
Statement of James Wright, criminologist, Tulane University
before the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary,
United States House of Representatives, March 31, 1995:

Dr. WRIGHT:  Thank you so much, and thank you for the opportunity
to be here.  My name is James Wright... and I'm a professor of
sociology at Tulane University.  I've spent the last twenty years of
my academic career conducting research on guns and violence in
American society.  In the course of these two decades, I have come
to the conclusion that there are at least ten simple, but terribly
important facts about guns in America that every participant in the
gun control debate should be aware of.  I have referred to these in
a recent paper as "Ten Essential Observations on Guns in America,"
and my point is to share them with the Committee_today._
   While many of the facts of the gun control issue are hotly
contested, and matters of great dispute, the ten fundamental truths
that I wish to discuss are matters about which everyone more or less
agrees.

[1. HALF THE HOUSEHOLDS IN THE UNITED STATES POSSESS
AT LEAST ONE GUN.]

   My first essential observation is that half the households in the
country possess at least_one_gun.  So far as I can tell, the first
question about gun ownership in a national probability sample of
U.S. adults was asked in 1959, and similar questions have been asked
dozens of times since.  Over the last 35 years or so that we've
been asking the question, every survey has reported more or less the
same result, namely, that half of_all_U.S. households own one or
more guns.  Although many people know this to be true, I think many
of the implications of this fact are not well appreciated.  The fact
that the ownership percentage has been effectively constant for
nearly four decades, for example, while at the same time the total
number of guns in circulation has increased rather substantially,
implies that the increasing supply of guns has been absorbed largely
by the purchase of additional guns among households already owning
more... one or more of them.  Indeed there is fairly substantial and
independent evidence that the average number of guns owned by
persons owning_any_has increased from about three guns 15 years ago
to approximately four guns today.  I think it is also obvious that
from the viewpoint of public safety, the transition from N to_N + 1_
guns is considerably less ominous than the transition from no guns
to_one_gun.
   If this first implication is correct, incidentally, it means that
most of the people in the gun shops today buying new firearms
already_own_guns --a useful point to keep in mind when pondering
the alleged "cooling off" function to be served by waiting periods
imposed at the point of retail sale.
   A second implication is that gun ownership is not deviant
behavior, but rather, normative behavior across vast swaths of the
social landscape.  There are areas of the country where it would be
an odd person indeed who did_not_own a gun.
   Finally, when we attempt to control crime or violence by
controlling the general ownership and use of guns among the public
at large, we are attempting to control the behaviors of a very small
fraction of the population, the violent or criminally-inclined
fraction, by controlling the behaviors and activities of roughly
half the American population, and whatever else might be said about
such an approach, it is certainly not very_efficient._

[2. THERE ARE AT LEAST 200,000,000 FIREARMS IN CIRCULATION
IN THE UNITED STATES TODAY.]

   [The] second essential observation on guns in America today is
that there are already something like 200,000,000 firearms in
circulation, give or take a few tens of millions, to be sure.
It has been said, I believe correctly, that firearms are the most
commonly owned pieces of sporting equipment in the United States,
with the exception of pairs of sneakers and running shoes.  It is
not entirely clear just how many acts of gun_violence_occur in the
United States in any typical year.  In recent years, we've been
pushing 40,000_deaths_from firearm[s].  There are, in addition to
that, perhaps a few hundred thousand non-fatal, but injurious,
firearms accidents, concievably 500 or 600,000 chargable firearms
crimes committed every year, and God-knows-how-many instances where
guns are used to intimidate or to prey upon one's fellow human
beings.
   Making very generous allowances all around, however, the total
number of acts of accidental and intentional gun violence, whether
fatal or not, whether injurious or not, cannot possibly be more than
a couple of million per annum at the absolute_outside._  This
implies, moreover, that the 200,000,000 firearms now circulating
in the U.S. market would be sufficient to sustain gun violence at
the current rate for at least another century, this even assuming
that every gun was used once and only once for some nefarious
purpose, and that all additions to the supply were halted
_permanently_and _at_once._  Because of the immensely large number
of firearms already circulating in the U.S. market, the violence-
reductive effects even of fairly draconian gun control measures
might very well not be felt for many decades.

