Customer Reviews

Gun Violence : The Real Costs

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I am the author of the New England Journal of Medicine review to which Dr. van der Linden so strongly objects. I doubt that Dr. van der Linden ever read the book, and he certainly did not carefully read my review. The review was not effusively praiseful of Gun Violence, and it noted some reasons for skepticism about the book's major conclusions. However, I believe that it introduces a worthwhile framework for thinking about firearm violence, and it is worth reading even if you disagree with it.

The benefits of an armed society can never be adequately weighed against the detriments for a variety of reasons, the chief one being a dearth of records on both national and local levels. Firearms, like alcoholic beverages, can be both used and misused; however, unlike firearms, alcoholic beverages have no socially redeeming purposes. There are significant numbers in our society who are alive and well because they had a firearm they could depend on when police weren't available.

Courts have consistently held that governments don't have an obligation to protect individuals, but the population at large. Indeed, most murders are committed when there are no police present. When one considers that police functions depend more on deterrent and solving crimes rather than protection, the benefits of an armed society becomes even more apparent.

Over the past several years, the media has reported that police presence has been sparse to almost non-existent following hurricanes like Katrina and Andrew and other natural disasters. Police have their own families to tend to and in extreme conditions it's conceivable that many thousands of people can be caught alone in extremely hostile environs, unprotected.

When gun deaths are posted, no one has any idea how many are criminals are shot by police, how many criminals are killed and captured by citizens, and how many criminals are killed by criminals. We do know that nearly 50 percent of all handgun deaths are due to suicide, and there is no evidence that restricting handguns would result in fewer suicides. In fact, a 5-year Department of Justice study conducted a number of years ago found that Japanese-Americans had about the same rate on violent crimes as Japanese-Japanese. The same was true for white Europeans and white Americans. And, not surpisingly, it was true in both cases with suicide. The bottom line was that cultural disposition had more to do with violent crime and suicide rates than gun laws or the lack thereof.

Speaking about gun laws, there is no documented case in which more restrictive gun laws ever resulted in less violent crime. In fact, the opposite has almost always been the case.

So who can measure the cost of the human lives saved because a handgun was present when the local rift raft came by to cave someone's head in with a 2x4 or to rape or pillage? In well over 95 percent of the time an armed citizen doesn't even have to shoot a criminal (much less kill) to prevent a violent crime. Thus, how do we calculate those benefits? The same is true for hikers and campers who use firearms against bear, snakes, cougars, or use them to signal others when they are injured or are lost?

I would be far more impressed had the authors tried to calculate, or even concede, that guns might actually be beneficial. For those who complain about the criminal use of guns, perhaps getting criminals off the streets would have a far more conclusive result on the "real" costs.

This book is obviously strongly on our side, but unfortunately it is not going to provide us with serious evidence. Suppose someone challenges me on how they got their $100 billion estimate of the costs of guns. Will I be taken seriously if I tell them that the book relies on one public survey question in one survey? If I do use this number, where does that leave me in arguing with gun nuts that cite these wacky surveys showing that guns are used defensively 2.5 million times a year? So they have 16 surveys. I don't believe any of them, but what do I say when they say I only use a survey to measure the costs, why not also the benefits? What if the gun nut morons point out that the estimates of benefits from the surveys are greater than our estimated costs? The one paragraph that Cook and Ludwig have on defensive gun uses being silly could just as well be used against their reliance on a survey. I want to use the figures here, but could one of the people on our side write a review saying how I could respond to these concerns. Absent that this book risks making us look rather silly and hypocritical.

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...is absolute and unremitting damnation whenever there's a sociopolitical topic under consideration. In thirty-six years of reading (and citing) NEJM, I've found that there is no correlation whatsoever between the standards of scientific rigor with which they peer-review their clinical articles for factual accuracy and the politically-charged "public policy" stuff they publish when the editorial officers of the Massachusetts Medical Society have an axe to grind. Dr. McDowell's 2001 review of this book (quoted in its entirety on this Web site in order to extoll Cook and Ludwig's bogus-from-the-premises-up calculation of estimated costs associated with "firearms misuse") is a perfect example of the marshmallow gooiness of the NEJM's institutional excuse for intellectual rigor whenever the subject of individual autonomy comes under discussion.

By the standards of evidence-based medicine, the analysis upon which this book is predicated *CANNOT* be relied upon as a tool for the accurate evaluation of violence- or accident-related trauma associated with firearms. That same would hold true if Cook and Ludwig were looking at injuries and deaths associated with motor vehicles, toys, pharmaceuticals, power tools, agricultural equipment, or sports activities, and if there were a similar study -- using precisely this kind of analysis -- published on misadventures involving any of these other elements of modern life, the editors of NEJM would sandblast the authors with scathing sarcasm.

But because this book is about firearms, and because the Massachusetts Medical Society is collectively incapable of intellectual honesty in their continuing effort to restrict the rights of people to think and act for themselves, Dr. McDowall's review demonstrates precisely how deeply into blatant deceit the NEJM will shamelessly descend.

This book is bilge, but I encourage its purchase (along with Bellesiles' even more disgraceful and completely discredited ARMING AMERICA: THE ORIGINS OF A NATIONAL GUN CULTURE) as absolutely essential additions to the library of every defender of individual rights. Such works are powerfully demonstrative of the unspeakable dishonesty of the wretched neurotics who have long projected their unjustifiable terrors into the statute books and courtrooms of America in their campaign to secure a specious "safety" by reducing every law-abiding citizen to the status of a disarmed and helpless victim.

First of all, the concept of "gun violence" is ridiculous. This is the 21st century. What do you expect, tomahawks? Would that perhaps be a more "moral" way to kill? The convoluted suppositions presented here on the flimsiest of statistics is mind-boggling. A reasonably intelligent person doing casual research would find much to debunk what is here. Is it any wonder gun-owners are paranoid? I mean, what is the agenda here? It certainly isn't public safety or crime control. If you find yourself sharing the author's concerns, do yourself a favor and find a constructive activity. You'll be happier for it.

As a non-academic, I was initially concerned that I would be lost in the rhetoric of social scientists. However, I found professors Cook & Ludwig's argument clear and concise. I believe that this book provides an excellent introduction into the true scope of the gun violence problem. Furthermore, it patently demonstrates the need for serious discussion, free of political biases, concerning access to these uniquely dangerous devices.

The truth is our society feeds into the so-called need for guns for everything. It is no wonder we're actually losing the real war on terrorism and further undermining national security. The people who hate this book seem to find it ok to read and listen to gun toting rightwing propaganda all the time. Yes, my state is a gun toting state but that doesn't mean that none of these people want a little safety once in a while. Gun control and gun violence are two different issues altogether despite the NRA's and the rightwing attempts to lump them together. Read this book and remember this quote from Atticus Finch of "To Kill a Mockingbird":

"Courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. .. Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. Real courage is when you fight for what is right regardless of whether you win or lose."

As the director of of a gun violence prevention organization, I am very pleased to have Gun Violence: The Real Costs in our library. It gives a thorough picture of the true and far-ranging costs Americans pay to have so many firearms available to so many people. I recommend it to anyone concerned with our tragic level of gun violence.

Very, very helpful and well researched. If our elected officials would only realize what the real costs of gun violence, gun suicide and gun crime are! It is time to regulate firearms like any other consumer product!