----- Original Message ----- From: "Tim Lambert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, July 29, 2003 5:32 AM Subject: Lott claims "vast majority" of research supports "More Guns, Less Crime"
> http://timlambert.org/2003/07#0728 > > Lott has an op-ed in the New York Post where he comments on the recent > NYC City Hall shooting. Lott seems to believe that concealed handguns > would have prevented the shooting. Lott's logic is especially hard to > follow in this case--the victim was actually carrying a concealed > handgun and the killer was shot almost immediately by a police > officer. Having more people with concealed handguns present could not > have prevented this crime, and might have led to more people getting > shot in the general confusion. On the other hand, the policy that Lott > dismisses, requiring everyone to pass through metal detectors, could > have prevented this shooting. I am going to somewhat agree with Tim on part of his point here. Concealed carry's major benefit is to create uncertainty among criminals who are trying to use the threat of force as a tool for extorting valuables or compliance out of a victim. If the criminal's goal is to kill someone, he can just shoot his victim, and hope that he hits his victim before the victim returns fire. (And amazingly enough, victims do sometimes return fire before they get hit and fall--and sometimes, the victims don't get hit at all.) Where I would disagree is this: did the killer in this case have any other goals besides killing Councilman Davis? Probably not, but we don't know for sure. If a police officer hadn't been present to shoot the killer, would the killer have left the scene of the crime? Probably. If the police officer had not been present, would the killer have gotten away with his crime? Since most people have to go through metal detectors at New York City Hall, almost certainly the killer would have gotten away. The metal detectors, if applied consistently (as they were not before the shooting) would be a useful strategy for making people reasonably safe inside the City Hall. But New York City can't even keep guns out of the hands of its JAIL inmates, and in that case, they use both metal detectors and highly invasive strip searches. Of course, the killer was on a death sentence already--he was taking drugs for AIDS, and may not have felt that he had much to lose. Clayton E. Cramer