[3. MOST GUNS ARE OWNED FOR SPORTING AND RECREATIONAL REASONS]

   A third observation is that most of the 200,000,000 guns that
are out there are owned for what I would consider to be socially
innocuous sport and recreational_reasons._ About a_third_of the
guns presently in circulation are_handguns,_the remainder rifles
and shotguns.  When one asks gun owners_why_they own guns, various
sport and recreational activities dominate the responses: hunting,
target shooting, collecting, and the like.  Even when the question
is restricted just to handgun owners, about 40% will say they own
the gun for recreational applications, the remaining 20% will cite
some job-related reason as the reason for them to own a gun.
   Thus, in the majority, I believe gun ownership is a topic more
appropriate to the sociology of_leisure_than to the criminology or
epidemiology of violence.  Unfortunately, when we seek to control
violence by controlling the general ownership and use of firearms
among the public at large, it at least looks as though we think we
have intuited some direct causal connection between drive-by
shootings in the inner city and squirrel hunting or skeet shooting
in the hinterland.  Or such, in any case, is the implication that
the nation's squirrel hunters and skeet shooters often draw, and
frankly, it's no wonder they sometimes question the_motives,_
not to mention the_sanity,_of anybody who would suggest such a
preposterous thing[].

[4. MANY FIREARMS ARE OWNED FOR DEFENSE AGAINST CRIME]

   My fourth observation is that many firearms are also owned for
self-defense_against_crime, that some are indeed used for that
purpose, and, whether they are_actually_any safer or_not,_many
people certainly seem to_feel_safer when they have a gun.  Findings
have been mentioned this morning from recent work done by my
colleague Gary Kleck at Florida State [University] that Americans
use guns to protect themselves from crime as often as a couple of
million times a year, a finding that I know [the other panelist] Dr.
Bordua will discuss in more detail.  If this is_true,_it's very hard
to square with the common assumption of gun control advocates that
guns are not_efficacious_as a private defense against crime.
   Whatever the true number of self-defensive uses proves to be,
about a quarter of all gun owners, and about 40% of handgun owners
mention defense against crime as the main reason they owned a gun,
and large percentages who give some other main reason will mention
self-defense as a secondary reason.
   Gun owners and gun advocates insist that guns provide real
protection, as indeed the panel that preceded us testified, and
indeed as Gary Kleck's findings suggest.  Anti-gun advocates insist
that the sense of security is more_illusory_than _real._ But the
fact [is,] practically everything people do to defend against crime
provides only the_illusion_of security, in that any such measure
can be defeated by a sufficiently clever and motivated criminal.
   Most people have realized, no doubt correctly, that the police
cannot protect them from crime.  So people face the need to protect
themselves, and many choose to own a gun along with taking many
other measures for precisely this purpose.  My question is whether
a society that is manifestly incapable of protecting its citizens
from crime really has any right or moral authority to tell people
what they_may_or may_not_do to protect_themselves._

[5.  BAD GUYS DO NOT OBTAIN THEIR GUNS THROUGH LEGAL CHANNELS]

