Call Me Blockhead, Take Your Best Shot

Sinclair Buckstaff of Northridge, with whom I once shared a pleasant nocturnal hike, denounces as “sophomoric” a recent column that questioned the supposed link between the nation’s decreasing crime rate and the liberalization of concealed-weapons permits.

Relentless Ron Yorke of Reseda, my most prolific correspondent, says I’ve demonstrated all the intellectual depth of Formica. Sam Brunstein of Glendale has dispatched not one, not two, but three letters to convince me of the error of my ways.

And to think, this mail arrived before the latest true-life drama ready-made for a gun-control debate. I refer to the Domino’s Pizza deliveryman in South Los Angeles on Sunday who, using a pistol he was legally authorized to carry, shot dead a would-be robber who had stabbed him with a knife.

This is a sampling of the reaction to a pair of recent columns, the first being about a liquor store robbery I witnessed, the second concerning the divergent claims made by everybody from President Clinton to the National Rifle Assn. to explain why America’s crime rate has fallen the last five years.

Several readers had been moved to write by my expression of gratitude that no John Q. Shoulderholster was present to intervene in the robbery I witnessed. Some cited a study by University of Chicago researchers claiming that the easing of concealed weapons permit laws has led to a reduction in crime. I, in turn, noted the criticism this study has inspired.

Some letters are as thoughtful as they are passionate. A few accuse me of bias in the extreme. Then again, Craig Edwards, president of the National Rifle Assn. of the San Fernando Valley, began his most recent letter thusly:

“Thank you for fairly presenting my forwarded information. . . . I appreciate it and emphasized this point at our monthly council meeting that same evening.”

What a sweet-talker. Edwards goes on to raise a relevant question about homicide rates in West Virginia after the change in concealed weapons laws. But more about that later.

My gun lobby would be sorely disappointed, I think, were I to ever offer an olive branch. But just to humor them, I offer this image of yours truly as a blockhead, thanks to the wonders of our computers.

At any rate, they can celebrate both the 1st and 2nd amendments by clipping this Cubist portrait and using it for target practice. This would, however, be bad taste.

My gun lobby also will be delighted to know that I feel compelled to ‘fess up that some, um, clarifications are in order concerning John R. Lott Jr.’s controversial study, the one concluding that the easing of right-to-carry laws are responsible for reducing the homicide rate by 8%.

I erred in reporting that Lott, in summarizing his findings last August in the Wall Street Journal, had publicized his study before it was submitted to peer review. The study, which only this month is being published in the University of Chicago Journal of Legal Studies, had been reviewed by other academics before Lott’s Wall Street Journal piece.

Scholars at several universities have reviewed his study and replicated his findings. When I asked Lott if this meant that these researchers agree with his conclusions of cause and effect, he said not necessarily--that was a separate question.

And, certainly, an important one. Lott objected to UC Berkeley criminologist Franklin Zimring’s characterization of his study as “shabby.” Lott’s paper runs to 68 pages; the quantity of data is impressive. It’s the quality of the reasoning that provoked criticism.

One problem with trying to distill an epic dispute into a newspaper column is the need to be pithy. This brings us back to Craig Edwards and homicide rates in West Virginia.

Carnegie-Mellon University professors Daniel Nagin and Daniel Black, in their critique of Lott’s study, re-crunched his data. “There is no more reason to believe that a right-to-carry law decreased murder in Florida by 24% than such a law increased West Virginia’s murder rate by 107%,” they concluded.

Edwards noted that FBI reports show that West Virginia’s murder rate, while increasing substantially, did not come close to doubling. Nagin and Black, I’ve since learned, were applying Lott’s statistical model not to the states as a whole, but to their largest counties. Lott, they explain, had told them the effects were most dramatic in the largest counties. But the wide discrepancies, they say, “illustrate that Dr. Lott’s statistical model is flawed or, in statistical jargon, the point is misspecified.”

In analyzing data from 10 states that adopted right-to-carry laws during Lott’s study period, Nagin and Black also found that the collective drop in crime rates for the 10 rested wholly on Florida, an atypical state. The Cuban Mariel boat lift and the violent explosion of the cocaine trade had caused crime to spike there before new gun laws took effect.

No discussion about the falling crime rate is complete without mention of the good news from New York City. There, felonies have declined at three times the national rate. There are many theories for this--most commonly, more aggressive policing--but a state law liberalizing concealed weapons permits doesn’t exist.

It’s not hard to find anecdotal evidence for any argument. Would the Domino’s man be dead if he hadn’t been armed? That’s hard to say. According to police, he told the robber he had no money--a reaction that Zimring described as “passive resistance” in a study of robberies. When the robber stabbed him, police say, he resisted actively with superior weaponry.

Zimring’s study, incidentally, found that “active compliance” is the surest way to survive a robbery. Victims who engage in active resistance, Zimring found, have the best odds of hanging on to their property. Unfortunately, they also have much better odds of winding up dead.

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. Readers may write to Harris at the Times Valley Edition, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth 91311. Please include a phone number.