WFSA Current News - July, 2003 

July 23, 2003

Media solutions for Brazil
            In the event of impending overhauls to gun laws it does not take long for media outlets to begin offering simple solutions to complex problems. In the vanguard of Brazil’s problems an article was published yesterday by Reuters, under the byline of Andrew Hay.
            It features the beliefs of an office worker who had a gun pressed to her head in a robbery. Not surprisingly, she is quoted as saying: “They’ve got to get rid of the guns.”
            The article highlights the impending legislation (see below, July 16) which calls for a referendum in 2005 on a complete ban on gun sales in Brazil. It goes on to describe the number of guns currently registered in Brazil, and speculates on how many there are likely not to be registered. The thrust of the piece is, as we have seen many times before, to suggest that controls such as registration will improve the criminal violence that the country is presently suffering.
            A national referendum – the same idea was threatened by Australia’s Prime Minister, John Howard, in the massive 1997 gun confiscations there – is a means whereby a government can capitalize on the public’s predictable wish to diminish local gun crime. Public policymakers can rely on the public to support calls for more restrictions on guns because of the popular perception that they will reduce criminal use.
            The present article suggests that legislation such as gun registration, being a form of control on sales, is likely to assist by preventing guns from reaching the black market. This begs the question of whether criminal activity would find alternative means of supply, and the evidence is that it would. The article does not consider this possibility.

July 23, 2003

Lawful Scottish gun ownership decreasing
           A steady stream of articles coming out worldwide in recent months have been showing the continual media emphasis on reducing the numbers of legal gun owners, as though this is inevitably a matter that relates to crime.
            In an article released today by BBC News, the number of shotgun certificates on issue in Scotland during 2002 has been put at under 80,000, lower by some 4,000 than in 2001. These are most likely ordinary people who under continuing regulatory pressure find it too tedious to keep up certificates to own sporting and target guns.
            The remarkable aspect of this is that the Justice Minister, Hugh Henry, is quoted as welcoming the figures, and saying it is important to acknowledge the dangers from firearm ownership.
            He emphasizes the “progress made since tightening the regulations on gun ownership”. Exactly what benefits in crime rates have accrued is a matter not raised, and as usual the implication is that any reduction of lawful gun ownership must automatically be reducing crime. The article describes a twenty per cent decrease in the number of firearm certificates on issue since the laws introduced following the Dunblane multiple murders, which were carried out by shooting. Again, there is no suggestion of any doubt that reducing the raw numbers of lawful firearms in the community could have any effect but a positive one in the community.
            This article ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/3089335.stm ) follows others from the same source. An example from April ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2966763.stm ) dealt with the handing in during the recent amnesty of a deactivated Kalashnikov rifle. The fact that it had been rendered inoperable seems completely unimportant in the article, which takes the line that there could be no conceivable reason for possessing such an item. Indeed, the article quotes a police superintendent who declares himself “relieved” that it has been handed in, and says that the deactivated rifle is capable of causing fear and alarm. It is as though the rifle-like appearance is everything, and the surrender of it is a welcome symbol of an undescribed but self-evident victory against crime.
            These articles and those like them rely for their theme on the lack of solid information about crime rates following such broad-brush measures as gun amnesties and the increase of firearm regulations. It is becoming increasingly fashionable for them to decry the total number of guns held in any society, and to conclude without data that the reader must understand the need for measures to curb them.

July 20, 2003

Antique arms demonized in Australia
            The Sunday Telegraph in Australia today released details of the way the new handgun laws in that country will mean prohibition of antique non-cartridge-firing firearms that are up to 200 years old. 
            The Historic Arms Collecting Council of Australasia has pointed out the implications of the loss of historical artifacts. The new legislation would require the owners of even these antiquated handguns to be fingerprinted, to install monitored alarm systems, and to undergo safety training.
            If it is appropriate for authorities to confiscate short-barrelled guns from legal gun owners on the basis that some short-barrelled guns are sometimes used in crimes, it would obviously be logical for these same authorities to leave alone those guns which have no application in crime whatsoever. It is extremely difficult to understand how this anti-history move could be supported by the usual governmental justification that insists scooping up guns of all sorts is a way of lowering crime rates.
            It becomes increasingly obvious that guns of all sorts are being forbidden to private owners by any means that authorities feel they can rationalize.
            The story may be found at http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/sundaypage/?date=4 .

