Every time a mass shooting or particularly horrific crime hits the headlines, some small but vocal minority will insist that the answer to gun violence is more guns. Feeling fearful in the wake of violence is certainly understandable. The problem with beliefs dictated by fear, however, is that they tend to be irrational. This issue is no exception.

Overwhelming scholarly and expert evidence demonstrates that increasing gun ownership and access does not make communities safer. Instead of leading to decreases in crime, permissive gun laws are correlated with increases in crime, injuries, and suicides, as well as injuries and death caused by accidental discharges.

In other words, while some people may feel safer with increased access to guns, people are objectively less safe with increased access to more guns.

1. Concealed carry policies do not deter crime, and are in fact correlated with increases in crime.

Studies showing no deterrent effect on crime rate:

·       “Because beliefs over the distribution of firearm carriers are impervious to permitting policies and do not respond positively to the true distribution of carriers, the data suggest easing concealed carry cannot deter crime.” (Fortunato, 2015).

·       “No support to the hypothesis that shall-issue laws have beneficial effects in reducing murder rates.” (Grambsch, 2012).

·       “No statistically significant association exists between changes in concealed weapon laws and state homicide rates.” (Hepburn, Miller, Azrael and Hemenway, 2004).

·       “No evidence that [right-to-carry] laws reduce or increase rates of violent crime.” (Kovandzic, Marvell and Vieraitis, 2005)

·       “[T]he rate at which CHLs [concealed handgun licenses] are issued and crime rates are independent of one another—crime does not drive CHLs; CHLs do not drive crime.” (Phillips et al, 2015)

Studies showing correlation with increase in crime:

·       “‘The totality of the evidence based on educated judgments about the best statistical models suggests that right-to-carry laws are associated with substantially higher rates’ of aggravated assault, rape, robbery and murder.” (Aneja, Donohue and Zhang, 2014)

·       “A ‘shall issue’ law that eliminates most restrictions on carrying a concealed weapon may be associated with increased firearm homicide rates.” (Rosengart et. al., 2005)

·       “Changes in gun ownership are significantly positively related to changes in the homicide rate.” (Duggan, 2002)

·       “[T]he best science indicates that more guns will lead to more deaths” (Webster and Ludwig, 2001)

·       “Firearm deaths are significantly lower in states with stricter gun control legislation.” (Florida, 2011)

2. Even trained professionals have difficulty using firearms effectively in self-defense.

Even trained professionals, such as soldiers and law enforcement officers, have low firearm accuracy rates. Factors such as stress, over-confidence, lighting, and racial bias interfere with the judgment and skills of those with years of training in conflict situations. The average well-meaning civilian, with little or no training, is even more likely to harm himself or others than to prevent a crime.

·      The highly-trained New York Police Department’s “average hit rate during gunfights was just 18 percent. When suspects did not return fire, police officers hit their targets 30 percent of the time.” (RAND Corporation, 2008)

·       “Despite what we see on TV, the presence of a firearm is a greater risk, especially in the hands of an untrained person” (David Chipman, former ATF agent, 2015)

·      “Most cops and civilian gun carriers are lousy handgun shots. The level of ineptitude of many people who carry guns on a daily basis is nothing short of appalling.” (Duane Thomas, Handgun Defense Expert, 2002)

·      “Citizens with little or no training are foolish to think that they will have the focus and presence of mind to respond calmly and appropriately when under duress.” (Vince, Wolfe, and Field, 2015, 43)

·      Racial bias affects the decision whether to shoot a person. (Mekawi 2014)

·      “[O]fficers were more likely to mistakenly shoot unarmed Black compared with unarmed White suspects.” (Plant and Peruche, 2005)

·      Of 62 mass shootings in the last 30 years, “not one was stopped by an armed civilian.” (Follman 2012)

3. While guns are sometimes used successfully in self-defense, the rate of such uses pales in comparison to the rate of criminal uses, unjustifiable uses, accidents, and suicides.

·      “Guns are used to threaten and intimidate far more often than they are used in self defense. Most self reported self defense gun uses may well be illegal and against the interests of society.” (Hemenway, Azrael, Miller 2000)

·      “[T]he statistical reality is that for every justifiable homicide in the United States—for every lethal shooting in defense of life or property—guns are used to commit 34 murders and 78 suicides, and are the cause of two accidental deaths.” (Holland 2015, citing Washington Post analysis of FBI data 2015)

·       “In 2012 for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 32 criminal homicides.” (Violence Policy Center, 2015)

·      “Individuals in possession of a gun were 4.46 times more likely to be shot in an assault than those not in possession. Among gun assaults where the victim had at least some chance to resist, this adjusted odds ratio increased to 5.45.” (Branas et al, 2009).

