Guns and Today's Supreme Court Decision on 2nd Amendment

Today the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution does not permit an absolute prohibition on the private ownership of firearms. The Court’s ruling implied that some restrictions on firearm ownership will be allowed, and no doubt this issue will keep the courts occupied for many years to come.

Left unsaid in the ruling is whether our nation will be safer or less safe if, as expected, at least some of the gun control laws and regulations now in place weaken or are abolished altogether, as will certainly happen in Washington, DC, the immediate focus of the Court’s ruling. The evidence on whether firearm ownership makes us safer or less safe is very complex, and experts on both sides of the issue are very persuasive. The findings from much research on this important topic are too complicated and detailed to discuss here completely, but a few observations are in order.

First, defensive gun use (DGU) does exist and should not be overlooked by gun control proponents. Law-abiding owners of guns have used them, and continue to use them, in self-defense.

Second, estimates of DGU incidents range widely from 65,000 incidents annually to as many as 2.5 million. The lower-range estimates seem more accurate and amount to only a very low percentage of all violent crime. Thus, to the extent DGU exists, it helps prevent only a very low amount of violent crime, meaning that firearm ownership is not very helpful in this respect. Moreover, while DGU by an intended victim may prevent a crime from occurring, it may also make it more likely that the intended victim is seriously injured or killed. And some evidence indicates that DGU helps some segments of the population (i.e. men but not women) more than others. Taking everything into account, firearm ownership seems to offer only small protection against criminal victimization.

Third, much evidence, some of it gathered by public health researchers, indicates that firearm ownership actually contributes to a greater rate of homicides and other gun crimes. Households with guns suffer higher murder rates than households (matched on various characteristics such as drug and alcohol use and a history of domestic violence) without guns. States with higher rates of firearm ownership have higher rates of homicides committed with guns but not higher rates of non-gun homicides. These patterns do not “prove” that gun ownership makes us less safe, but they are suggestive.

To me, some of the most persuasive evidence of the lethal effects of gun ownership comes from international research. Compared to other western nations, the U.S. has an average rate of aggravated assault—we are higher than some nations but lower than others. The major difference between an aggravated assault and a homicide is whether a victim dies. Thus, it is notable that even though the U.S. has an average rate of aggravated assault, it has by far the highest rate of homicide. The presence of guns in America makes it much more likely that an assault ends in death.

Taking all the evidence into account, on balance firearm ownership in the United States increases the number of crimes in which guns play a key role: homicide and robbery. DGU does exist, but any protective effects of firearm ownership are outweighed by its lethal effects. If this is true, the Supreme Court’s weakening of firearm control may ironically have set the stage for an increase in homicides in the years ahead.