July 16, 2003

Gun legislation imminent in Brazil
            Brazil has long had a high murder rate. Many of the world’s large cities have both drug and gang problems, and in Brazil, Rio de Janeiro is an example. An article from Raymond Colitt, published by the Financial Times, has described the murder rate of some Brazilian state capitals, unspecified, as being 50 per 100,000 inhabitants, “more than twenty times that in New York”. This is an interesting use of figures.
            City-by-city comparisons of this sort are always selective, and seldom do their authors use figures that convey accurate pictures. The statistics widely published in 2000 comparing city rather than national murder rates (try http://archives.tcm.ie/irishexaminer/2000/02/29/current/ipage_21.htm ) showed the five most dangerous European cities to live in are, in descending order: Moscow, Amsterdam, Belfast, Madrid and Berlin. The legal gun density does not relate to the murder rates found in these cities. Along the same lines, it would not suit the Financial Times article to use the Washington murder figure rather than the New York one, because Washington – where gun laws are very strict – has a far higher figure and it would harm the Brazilian cities’ figures of comparison, hazy though they are.
            The Colitt article recognizes that there has been longstanding gun smuggling into the country. It then argues, however, that the bulk of the trouble comes from locally made guns, and the implication is that if the local ones were more rigorously controlled, that would somehow automatically remove a proportional number of guns from criminal misuse. There is no suggestion that criminals would know how to smuggle more guns in to make up the deficit. Also, there is a bill now in the Brazilian Congress which calls for gun registration and raising of the age of ownership from 18 to 25, as though this will deter criminal misuse.
            It is remarkable that articles like these continue to make their naïve assumptions that these measures will in any way alter the crime rates. The realities of implementation are seldom discussed, and beyond saying the current laws are not well enforced, the article glosses over the obvious point, namely that laws such as those proposed are predictably going to affect the law-abiding and not the criminal element. The critical reader would ask: why would we expect new laws to be enforced if the current ones are not? And if new laws are going to be enforced, why would it not simply be easier to enforce the existing ones?
            The move under consideration in Brazil would open the way for a plebiscite banning gun sales. What often happens is that general opinion can be counted on to call for increased gun legislation, especially if the media have their way, because the uninformed public is inclined to think that the passage of gun legislation will have the desired effect of bringing down crime. In fact, it never does.

July 3, 2003

Another “gun culture” article
            An article was published in The Independent yesterday, written by Stephen Castle, under the title, “The Figures which Show Europe’s Gun Culture Rivals US”.
            The piece looks at the number of guns in Europe, as per the newly released 2003 Small Arms Survey, and refers extensively to the words of co-author Aaron Karp. The Swiss Small Arms Survey is located in Switzerland and each year issues a report on the subject.
            There are said to be 67 million guns registered in Europe, and the article in support of the importance of the perceived “gun culture” indicates that the Germans are buying guns at about the same rate as the Americans. The piece – see http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/story.jsp?story=420842 – adopts the tone that implies raised eyebrows at this kind of untoward news. Some European countries, Aaron Karp is quoted as saying, “have a strong gun culture”.
            The thrust of the piece, as the title indicates, is to show that there is something generic about a “gun culture”. It links by implication high levels of lawful gun ownership with high levels of crime, and tries to use the ephemeral idea of a culture of gun ownership as some means of establishing this link. There is a suggestion of shock at the very idea that France actually has more legally-owned handguns than six other countries – the list of which includes Britain, where they are banned altogether. Interestingly, France’s very low murder rate is not mentioned.
            A critical reader would of course ask why the absolute density of guns in any country should be a matter to remark on, unless there is a demonstrable link between this legal gun ownership and crime. No such link exists. The article does cite France and Germany as being only recently inclined towards tightness of gun legislation, and then points out that there have been recent multiple murders carried out by firearm in both places. It gives no suggestion to the effect that countries with fewer legal guns also have multiple murders by guns and by other methods as well. There is no suggestion of awareness that someone bent on multiple murder who could not immediately lay hands on a gun might then use another, more lethal means, such as arson or explosive. There is no suggestion of any awareness of meaningful international comparisons of murder rates. Instead, there is reliance on the superficial and relatively meaningless “gun deaths” expressed as some kind of ratio per head of population, and including suicide. Suicide has been shown not to come down when gun legislation is tightened because method substitution immediately commences.
            The article ends with a comparison in selected countries of deaths by firearm per hundred thousand persons. The implication seems to be put deliberately once again that deaths by shooting are somehow worse than those by other means, or, equally concerning, there is the implication that in the presence of fewer legally held firearms within a country, there would be correspondingly fewer deaths. There is no reference to the actual murder rate of Switzerland, which is very low. If that figure alone were included, it would substantially weaken the argument of the article.
            Sadly, a grasp of the complexities of gun legislation requires a closer examination of the facts than writers for most populist media outlets can offer. It would be very pleasing, however, if more of such writers could see beyond the shallowest interpretation of the figures.

