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Background Checks and Homicides

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If retail gun purchase background checks are any indication, sales of guns may keep some crime down. Backgrounds Checked The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) recently released a report on background checks. Though not every state was covered, the 40 reported gives of an unexpected view into homicides and recent gun sales. But before we dive in, here is the list of caveats: Only looks at 2016/7 data, so a snapshot in time. Gun sales may lag behind changes in local violence, so there is an unspecified lead/lag issue. Since the BJS also tells us that a minimum of 40% of crime guns come from street sources (not subject to background checks), looking at retail checks and crime might produce weak results anyway. Up, Up and Away Between 1999 and 2017, the U.S. population rose 16% while the number of background checks for gun purchases rose 99%. Clearly, America has … Continue reading →

Mental Breakdown

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“You gotta be crazy to shoot a bunch of strangers dead!” Yes. Crazy and untreated. A deeper dig into the mass public shooting (MPS) database with the most detailed mental health insights reveals that the American mental health system is ailing. High Level Takeaways 68% of MPS perpetrators have mental illness. Of those, 65% of them never received treatment. Of perpetrators who were previously suicidal, only half received treatment. Mood disorder medications have an outsized influence. The Violence Project Database A product of government funding and greater access to medical records, the Violence Project database of MPS has the most complete accounting of the mental health status of MPS perpetrators. Their database starts in 1966 with the legendary University of Texas tower shooting and goes on through early 2020. They also have nearly complete records of the perp’s mental health history, including rarified data such as the perp’s suicidality, their … Continue reading →

Ghost Gun Gong Show

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“Criminals are taking advantage of this loophole to obtain guns that are later used in crimes.” In California, perhaps. Elsewhere “ghost guns” are the “assault weapon” for the new millennium… rarely used, marginally worrisome, and perhaps a byproduct of strict gun control laws. The Summary Data Worst case, 1.8% of crime guns are DIY (e.g., “ghost guns”). Only 1.3% are DIY crime guns if you remove the top four outlier agencies where DIY guns appear frequently. 55% of agencies recovered no ghost guns. This compares to 7.4% of crime guns that have no visible serial numbers (obliterated + DIY). California is the primary state having DIY guns in circulation, averaging 8% of crime guns. What We Did to Tally DIY Guns used in crime We sent public records requests to the top 100 police agencies in the United States and asked them to tell us for 2019: How many crime … Continue reading →

Pale Background

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Universal background checks aren’t universal. But such things are being proposed in Congress. Ignoring how poorly the laws are drafted, we have to ask the basic question, “Will universal background checks do any good?” The answer is that conceivably 2% of crime gun transfers might get diverted, but the more likely number is zero. High Level Takeaways 37% of crime guns fall into the realm of those that “universal” background checks would affect. Of those, 41% still come from unregulatable sources. Assuming “intimate” partners would not do background checks, at most 2% of crime gun transfers would receive background checks … and that assumes all “friends and family” firearm transfers obey (huge assumption). How the Bureau of Justice Statistics Tipped Us Off For many years the Gun Facts project has been showing off this little graphic, compliments of the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), an agency of the federal government … Continue reading →

Suicide, Survival and Guns

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“Guns are inherently more lethal in committing suicides!” Yet when we looked at W.H.O global suicide data, we discovered that the most suicidal country at the time (Lithuania) had about three times the rate of suicides, 1% as many guns per capita, and nearly everyone killing themselves used rope. In the USA, where guns are abundant, the data skewed in odds ways. We think we know why, but with a lack of absolute data, it is a little speculative. The Quick Take-aways Suicide “deaths” are those regardless of medical attention. Successful suicide victims receive no EMT or hospital treatment. EMT/hospitalization is effective for some modes of suicide and not others. The big clue We at the Gun Facts project have routinely noted the international disconnect between firearm ownership and suicide rates. In short, the availability of a gun did not affect the probability of a successful suicide. Looking at just … Continue reading →

Callous Kids

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One aspect of inner-city violence with guns From crime statistics and criminology studies we know that: Gun violence is a huge problem in poor, inner-city neighborhoods. The prime gang recruitment ages are between 14 and 19. Gun carrying, almost always done illegally, is common. An open question is “what drives these bad decisions, to associate with street gangs, acquire guns illegally, and to use them?” Here is one element worth noting: that emotionally callous kids are more prone to gun play than others. What is “callousness”? Both the dictionary and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders defines this. The dictionary definition is more straightforward and says to be callous is to be “insensitive, indifferent, unsympathetic”. The DSM has a special specifier identifying people with “limited prosocial emotions”. Same thing, different wording. A new study studied if callous kids were (a) more likely to carry a gun and … Continue reading →

What leads To Mass Public Shootings?

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That is the big question everyone is asking. You, I, even your crazy Uncle Jim who never “got over ‘Nam” don’t shoot-up elementary schools or their company headquarters. That leaves us to wonder what makes mass public shooters different that the rest? What causes them to disconnect from reality and society to the point where mass murder seems like a good idea to them? Well, we now may have some numbers to (partially) answer the question.

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Ammo Background … Checked

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The Gun Facts project received a provocative question: “We’ve had a few years of California’s Prop. 63. Can we point to any numbers that show whether the ammo background check law is having the desired effect?” The answers are: “Yes, we have numbers; no, it didn’t have an impact; but there are a lot of gotchas in the analysis.” The two experimental states Both New York and California passed laws that require criminal background checks before you can buy ammunition. New York passed their law in 2013 and California in 2017. These two states –The State of COVID and the State of Emergency – passed these measures along with other gun control actions (California, for example, established procedures for enforcing laws prohibiting firearm possession by specified persons), so it is technically impossible to weed out just ammunition retailing as a factor. But we can at least measure aggregate violence stats … Continue reading →

Missouri Compromised

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If your doctor is a member of the American Medical Association, get another doctor. QUICKLY! A new low in gun research by doctors may have been reached in a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This now disreputable rag is allegedly “peer reviewed,” but that claim is credible only if the peers are refugees from the local sanitarium. In their fresh assault on logic, the sundry docs and quacks concluded that changes in pistol purchase and concealed carry laws in Missouri (MO) caused suicides in younger people to rise. They did this by creating synthetic models that invented suicide statistics by incorporating erratic source data. They had to take this approach because the real numbers were not exactly in their favor. The Big Scary … Not JAMA launched into their artless misdirection by saying “suicide was the second leading cause of death for children and … Continue reading →

EveryCon and Youth Suicides

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If one kid died last year from eating Tide Pods, and two died this year, then you can say there was a 100% increase in the child Tide Pod death rate. But your summary would be completely misleading. Herein we will do an academic deconstruction of a similar propaganda move by Michael Bloomberg’s favorite charity, Everytown for Gun Safety. Statistics don’t lie but statisticians do NOTE: This image is being used under “fair use” doctrine as an example for educational purposes The core claim made by Everytown, as shown in the social media image they created, is that kids – people age 14 and under – were the fastest-growing firearm suicide rate age group. The two agitprop con jobs at play here involve who is being studied and when. Let’s start with “who.” In the book Guns and Control by Gun Facts project founder Guy Smith, we see that in … Continue reading →