to lung cancer).

-- 
Anil A. Pal
pal@sgi.com	(415)-390-5279