July 2, 2003

Balancing the view of hunting and shooting
United Kingdom are unfortunate, but not necessarily so in the United States, Dr. James Swan yesterday published an article which looks in some depth at hunting and shooting there.
            Acknowledging the “carnage in various civil wars and military actions around the world”, the article sees the importance of peacekeeping actions involving the United Nations, and also the grounds for concern about illegal small arms in the wrong hands.
            The piece goes on to deplore the way press releases about small arms continue failing to recognize the legal owners and users of small arms. Approximately 65 to 70 million people in the world are known to be involved in target shooting and in hunting.
            The article then turns to enumerate a few of the Olympic shooting sports – eighteen events in the Summer Olympics, eight in the Winter, and sixteen in the Paralympics. The safety record of shooting is at the top of all popular sports. It is safer than golf, tennis, basketball and even table tennis. The author contrasts the 91 fatal hunting accidents in the United States in the year 2000 with the usual 800 or more fatalities in bicycling, the same in boating, and more in swimming.
            Having established the relative safety of the shooting sports, the article quotes UN Resolution 50/13 of November 21^st, 1995, which affirms UN support for the Olympic Games as a vehicle for supporting world peace, a better world and the "well-being of mankind." Stating that Resolution 50/13 implicitly endorses firearms sports, the author articulates his wish to see this reflected in UN discussions of small arms.
            Activists taking up the argument against gun ownership are usually careful to dwell on the emotional aspects and equally careful to skirt around the economics of it. However, the Swan article points out that in the USA, not counting native Americans and Eskimo communities, the game meat consumed is an astonishing 140,000 tons annually, with a value in excess of $US1.3 billion.
            These figures represent very large segments of modern America, but they also apply to free countries throughout the world, many of them not fortunate enough to have had their own figures gathered so they can be displayed for comparison. The needs of such large groups simply cannot be ignored.

July 1, 2003

Hunting ban to cause unrest
         It has been widely stated in Britain that shooting is to suffer next, and the bans are part of wider moves. This being the case, the House of Lords may well reject the legislation, in which case the argument will continue.
            Wildlife welfare matters in Britain are encapsulated in the debate about the countryside. Any ban on hunting to hounds will divide city and country very much more substantially than is already the case, one Conservative MP promising “deep and abiding resentment” from country voters.
            It can only be noted that wildlife in general, quarry and non-quarry species, always do worse in an environment where organized, seasonal hunting has been banned. Inevitably, the special-interest groups who lobby for bans then fail to provide a sufficient level of income stream in order to keep up the habitat, which results in its degradation. In this environment, all the species using it suffer. 
            Bans on hunting with dogs will have a harmful impact on species which are commonly culled according to the principles refined by many decades of scientific wildlife management. Suggesting otherwise is populist wishful thinking, and not founded on fact. It is troubling to see increasing evidence of this kind of approach in Britain, as well as in other countries.