   My fifth observation is that the bad guys do not obtain their
guns through normal retail channels.  Research on both adult and
juvenile felons and offenders has made it obvious that the_illegal_
firearms market is dominated overwhelmingly by informal swaps,
trades, and purchases involving family members, friends,
acquaintances, drug dealers, street and black market sources of
various sorts.  It is a pretty rare criminal_indeed_who attempts
to acquire a gun through a conventional over-the-counter transaction
with a normal retail outlet.
   Now, many efforts at gun control pertain to the initial retail
sale of weapons, for example, the prohibition against gun purchases
by people with felony records, or by [people with] alcohol and drug
[abuse] histories, or the national five-day waiting period in the
Brady Bill, or various state and local permit and registration laws.
   Since felons rarely obtain guns through customary retail
channels, these kinds of controls imposed at the point of retail
sale must neccessarily_miss_the vast majority of criminal firearms
transactions.  Having learned now well more than a decade ago,
incidentally, that the criminal acquisition of guns involves
these informal and hard-to-regulate transfers, average gun owners
often conclude, whether correctly or not, that such measures as
registration, permits, waiting periods, and so on and so forth,
must therefore be intended primarily to keep tabs on_them,_that
registration or permit requirements are just the first step towards
_outright_confiscation of all privately held firearms, for example,
or that mandated registration of new gun purchases is an unwarranted
police-state intrusion on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding
citizens.  [It] doesn't really matter whether they're_correct_in
this judgement or not, that they reason in this vein, I think,
is sufficient.  It is reasoning in precisely this vein that often
seems bizarre, or even_psychotic,_to proponents of these kinds of
measures, but it is exactly the style of reasoning, I think, that
raises the stakes in the debate over guns and that accounts for the
white-hot ferocity of that debate today.

[6. THE BAD GUYS INHABIT A VIOLENT WORLD AND CARRY GUNS
FOR SURVIVAL]

   My sixth observation is that the bad guys inhabit a violent
world.  As such, a gun often spells a life or death difference
to_them._ If you ask felons, whether adult or juvenile, why_they_
own guns, why they carry guns, themes of self protection, self-
defense,_survival,_and so on, dominate their responses.  Very few
of the bad guys say they acquire or carry guns specifically for
_offensive_or crime-committing purposes, although that is_obviously_
how many of them get used.  These men live in an extraordinarily
hostile environment.  Many of them come to believe, no doubt
correctly, that their ability to survive in that environment depends
critically on being adequately armed.  "Adequately armed," in this
case, means being better armed than your most likely adversary,
namely the police.  If sheer survival is indeed the issue, then a
gun is a bargain at practically any_price._
   As James Q. Wilson has recently argued, the largest share of the
gun violence problem results from the wrong people carrying guns at
the wrong time and place.  The survival motive among the bad guys
means_exactly_that the wrong kinds of people will be carrying guns
pretty much_all_the_time._ The evident implication is that the bad
guys have to be disarmed_on_the_streets_if rates of gun violence are
to decline, and that, I think, implies a range of interventions
far removed from what gun control advocates have recently urged
on the American population.

[7. EVERYTHING THE BAD GUYS DO WITH GUNS IS ALREADY ILLEGAL]

   My seventh observation is that everything the bad guys do with
their guns is already_against_the law.  That criminals will
generally be indifferent to the law would seem to follow from the
definition of the terms, but it's a lesson that we've had to learn
time and again throughout our history.  As a matter of fact, and as
has already been stated by the panel this morning, gun acquisition
by felons, whether from retail or private sources, for_whatever_
reason, is already_illegal._ Yet obviously felons still acquire
guns.  Since practically everything the bad guys do with their guns,
or do to obtain their guns is already_against_the law, one is
entitled to wonder whether there is some_new_law that we haven't
yet thought up that we can somehow pass that will persuade them to
_stop_it.

[8. DEMAND FOR GUNS CREATES ITS OWN SUPPLY]

   My eighth observation, [is] a theoretical observation from my
colleagues in the Department of Economics.  Demand creates its own
supply.  This is sometimes called the First Law of Microeconomics,
and it_clearly_holds whether the commodity in demand is_legal_or
_illegal._ So long as a demand for some product exists, then there
will be profit to be made in satisfying that demand, and therefore
the [demand for that] product_will_be satisfied.  That is only a
fancy way of saying that as long as people wish to own guns, be
they criminals or average Joes, then guns will be there for them
to_own._
   I think it relevant that, for example, Brazil, manufactures
small arms.  Brazil makes actually pretty inexpensive, but
relatively_decent_small arms.  I think in fundamental respects
the question whether we can disarm the American criminal population
amounts to asking whether an organized criminal enterprise that
successfully imports hundreds of tons of Colombian cocaine into
the U.S. market every year would not find the means to illegally
import hundreds of tons of handguns from Brazil, if there were
some reason to do so, or some profit to be made in so doing.
And, if you agree with me that this proposition is more or less
_self-evidently_true, then you will conclude that we will_never_
reduce the supply of firearms to the criminal population by
enough to make an appreciable difference.

