Tim Lambert/Lofton: DC ban reduced gun-related homicides by 25%

[wacki]

Follow the fun here:
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/06/loftins_study_on_washington_dc.php#commentsArea

Lots of educated people on that blog (may not be educated on guns) but either way you look at it will be difficult to find a more concentrated gathering of educated non-Brady people on the internet.

I'm fully aware that dead = dead no matter what the device is. I'm also aware that non-gun deaths rose during this time period as well.

 

[csmkersh]

Washington DC's gun law went into effect January 1977. The following is the homicide numbers, population data and rate per 100k.


Lets take a closer look at Washington D.C.


Washington DC
Year Population Homicides per 100,000
1973 746,518 268 35.9
1974 723,238 277 38.3
1975 716,463 235 32.8
1976 701,493 188 26.8
1977 690,647 192 27.8
1978 675,000 189 28.0
1979 656,934 180 27.4
1980 634,921 200 31.5
1981 635,328 223 35.1
1982 631,922 194 30.7
1983 622,449 183 29.4
1984 622,776 175 28.1
1985 625,532 147 23.5
1986 625,806 194 31.0
1987 618,977 309 50.0
1988 612,148 319 52.1
1989 605,319 328 54.1
1990 598,490 337 56.2
1991 591,661 345 58.3
1992 584,832 353 60.4
1993 578,000 454 78.5
1994 570,000 399 70.0


Averages
1973-75 260 35.7
1976-86 188 29.0
1987-94 355 60.0
Standard Deviation 1972- 75 2.76
Standard Deviation 1976 86 3.02
Standard Deviation 1987- 94 9.70
Standard Deviation 1972 - 94 15.89


There's no valid way to say the law improved or reduced homicides in DC.


​

 

[romma]

Tim Lambert should go try to comfort loved ones of people that were senselessly murdered that otherwise would have defended themselves if given at least a choice..

It's scary how God-given rights are a nuisance to some people...

 

[jrfoxx]

I'm curious on where they get the data on people who wanted to murder someone with a handgun, but due to the ban, couldnt get one, and thus, didnt murder anyone, with anything. What source would one use for that info? seems like it would be AWEFULLY hard to come by....

 

[Robert Hairless]

I'm curious on where they get the data on people who wanted to murder someone with a handgun, but due to the ban, couldnt get one, and thus, didnt murder anyone, with anything. What source would one use for that info? seems like it would be AWEFULLY hard to come by....

Easy: http://www.gigmasters.com/FortuneTeller/FortuneTeller_Washington_DC.asp

I don't know for sure which one of them provided the data but I'm sure that all the best anti-gun advocates and apologists hire from that list.

 

[Grey_Mana]

for csmkersh, coming through right away with the quantitative slap down.

 

[ptmmatssc]

Had stumbled across an older WP article and it actually made some good points .

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/11/12/AR2007111201818_pf.html

"One of the difficult things is, you can't measure what didn't happen," Singer said. "You can't measure how many guns didn't come into the District because we have this law. You can't measure all the crimes that we know were prevented from happening."

But you can measure the violence that did occur, using the bellwether offense of homicide to chart the ebb and flow of crime in the District since the ban was enacted. And the violence here over those years was worse than in most other big cities, many of them in states with far less restrictive gun laws.

Marion Barry (D), a council member then as now and a supporter of the bill, put it bluntly at the time: "What we are doing today will not take one gun out of the hands of one criminal."

I've heard this before somewhere

The advent of the lucrative crack-cocaine market and the unprecedented street violence it unleashed in poor neighborhoods nationwide sent homicide rates soaring in the latter half of the 1980s. Not only did the number of killings surge in the District, as it did in most urban areas, the homicide rates here also far exceeded the rates in crack-ridden cities where handguns had not been banned.

In the peak killing year, 1991, the District recorded 482 homicides, or 81 per 100,000 residents, more than triple the 1985 rate. And more than ever, as the city became known as "the nation's murder capital," the gun was the weapon of choice. In 1985, firearms had been used in 65 percent of D.C. homicides. In 1991, they were used in eight out of 10 slayings.

Funny how this puts the DC ban into a different light than that "study" .

Actually was surprised to not see a "cheerleader" article for the DC ban .




.

 

[DragonFire]

According to the stats the cmskersh supplied the rate didn't really jump until 1987, ten years after the ban went into effect, and then it jumped by about 2/3rds.

Anyone know why the sudden surge? I would have expected a somewhat small but steady increase over the years.

 

[waterhouse]

Anyone know why the sudden surge?

