To Build a Better America, Pack Heat

The fax landed on my desk on Christmas Eve, the same day that the front page told of the tragically shortened career of a Los Angeles police rookie. Officer Mario Navidad had been shot dead outside a 7-Eleven by a teenager who had shoplifted beer and was himself shot dead by Navidad’s partner.

The letter to the editor had nothing and everything to do with Navidad’s death. It concerned, directly, the fact that I had witnessed a liquor store robbery in Northridge and had lived to write the column, one that included some doubtful musings about the NRA philosophy that we’d all be better off if more people were packing.

“It is funny that he wonders about the ‘NRA types’ (whatever that means) wanting to be granted the OPTION to carry concealed weapons. . . . He said he wondered if that would only make armed criminals more likely to shoot. . . . The verdict is in. The issue is clear. . . . Armed societies are more safe.”

This NRA type--a self-described “college educated, female junior high school teacher”--was part of a small chorus. In another letter, Craig Edwards, president of the NRA Members Council of the San Fernando Valley, touted the “groundbreaking study” by University of Chicago professor John R. Lott Jr. that “has totally confounded the likes of Handgun Control Inc. and other pro-victimization groups.”

Actually, the verdict is not in. The issue is not clear. And those “pro-victimization” types don’t seem so confounded.

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A quick look at the latest FBI reports released last week shows only this much: Nationwide, serious and violent crimes have dropped for the fifth consecutive year, the longest decline in 25 years. The question is, why?

There’s no shortage of people claiming credit. President Clinton touts the Brady Bill, the assault-weapons ban and federal funding for more police. Willie Williams and other police chiefs cite aggressive strategies and youth-intervention programs. Prosecutors point to three-strikes laws.

“A kind of cheerleading contest goes on when the crime rate goes down,” says Franklin Zimring, director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at UC Berkeley.

The NRA’s cheer is that the crime rate is being driven downward by the liberalized “shall carry” permit laws in several states. John R. Lott Jr., the Olin Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and coauthor of a study of states with permissive carry laws, has become the latest prophet of the gun gospel.

The Wall Street Journal credulously published Lott’s preview of his study last summer: “Our findings are dramatic. Our most conservative estimates show that by adopting shall-issue laws, states reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. If those states that did not permit concealed handguns in 1992 had permitted them back then, citizens would have been spared approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000 aggravated assaults and 12,000 robberies.”

The NRA loved Lott’s ipso facto logic. In gun-centric circles, pro and con, Lott’s breathtaking extrapolations got a lot of mileage. In academic circles, meanwhile, scholars found it curious that he would publicize his findings before they were subjected to peer review.

Those reviews are starting to come in, and they are not pretty. “Shabby social science” is Zimring’s curt dismissal. In December, Lott sat on a panel at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., as other researchers recited a litany of flaws. Professors Daniel Negin and Daniel Black of Carnegie-Mellon University questioned how Lott could draw such sweeping conclusions when the homicide rate varied so greatly in the 10 states that had enacted permissive carry laws.

Consider Florida and West Virginia. In Florida, homicides decreased by 24% after the right-to-carry law was passed. But after West Virginia enacted a similar law, the rate more than doubled.

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The day I reviewed the video of the robbery I witnessed, LAPD Det. Ed Heissel also showed me a 7-Eleven robbery. One young man took a couple of six-packs as his companion kept a hand in a sweatshirt pocket, apparently pretending he had a gun.

Outside another 7-Eleven, Navidad encountered a young man who really had one.

Navidad’s killer fit a demographic pattern: Most crimes are committed by young men; when that population goes up or down, crime follows. But that can be overstated, Zimring cautions. Culture makes a big difference--and America is famous for its gun culture.

“You’re much more likely to get punched in a bar in Sydney [Australia] than L.A.,” he said. “But you’re 20 times more likely to get killed in a bar in Los Angeles.”

If armed societies really are safer, Zimring added, “things must be pretty polite in Somalia.”

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.

‘You’re much more likely to get punched in a bar in Sydney than L.A. But you’re 20 times more likely to get killed in a bar in Los Angeles.’