I posted something recently saying that a salesperson at the
firearms counter at a sporting goods store said that they lost their best
salesman in the last election. It was a true account that took place at the
Academy Sporting Goods store in Amarillo on Saturday, December 30, 2017.
The salesman was dead serious. When I posted the summary of that
conversation I added three little words: “Think About It.”
I recently spoke with a salesperson at the firearms counter
at the Cabela’s store in Albuquerque. His comment to me about firearms
sales was telling. Firearms sales slowed to a crawl compared to sales
during the previous eight years following the last presidential election.
I am compelled to once again say, “Think About It.”
I believe the vast majority of Americans are concerned about
gun violence. There is a handful of wackos who don’t care.
Thankfully, they constitute a minority - a handful. However, the
debate rages on between conservatives and liberals on how to address the
problem. The extreme left would confiscate all firearms, even from the
police. The extreme right would present newborn babies with NRA
membership and a loaded AR-15. OK, maybe that’s a little extreme for the
far right.
In the interest of full disclosure, I am not a member of the
NRA, but I favor their training emphasis, position on the Second Amendment, and
mission. I don’t believe the NRA would issue membership to newborns.
In the course of my studies and research, there is something
that rings familiar with these statements from salesmen from two reputable
firearms dealers and I believe there is a lesson to be learned in application
to gun violence.
Several years ago, a criminologist by the name of Edwin
Schur wrote a book called Radical Nonintervention. In his book
dealing with juvenile crime, he presents evidence showing that we have a better
success rate at preventing recidivism by doing nothing to juvenile offenders
than by running them through the juvenile justice system. By making a big
deal out of juvenile offenses we encourage juvenile offenders to reoffend.
In my own published drug abuse prevention research I assert
that children base their actions on their perception of what their older peers
are doing. For example, fifth graders believe that sixth graders
use addictive substances at a higher rate than what sixth graders actually use.
Noted criminologist, Howard Becker, stated that the criminal
label overrides any other label a person may have once that person has
committed a crime or delinquent act. Consequently, that person will
continue to offend, often escalating in seriousness. Likewise, Edwin
Sutherland in his Differential Association Theory states that criminal
behavior is learned, which learning includes the techniques of committing the
crimes and the motives, drives, attitudes, and rationalizations for committing
those crimes. Further, building on the work of Shaw and McKay, Sutherland
describes a type of Social Disorganization that exists that breeds
criminal behavior. David Matza in explaining his theory on Drift
says that criminals not only drift in and out of criminality, but that
delinquent (criminal) behavior is likely to occur in areas of the social
structure in which control has been loosened, freeing the person to respond to
whatever criminal forces happen to come along. (See Theoretical
Criminology, by Vold and Bernard for discussions on Labeling,
Differential Association, Social Disorganization, and Delinquency and Drift.)
Understanding that there is no one theory that fits all, it
is incumbent upon serious students of crime to put the pieces together, pulling
pertinent parts from appropriate theories and aligning them to meet the
requirements of any given situation. There is no such thing as a common
theory to explain all crime. Likewise, there is no such thing as a common
theory to explain any specific crime. The number of theories to explain
behaviors of multiple people for a specific type of crime would be as big as
the number of people engaged in those behaviors. It would be
irresponsible to state that all mass murderers commit their crimes because of
Theory A or Theory B or Theory X. Nonetheless, many of the mass murderers
and spree killers share several things in common. It is that common
thread we look for in the process of explaining criminal behavior. That
common thread acts as a springboard for looking deeper into the actual nexus
between offender and offense.
Since we are interested in gun violence I suggest that we
first look at the anecdotal evidence provided by the two firearms sales clerks.
Firearm sales have slowed to a crawl since the last presidential
election. We need only review recent history to understand that the
Second Amendment was under serious threat from the Obama Administration and a
Democrat Party controlled Congress. A period of several months passed
when it was impossible to find firearm ammunition. Though that period has
passed, it is still difficult in many places to find .22 caliber ammunition,
popular for plinking. The lack of availability of ammunition caused
widespread panic and fear among firearms owners and many gun owners began to
stockpile ammunition.
The threat of removal of ammunition is over and the threat
of confiscation of firearms and making firearm purchases more difficult have
ceased. Once again ammunition of all calibers is found on sporting goods
shelves firearm sales have slowed.