·      “For every age group, where there are more guns there are more accidental deaths.” (Miller, Azrael, and Hemenway 2001)

·      “The majority of people killed in firearm accidents are under age 24, and most of these young people are being shot by someone else, usually someone their own age.” (Hemenway, Barber, and Miller 2010)

·       Access to a firearm means a person is almost twice as likely to become a homicide victim and three times more likely to commit suicide. (Anglemeyer, Horvath, and Rutherford, 2014 (meta-analysis of data from 16 peer-reviewed studies).

4. In particular, guns are far more likely to be used against women than used by women in self-defense.

Women are most likely to be victimized by people that they know, often intimate partners. A gun greatly increases the chances violence against women will be fatal. Guns are particularly ill-suited for self-defense in sexual assault situations, which usually occur between people who know each other and in places where women feel safe, such as homes, dorm rooms, and social events.

·      “[W]here there are more guns, more women die” (Dr. Deborah Azrael, 2015)

·      “Women living in homes with 1 or more guns were more than 3 times more likely to be killed in their homes.” (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)

·      “Women killed by a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or close relative were 7 times more likely to live in homes with 1 or more guns” (Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)

·      “[H]ostile gun displays against family members may be more common than gun use in self-defense, and that hostile gun displays are often acts of domestic violence directed against women.” (Azrael and Hemenway 2000)

·      “[P]urchasing a handgun provides no protection against homicide among women and is associated with an increase in their risk for intimate partner homicide.” (Wintemute et al, 2003, 282)

·       “[W]hile men are more likely to be victimized by strangers, women are more likely to be victimized not just by intimate partners but also by friends or acquaintances.” (Drakulich, Sociological Forum, 2015, 104)

·      Men’s rates of gun ownership are three times that of women’s. (Gallup 2013)

·      In a significant number of gun-owning households, only the male member of the household knows about the existence of the gun. (Ludwig et al. 1998)

·      Despite having extensive firearms training and access to weapons, “women in the military are raped and sexually assaulted at significantly higher rates than in civilian society.” (Hynes, 2012).

5. The claim that “gun free zones” attract more violence than other places is a myth.

The vast majority of firearm violence occurs in private, not public, and is triggered by factors such as arguments and personal grudges. There is no evidence to support the claim that mass shooters choose their settings based on gun regulations.

·      “[R]ampage killings are not the typical face of gun violence in America. Each day, some 30 people are victims of gun homicides, slain by rival gang members, drug dealers, trigger-happy robbers, drunken men after bar fights, frenzied family members or abusive partners. An additional 60 people a day kill themselves with guns.” (New York Times, 2015)

·       “Mass shootings represent a small share of total U.S. firearm homicides. Less than one percent of gun murder victims recorded by the FBI in 2012 were killed in incidents with four or more victims.” (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2015)

·       “Ninety-one of the 133 [mass shooting] incidents (68%) took place wholly in private residences. Of the 37 incidents in public spaces, at least 21 took place wholly or in part where concealed guns could be lawfully carried. All told, no more than 17 of the shootings (13%) took place entirely in public spaces that were so-called “gun-free zones.” (Everytown for Gun Safety, 2015)

·      “Among the 62 mass shootings over the last 30 years … not a single case includes evidence that the killer chose to target a place because it banned guns. To the contrary, in many of the cases there was clearly another motive for the choice of location.” (Follman, 2013)

6. Gun regulation does not violate the Second Amendment.

·      The interpretation of the Second Amendment as conferring an individual right to own firearms was created by the Supreme Court only in 2008, in District of Columbia v. Heller. Even if the Court is correct in its interpretation (which would defy the understanding, practice, and legal interpretation of more than two hundred years), there is no such thing as an unregulated right. Indeed, even Justice Scalia went out of his way to point this out in that very opinion: “Like most rights, the right secured by the Second Amendment is not unlimited… nothing in our opinion should be taken to cast doubt on longstanding prohibitions on the possession of firearms by felons and the mentally ill, or laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in sensitive places such as schools and government buildings, or laws imposing conditions and qualifications on the commercial sale of arms.”

On October 20, 2015, I testified in the Florida Senate against SB68, a new bill attempting to expand concealed carry privileges to colleges and universities. We were limited to about one minute to provide our testimony, and these 60-some seconds were apparently enough to send gun fanatics into a frenzy. The bulk of my testimony merely referenced the overwhelming scholarly evidence demonstrating that gun ownership generally, and concealed carry in particular, do not lead to decreases in crime, and in fact are correlated with increases in crime. This is research that I am familiar with both as a scholar of self-defense law and an instructor in actual self-defense.

