By Ann Coulter
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
In the wake of a monstrous crime like a madman's mass
murder of defenseless women and children at the Newtown, Conn., elementary
school, the nation's attention is riveted on what could have been done to
prevent such a massacre.
Luckily, some years ago, two famed economists, William
Landes at the University of Chicago and John Lott at Yale, conducted a massive
study of multiple victim public shootings in the United States between 1977 and
1995 to see how various legal changes affected their frequency and death toll.
Landes and Lott examined many of the very policies being
proposed right now in response to the Connecticut massacre: waiting periods and
background checks for guns, the death penalty and increased penalties for
committing a crime with a gun.
None of these policies had any effect on the frequency
of, or carnage from, multiple-victim shootings. (I note that they did not look
at reforming our lax mental health laws, presumably because the ACLU is working
to keep dangerous nuts on the street in all 50 states.)
Only one public policy has ever been shown to reduce the
death rate from such crimes: concealed-carry laws.
Their study controlled for age, sex, race, unemployment,
retirement, poverty rates, state population, murder arrest rates, violent crime
rates, and on and on.
The effect of concealed-carry laws in deterring mass
public shootings was even greater than the impact of such laws on the murder
rate generally.
Someone planning to commit a single murder in a
concealed-carry state only has to weigh the odds of one person being armed. But
a criminal planning to commit murder in a public place has to worry that anyone
in the entire area might have a gun.
You will notice that most multiple-victim shootings occur
in "gun-free zones" -- even within states that have concealed-carry
laws: public schools, churches, Sikh temples, post offices, the movie theater
where James Holmes committed mass murder, and the Portland, Ore., mall where a
nut starting gunning down shoppers a few weeks ago.
Guns were banned in all these places. Mass killers may be
crazy, but they're not stupid.
If the deterrent effect of concealed-carry laws seems
surprising to you, that's because the media hide stories of armed citizens
stopping mass shooters. At the Portland shooting, for example, no explanation
was given for the amazing fact that the assailant managed to kill only two
people in the mall during the busy Christmas season.
It turns out, concealed-carry-holder Nick Meli hadn't
noticed that the mall was a gun-free zone. He pointed his (otherwise legal) gun
at the shooter as he paused to reload, and the next shot was the attempted mass
murderer killing himself. (Meli aimed, but didn't shoot, because there were
bystanders behind the shooter.)
In a nonsense "study" going around the Internet
right now, Mother Jones magazine claims to have produced its own study of all
public shootings in the last 30 years and concludes: "In not a single case
was the killing stopped by a civilian using a gun."
This will come as a shock to people who know something
about the subject.
The magazine reaches its conclusion by simply excluding
all cases where an armed civilian stopped the shooter: They looked only at
public shootings where four or more people were killed, i.e., the ones where
the shooter wasn't stopped.
If we care about reducing the number of people killed in
mass shootings, shouldn't we pay particular attention to the cases where the
aspiring mass murderer was prevented from getting off more than a couple
rounds?
It would be like testing the effectiveness of weed
killers, but refusing to consider any cases where the weeds died.
In addition to the Portland mall case, here are a few
more examples excluded by the Mother Jones' methodology:
-- Mayan Palace Theater, San Antonio, Texas, this week:
Jesus Manuel Garcia shoots at a movie theater, a police car and bystanders from
the nearby China Garden restaurant; as he enters the movie theater, guns
blazing, an armed off-duty cop shoots Garcia four times, stopping the attack.
Total dead: Zero.
-- Winnemucca, Nev., 2008: Ernesto Villagomez opens fire
in a crowded restaurant; concealed carry permit-holder shoots him dead. Total
dead: Two. (I'm excluding the shooters' deaths in these examples.)
-- Appalachian School of Law, 2002: Crazed immigrant
shoots the dean and a professor, then begins shooting students; as he goes for
more ammunition, two armed students point their guns at him, allowing a third
to tackle him. Total dead: Three.
-- Santee, Calif., 2001: Student begins shooting his
classmates -- as well as the "trained campus supervisor"; an off-duty
cop who happened to be bringing his daughter to school that day points his gun
at the shooter, holding him until more police arrive. Total dead: Two.
-- Pearl High School, Mississippi, 1997: After shooting
several people at his high school, student heads for the junior high school;
assistant principal Joel Myrick retrieves a .45 pistol from his car and points
it at the gunman's head, ending the murder spree. Total dead: Two.
-- Edinboro, Pa., 1998: A student shoots up a junior high
school dance being held at a restaurant; restaurant owner pulls out his shotgun
and stops the gunman. Total dead: One.
By contrast, the shootings in gun-free zones invariably
result in far higher casualty figures -- Sikh temple, Oak Creek, Wis. (six
dead); Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Va. (32 dead); Columbine High School,
Columbine, Colo. (12 dead); Amish school, Lancaster County, Pa. (five little
girls killed); public school, Craighead County, Ark. (five killed, including
four little girls).
All these took place in gun-free zones, resulting in lots
of people getting killed -- and thereby warranting inclusion in the Mother
Jones study.
If what we care about is saving the lives of innocent
human beings by reducing the number of mass public shootings and the deaths
they cause, only one policy has ever been shown to work: concealed-carry laws.
On the other hand, if what we care about is self-indulgent grandstanding, and to
hell with dozens of innocent children being murdered in cold blood, try the
other policies.
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