According to the article (so take that for what it's worth), the study ended in 1991, and "crime rates fluctuated, particularly during the last few years of the study when the use of "crack" cocaine was increasing and homicides increased dramatically."

 

[csmkersh]

If this is the Tim Lambert I think it is, he's an Aussie minding our business once again. He, Pim and I crossed verbal swords more than once on talk.politics.guns.


​

 

[geekWithA.45]

Members should be aware that the rabidly anti-gun Tim Lambert has been engaged in a knock-down, drag out academic feud with John Lott for many years.

His obsessed pursuit of John Lott has been described as "Javert like", which seems fitting to me.

There was never a leftist cause that Tim Lambert couldn't find strong statistical support for, which pretty much defies the odds, and confirms observer bias.

 

[Gunnerpalace]

These stats are true, now I am going to go push the tides back and ride a marshmallow to the gumdrop kingdom because you can do that in a fantasy world.

What we are doing today will not take one gun out of the hands of one criminal

And he still supported it! I need to stop reading.

 

[K-Romulus]

Tim Lambert bends over backwards to justify any anti-gun-owner "study" he finds, while ignoring evidence that undercuts those "studies."

And he goes out of his way to nit-pick pro-gun-owner studies.

I thought he would be evenhanded in his criticisms because he initially seemed neutral, but I was disappointed in the end. Oh, well.

 

[wacki]

csmkersh, yes this is the (in)famous left wing anti-gunner Tim Lambert. I agree that he appears to focus on one side of the argument and appears to be biased. Despite the fact that he may have heavy left wing tendencies, He is no Brady.

Mind sharing with us the source of your DC homicide stats?

Thanks for your responses,

-wacki

 

[csmkersh]

I've been at this for some years. Source of my homicide stats are both the FBI UCRs and DoJ SourceBook of Criminal Justice Statistics. I don't remember when I first compiled this list, but it was before 1997 and I originally posted it in a "discussion" with Lambert in talk.politics.guns dealing specifically with the DC handgun ban.

I've found that Lambert is as intellectually dishonest as Prof Arthur Kellerman. I had a lot of fun poking holes in his Three Cities study once he finally released his data.

P.S.

Found this 1996 post Zapping Pim and Lambert

​

 

[stevelyn]

Tim Lambert/Lofton: DC ban reduced gun-related homicides by 25%

I'm sure the thug culture of DC probably did benefit from a 25% reduction in their deaths as a result of the gun ban. Afterall the good guys had no way of fighting back creating a safer working enviroment for them to operate in.

Why is it that the more "educated" some people become, the dumber they get??

 

[jrfoxx]

Thanks Robert Hairless, I had totally forgotten about the extensive studies done on this by Dionne Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network.I'll get my facts stright next time before i jump the gun on blasting the learned scholar in the article.

 

[TAB]

here is what we know about guns and crime...

the number of guns plays no role in crime numbers.

There are way to many things that effect crime stats to say much of anything. Any unbiased person knows that... only prob is there are very few unbiased people out there.( that inculdes the gun community)

 

[Defensory]

The FBI Uniform Crime Reports prove that Lambert is a know-nothing.

Since 1991, homicide rates have DECREASED dramatically NATIONWIDE, which of course includes areas where handgun ownership has been and is completely LEGAL.

D.C.'s handgun ban had absolutely NOTHING to do with the decrease.

Read it and weep, Shambert:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html

 

[Jim K]

The law was passed in 1976. I once had the whole stats for that era, but can't find them now. The fact is that homicide rates did go down for two years immediately after the ban took effect, primarily due to more strict law enforcement. The rate then rose steeply as the crack cocaine epidemic began, and with it the growth of police and political corruption and a slacking off of all law enforcement.

When asked why the gun law seemed to have no effect, D.C. officials resorted to finger pointing, blaming other states, the NRA, and about everyone you can think of except themselves.

In theory, a gun ban could work to reduce crime, but not when politicians and police choose to take bribes to allow criminal gangs to take over a city.

And no one wants to talk about the real reason for the ban in the first place - racism and the white establishment's fear of guns in black hands.

Jim

 

[Librarian]

Further discussion of this by Jim Lindgren at Volokh:

http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_06_22-2008_06_28.shtml#1214526279

http://volokh.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2008_07_06-2008_07_12.shtml#1215583270

http://volokh.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2008_07_06-2008_07_12.shtml#1215624199

 

[wacki]

The FBI Uniform Crime Reports prove that Lambert is a know-nothing.

Since 1991, homicide rates have DECREASED dramatically NATIONWIDE, which of course includes areas where handgun ownership has been and is completely LEGAL.

D.C.'s handgun ban had absolutely NOTHING to do with the decrease.