What did the proponents of expanding gun access do in the face of objective, factual testimony from a woman knowledgeable in both the theory and practice of self-defense (and who, incidentally, grew up around guns and has shot quite a few guns herself)? Why, lie, of course. Unable to refute any of the studies or statistics I noted, the far-right propaganda site Breitbart claimed that I said “women can’t use guns effectively.” This claim was picked up and repeated by several of Breitbart’s followers, in various blog posts, threatening tweets, and furious, sub-literate emails.

I highly doubt that any of people who couldn’t see through this patently obvious attempt to divert attention away from my actual points will ever make it to this site (because finding this site would suggest one has made the barest of efforts to fact-check outlandish propaganda, a skill apparently beyond the grasp of Breitbart’s primary readership), but just in case you do, let me spell it out for you in very simple terms: No, of course, I don’t believe that women are any less effective at using guns than men are. Of course women can be equal or more skilled shooters, or equal or better law enforcement officers, or equal or superior soldiers compared to men. Of course it is possible for a woman to use a gun in self-defense, even against sexual assault. What I said in my testimony and what every credible study on the subject has concluded is that in general, the potential benefit to anyone - man or woman, trained or untrained - of using a gun in self-defense is far outweighed by the established risks of increased injury and death correlated with increased gun access. If you are not particularly gifted at using Google, feel free to look here and here and here and here and here and here and here for citations and sources in support of my factual observations. And finally, take this as an invitation to reflect on the fact that resorting to lies is the mark of cowards and imbeciles.

Here is my entire testimony (you can watch the video here - my testimony begins around the 60 minute mark):

“My name is Mary Anne Franks, and I am a law professor at the University of Miami School of Law. One of my areas of legal expertise is self-defense law, in particular Stand Your Ground laws. I am also an instructor in Krav Maga, an Israeli form of hand-to-hand combat developed for self-defense. I speak to you today on the basis of my experience with both the law and the practice of self-defense.

 It is common and understandable to respond to fear with fantasies of control. When faced with tragedy, we try to regain our sense of order by imagining that we would have handled things differently, that we could have prevented it. As understandable as these fantasies are, they are just fantasies.

The fantasy that a gun is an effective means of self-defense is bluntly contradicted by the reality. States with right-to-carry and Stand Your Ground laws experience more, not less, robbery, rape, assault, and murder. Guns are highly effective in committing crimes; they are rarely effective in preventing them.

Soldiers and law enforcement officers with years of training struggle to use their weapons effectively and accurately – the NYPD’s hit rate during gunfights is 18%. What is more, race and gender bias infects perception of what constitutes a threat and what justifies the use of deadly force. The belief that an average citizen – to say nothing of the average college student – will exhibit the calm, objective precision of an action hero in a deadly confrontation is a delusion that would be laughable were it not so dangerous.

Guns escalate aggression, create a false sense of security, encourage violence as a first resort, and increase the chances of injury and death to the most vulnerable. All of this is particularly antithetical to the spirit of academic freedom essential to higher education: the open and free exchange of ideas within a community built on trust and respect.

This bill will cost more than money, resources, and enrollment numbers. It will also impose unacceptable costs on the very people it claims to protect. It will cost the right to free speech; it will cost the right to pursue education in safety, and it will cost lives.”

In response to a request for more information from Senator Sachs, I replied: “Studies done by many experts and professionals have shown that defensive gun use is extremely rare, especially compared to the rate at which guns are used to commit crimes. In my own practice as an instructor in self-defense, we have found that it is really unlikely for anyone to be able to use a gun effectively in self-defense especially for cases of things like sexual assault, partly because most sexual assault is perpetrated by someone the victim. So unless someone is going on a date with her hand on a gun, this is not going to help her.”

Update: Breitbart liked its lie so much the first time around it decided to run it again!

The Boston University Law Review is hosting an online symposium in honor of Prof. Danielle Citron’s groundbreaking book, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace. My contribution, Censoring Women, describes the long history of the effort to silence women through harassment and threats (includes a note about the recent SXSW debacle).

I spoke with Robin Morgan about nonconsensual pornography and the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative’s efforts to combat it on WMC’s Live with Robin Morgan. You can listen here (my segment begins around the 33 minute mark).

My recent law review article, “Real Men Advance, Real Women Retreat: Stand Your Ground, Battered Women’s Syndrome, and Violence as Male Privilege” is included in this 2015 “Greatest Hits” of Women and Law. You can read the full article here or the brief Huffington Post version here.