Longitudinal studies are helpful in looking at trends and
allow us to compare one unit of time to several other units of time. While there are no control groups for
comparison we can at least look to see what historical events took place during
the time being studied which allows us to make some assumptions about the
effects of those events on the data.
As I began researching the history of firearms sales over
the past 20 years I found a number of articles that actually used the wording
of the Academy Sporting Goods salesman that firearms dealers lost their best
salesman when President Obama went out of office. So, I dug a little
deeper.
I checked the The National Instant Criminal Background Check
System, or NICS, database for answers. At first, I checked 18 selected
states as sort of a check against the news articles and salesman’s comments.
What I found was astounding. There not only was a noticeable
increase in instant criminal background checks beginning with the Obama
Administration, but there was also a noticeable decline in background checks
during the beginning of the Trump Administration. Of course, we have only
one year to look at with the Trump Administration, but there is more.
After reviewing the statistics for the 18 states I continued my search
and found data for criminal background checks from 1999 through 2017 and all of
January 2018. I selected January 2018 as it is the only month available
at this time and compared it to each January from 1999 through 2017.
Year January Year Total
1999 591,355 9,138,123
2000 639,972 8,546,037
2001 640,528 8,910,191
2002 665,803 8,454,322
2003 653,751 8,481,588
2004 695,000 8,687,671
2005 685,811 8,952,945
2006 775,518 10,036,933
2007 894,608 11,177,335
2008 942,556 12,709,023
2009 1,213,885 14,033,824
2010 1,119,229 14,409,616
2011 1,323,336 16,454,951
2012 1,377,301 19,592,303
2013 2,495,440 21,093,273
2014 1,660,355 20,908,547
2015 1,772,794 23,141,970
2016 2,545,802 27,538,673
2017 2,043,184 25,235,215
2018 1,000,530
The results again were dramatic as can be seen in the graphs
below. 
Looking at the numbers and the graphs in another way helps
us to understand the impact that the Obama Administration has had on the sale
of firearms, or at least on the applications to purchase firearms. The eight years prior to the Obama
Administration from 2000 to 2007 there was a 37.8% increase in the number of
applications. The same eight-year time
frame in the Obama Administration from 2008 to 2016 saw a 116.7% in firearm
applications.
Now, criminal background checks do not necessarily represent
the total number of firearms purchases. First of all, there are denials.
And, states have their own restrictions on sales. Not all states are equal when it comes to
firearms sales. Secondly, private sales
are not included and clearly stolen firearms are not included. However,
if the background checks are representative of legitimate interests in purchasing firearms, then we can assume that there
was a fairly significant jump in the number of firearms purchased during the
Obama Administration. Why is this important? Simple.
President Obama had a campaign of reducing firearms in the hands of
citizens which stimulated a scare among people that their guns would be taken
away. Therefore, people bought guns when they had the chance. That
threat went away with the Trump Administration.
Of course, we’ll need a few more years to see what effect the Trump
Administration has on firearms sales before we can conclude that his administration’s
stance on firearms has any bearing on the sales of firearms. But, it is hard to deny the decline in
firearms purchase applications during Turmp’s first year in office.
If the trend holds true for the rest of the Trump
Administration, then we may be able to conclude that if you want to slow down
gun sales then stop the threat of taking guns away or making the purchase of a
firearm more difficult.
However, tying the sales of firearms to murder rates by firearms
is a bit more tricky. FBI Uniform Crime
Reports (UCR) and Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) are not especially helpful
in sorting through the data. One thing
is clear and that is that murder and non-negligent manslaughter have steadily
decreased over the years. The other
thing we do know is that these murder
rates were at a low from 1950 through the mid-1960s. Then a dramatic increase took place until the
early 1990s and took a plunge from about 25,000 per year to about 15,000 in
2010 (https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/htus8008.pdf#page=27).
Follow-up study needs to be conducted to determine the role
of firearms in each murder during this short study.
Conclusions
1. You
cannot slow down the sales of firearms with the perceived threat of restricting
firearms ownership.
2. If
you want to slow down firearms purchases and ownership you need to remove the perceived
threat of restricting firearms ownership.
3. The
number of murders appear to decrease with the number of firearms in
circulation.
4. There
may actually be something to the assertion that guns don’t kill people but that
people kill people.
5. Think
About It.
Note: This is not a purely academic study. However, statistics were obtained from the
FBI Uniform Crime Reports and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. See also Theoretical
Criminology by Vold and Bernard.
No comments:
Post a Comment