Read it and weep, Shambert:

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/data/table_01.html

This link is not DC stats. If anyone has a FBI/CDC/etc link to DC stats please post.

 

[Librarian]

This link is not DC stats. If anyone has a FBI/CDC/etc link to DC stats please post.

Bureau of Justice Statistics gives numbers, not rates.

WISQARS shows

1981 - 1998,[B] District of Columbia[/B]
Homicide Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, ICD-9 Codes: E960-E969

               Number of                    Crude     Age-Adjusted
  Year            Deaths   Population***     Rate           Rate**

  1981               220         636,891    34.54            32.84
  1982               208         634,172    32.80            29.00
  1983               160         632,441    25.30            22.05
  1984               164         633,384    25.89            22.71
  1985               144         634,546    22.69            20.24
  1986               169         638,279    26.48            23.45
  1987               206         636,938    32.34            27.12
  1988               307         630,430    48.70            40.76
  1989               357         624,170    57.20            47.51
  1990               398         603,814    65.91            55.48
  1991               415         600,870    69.07            60.98
  1992               384         597,567    64.26            56.73
  1993               411         595,302    69.04            64.81
  1994               347         589,240    58.89            55.11
  1995               312         580,519    53.75            50.38
  1996               325         572,379    56.78            53.03
  1997               254         567,739    44.74            42.80
  1998               209         565,232    36.98            33.28
  1999               186         570,220    32.62            29.83
  2000               184         572,059    32.16            28.72
  2001               197         577,357    34.12            30.33
  2002               229         578,907    39.56            35.63
  2003               194         577,476    33.59            30.29
  2004               174         579,720    30.01            27.89
  2005               180         582,049    30.93            27.78

compared to the whole US

1981 - 1998, [B]United States[/B]
Homicide Deaths and Rates per 100,000
All Races, Both Sexes, ICD-9 Codes: E960-E969


               Number of                    Crude     Age-Adjusted
  Year            Deaths   Population***     Rate           Rate**

  1981            23,361     229,465,316    10.18             9.91
  1982            22,073     231,664,211     9.53             9.22
  1983            19,922     233,792,237     8.52             8.20
  1984            19,510     235,825,040     8.27             7.93
  1985            19,628     237,924,038     8.25             7.88
  1986            21,462     240,133,048     8.94             8.42
  1987            20,812     242,289,046     8.59             8.11
  1988            21,784     244,499,040     8.91             8.37
  1989            22,578     246,819,195     9.15             8.64
  1990            24,614     249,464,396     9.87             9.33
  1991            26,254     252,980,942    10.38             9.89
  1992            25,144     256,514,231     9.80             9.40
  1993            25,653     259,918,595     9.87             9.51
  1994            24,547     263,125,826     9.33             9.04
  1995            22,552     266,278,403     8.47             8.27
  1996            20,634     269,394,291     7.66             7.51
  1997            19,491     272,646,932     7.15             7.03
  1998            17,893     275,854,116     6.49             6.39
  1999            16,889     279,040,181     6.05             5.98
  2000            16,765     281,421,906     5.96             5.90
  2001            20,308     285,226,284     7.12             7.05
  2002            17,638     288,125,973     6.12             6.06
  2003            17,732     290,796,023     6.10             6.04
  2004            17,357     293,638,158     5.91             5.86
  2005            18,124     296,507,061     6.11             6.07

(1981 is as early as they have on line)

 

[Defensory]

Posted by wacki:
This link is not DC stats.

I'm well aware of that. Thanks.

My point was that the homicide rate throughout the entire country has dropped dramatically since 1991, which includes the vast majority of the country where handguns have been and are completely legal.

If you look at the stats for the entire nation, you'll find that in the 15 year period from 1991 through 2005, homicide rates dropped MORE than 25%.

So Lambert's claim that the handgun ban was the cause of the drop, is clearly disproven by the fact that the homicide rate dropped even MORE where handguns remained completely legal.

And if you look at the D.C. rates that another poster provided, you'll notice that the homicide rate ROSE dramatically between 1985 and 1996, while the ban was in full effect.

Further proof the ban was worthless in reducing homicides.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Thanks Robert Hairless, I had totally forgotten about the extensive studies done on this by Dionne Warwick and her Psychic Friends Network.I'll get my facts stright next time before i jump the gun on blasting the learned scholar in the article.

Well okay.

But just remember that even though she sang "Do you know the way to San Jose?" it doesn't mean that Barack Obama was there when she did or that he was paying attention for the past 20 years.

Not that there's anything wrong with an attention deficit, hard-of-hearing Presidential candidate.

And you shouldn't say there is or he'll get you.