[9. GUNS ARE NOT INHERENTLY GOOD OR INHERENTLY EVIL]

   My ninth observation is that_per_se_guns are neither inherently
good nor inherently_evil._ Guns, that is, do not possess their own
teleology.  Benevolence and malevolance are things that inhere in
the motives and behavior of_people,_not in the technology they
possess.  All guns, are nothing more, nothing less, than a chunk of
machined metal that has a variety of purposes to which it can be
put, all involving a small projectile hurtling at high velocity
downrange, to lodge itself in a target.  We can only say that guns
are good when the target strikes us as an appropriate one, and evil
when not.  The gun itself is immaterial to this moral judgement.
   Singling out certain_types_of guns for specific policy attention,
'assault weapons' these days, "Saturday Nite Special" handguns in an
earlier area... earlier_era,_is almost always justified on the
grounds that the type of gun in question "has no legitimate use"
or "is designed only to kill."  By definition, however,_all_guns
are_designed to kill,_which is to say, designed to hurtle a
projectile downrange to lodge in a target.  And if one grants the
proposition, which, I admit is an arguable proposition, that self-
defense agianst predation and plunder is a legitimate reason
to_own_a gun, then all guns, regardless of their type, regardless
of their characteristics, regardless of their firepower, regardless
of their_quality,_ _all_guns, _regardless,_have some potentially
_legitimate_application.
   It seems to me, therefore, that the focus... the frequent focus,
in gun control circles on certain "bad guns," is fundamentally
misplaced-- the idea that there are good ones and bad ones and that
we want to get rid of the bad ones.  When all is said and done, it
is the behavior of people, I think, that we evidently need to
control.

[10.  GUNS ARE PART OF THE AMERICAN CULTURE]

   And then, finally, my tenth observation is that guns are
important elements of our history and our culture.  Attempts to
control crime by regulating the ownership or use of firearms are
attempts to regulate the artifacts and activities of a culture that
in its_own_way is as_unique_as any of the other myriad cultures that
comprise the American ethnic mosaic.  This is what is referred to as
the American gun culture, about which many have written, and, I
believe it remains among the_least_understood_of any of the various
subcultural strands that make up modern society.
   The existence and characteristics of the American gun culture
also have implications that are rarely appreciated.  For one, gun
control deals with matters that people feel_strongly_about, that are
part of their background, and their heritage, and their upbringing
...and their_worldview._ Advocates for gun control are frequently
taken aback by the_stridency_with which their seemingly modest and
sensible proposals are attacked.  But from the gun culture's point
of view, restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms amount to
the systematic destruction of a valued way of life, and are, in that
sense, a form of cultural genocide.  Scholars, and criminologists,
and legislators, who speculate on the problem of guns and crime
and violence would, I think, profit to look at things, at least
occasionally, from the gun culture's point of view.
   There are about 50,000,000 U.S. families who own firearms, and
hardly_any_of these families have ever harmed_anyone_with their
guns, and virtually none ever_intend_to.  Nearly_everything_these
families will ever_do_with their guns is both_legal,_and largely
innocuous.  So when we advocate restrictions on their_rights_to own
guns, as a means to fighting crime, we are casting aspersions on
_their_decency, as though we somehow hold_them_responsible for
the crime and violence that plague the nation.  Is it any wonder
they object often loudly and vociferously to such slander?
   And, thank you so much for your attention.  Dr. Bordua...

--END--

