The short answer is - NO they don't
So says Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy article.
Some Highlights from this section of the 2007 Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy
REF:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Vol30_No2_KatesMauseronline.pdf
Summary of this section of the paper:
The
claim by critics of gun ownership that "Ordinary Citizens with access
to firearms are the most likely source of handgun murder"
"appear
to rest on no evidence and actually contradict facts that have so
uniformly been established by homicide studies dating back to the 1890s"
The only kind of evidence cited to support
the myth that most murderers are ordinary people is that many murders arise from arguments or occur in homes and between acquaintances.
These
bare facts are only relevant if one assumes that criminals do not have
acquaintances or homes or arguments. Of the many studies belying this,
the broadest analyzed a year’s national data on gun murders occurring in
homes and between acquaintances. It found “
the most common
victim/offender relationship” was “where both parties . . . knew one
another because of prior illegal transactions.”
III. DO ORDINARY PEOPLE MURDER?
Some highlights:
The
“more guns equal more death” mantra seems plausible only when viewed
through the rubric that murders mostly involve ordinary people who kill
because they have access to a firearm when they get angry.
If
this were true, murder might well increase where people have ready
access to firearms, but the available data provides no such correlation.
Nations and areas with more guns per capita do not have higher murder rates than those with fewer guns per capita.
Nevertheless,
critics of gun ownership often argue that a
-->“gun
in the closet to protect against burglars will most likely be used to
shoot a spouse in a moment of rage . -->"The problem is you and
me—law‐abiding folks;
-->“most gun‐related homicides . . . are the
result of impulsive actions taken by individuals who have little or no
criminal background or who are known to the victims;”
-->" that
“the majority of firearm homicide[s occur] . . . not as the result of
criminal activity, but because of arguments between people who know each
other; that each year there are thousands of gun murders “by
law‐abiding citizens who might have stayed law‐abiding if they had not
possessed firearms."
These comments appear to rest on no
evidence and actually contradict facts that have so uniformly been
established by homicide studies dating back to the 1890s
Insofar
as studies focus on perpetrators, they show that neither a majority,
nor many, nor virtually any murderers are ordinary “law‐abiding
citizens.”
Rather, almost all murderers are extremely aberrant
individuals with life histories of violence, psychopathology, substance
abuse, and other dangerous behaviors. “
The vast majority of persons
involved in lifethreatening violence have a long criminal record with
many prior contacts with the justice system.”
“Thus
homicide—[whether] of a stranger or [of] someone known to the offender—‘i
s usually part of a pattern of violence, engaged in by people who are known . . . as violence prone.’”
Though
only 15% of Americans over the age of 15 have arrest records,
approximately 90 percent of “adult murderers have adult records, with an
average adult criminal career [involving crimes committed as an adult
rather than a child] of six or more years, including four major adult
felony arrests.” These national statistics dovetail with data from
local nineteenth and twentieth century studies.
For example:
-->victims
as well as offenders [in 1950s and 1960s Philadelphia murders] . . .
tended to be people with prior police records, usually for violent
crimes such as assault.”
-->“The great majority of both
perpetrators and victims of [1970s Harlem] assaults and murders had
previous [adult] arrests, probably over 80% or more.”
-->Boston
police and probation officers in the 1990s agreed that of those
juvenile‐perpetrated murders where all the facts were known, virtually
all were committed by gang members though the killing was not
necessarily gang related.
-->80% of 1997 Atlanta murder arrestees had at least one earlier drug offense with 70% having 3 or more prior drug offenses
-->New
York Times study of the 1,662 murders committed in that city in the
years 2003–2005 found that “[m]ore than 90 percent of the killers had
criminal records.
That murderers are not ordinary, law‐abiding
responsible adults is further documented in other sources. Psychological
studies of juvenile murderers variously find that at least 80%, if not
all, are psychotic or have psychotic symptoms.
My point with this is:
A long history of research shows that guns in the possession of people
with no criminal history has never-never been demonstrated to pose a
threat to the general public or the home in which the gun owner lives.
It may or may not help reduced crime, but is sure as hell does not
increase violent crime in general, or murder specifically.
This
2007 paper surveys a lot of research. It reaches back to cover research
and data from the 1890's to 2000's. That's a survey covering over 100
years of available data.
It covers countries that go from complete open slather to strict prohibition.
It is not some puff piece by pro gun guys. It comes to conclusions that the authors may not even agree with philosophically.
As
the authors state, the burden of proof around "Guns in the hands of
ordinary people represent a clear danger to society" is on the Gun
Grabbers, and so far 100yrs of data is against them.
