Eugene Volokh posted "How Wrong Can a Five-Sentence AP Story About Guns Be?" (his blog on September 9, 2006 at 3:27am). The subject AP article addressed a report by Ceasefire MD titled "Every 48 Hours, An Analysis Of Assault Rifles Traced To Crime In Maryland," http://www.ceasefiremd.org/Reports/CeaseFireMDAssaultWeaponsStudy.pdf , which was announced by press release on Sept. 5, 2006. In his post Eugene states: ". . . if the study's data is accurate, the relevant crime count for semiautomatic rifles and shotguns should be considerably more than 789; likewise, since the study measures only guns that were recovered and traced back to the crime, the actual number of guns used in crime is likely to be considerably greater."
The usual flurry of comments followed Eugene's initial posting with the last time-stamped 9.13.2006 6:22pm. The blog postings are available at: http://volokh.com/posts/1157786857.shtml A Google search for "Every 48 Hours" "Assault Rifles" reveals no other postings on this topic in his blog, but does reveal a similar flurry of comments around the country by news and blog sites that comment for a short period on the CeaseFire MD report and then move on to other subjects. By the time Volokh blog comments on this topic closed, no one had sufficient time to completely analyze CeaseFires report (http://www.ceasefiremd.org/Reports/CeaseFireMDAssaultWeaponsStudy.pdf) but Jay made an effort on their press release (at http://www.ceasefiremd.org/PressReleases/2006/090506.html). So, while some blog respondents asked pertinent question (e.g. What does "traced to a crime" mean? If I use a semiautomatic firearm in lawful self defense at the scene of a crime, is it counted (traced) to the crime as well? -- the answer to the second question is yes; the answer to the first question is yes also, but neither is answered by CeaseFire in its report), other respondents stated opinions which were factually wrong {e.g. The study's relationship between used and traced is actually logically quite defensible: They use tracebacks as a lower bound to crime use ("so frequently used in crime that one assault rifle is traced back to a Maryland crime every 48 hours"). One could hypothesize reasons why this might not be so (for instance, if many of the tracebacks were of guns stolen from innocent victims, rather than of crime guns), but on balance I suspect that the assumption is right and is at least defensible.} To illustrate error with the "assumption is . . . defensible" comment, consider the document posted by a Det. Bailey of the Montgomery County [Maryland] Police Department, Firearms Investigations Unit (see: http://www.gleag.com/Assault%20Weapons%20Ban%20Position%20Paper%20of%20Law%20Enforcement.pdf ) Det. Bailey states that 300 crime guns were taken in Montgomery County in 2006 and none of them were assault weapons by the criteria of "Every 48 Hours". In far more violent Baltimore over 1500 guns were taken with only 7 crime guns assault rifles. Det. Baileys paper describes how the numbers of traced "crime guns" are increased with police takings of guns having nothing to do with crime. One example is of a person found dead at home in Ashton, Maryland. This person has 47 firearms that would qualify as assault weapons by "Every 48 Hours" criteria. By police policy these firearms were traced "but none of these firearms were involved in any crime and the owner had no criminal history." Emergency Evaluation Petitions to evaluate mental competency results in civil taking (and tracing) of firearms not connected to crime. In 2003, according to Det. Bailey, Kensington, MD (a small community in Montgomery County) saw the taking of 57 "assault" weapons via these petitions. Domestic violence laws and other civil actions (ex parte and final protective order) are another source of takings whereby guns are labeled as "crime guns" to be traced but rarely connected to crimes. So, the CeaseFire claim of tracebacks as a lower bound to crime use fails because many traces are performed unrelated to crimes. The real point of this message is to illustrate a problem stemming from lack of follow-up in Blogs and other media. The actual CeaseFire MD report is a bit of propaganda masquerading as a serious analysis and a two week comment period isn't enough to expose the flaws of the report. It is necessary to read the report and several months might be required for comments to be developed. There are many more instances of false claims not addressed in the initial comments. For example, page p9 of the CeaseFire Report claims: 'In 1999, a Department of Justice (DOJ) commissioned study found that gun trace requests for assault weapons declined 20 percent in the year after the ban went into effect [Koper, Christopher and Roth, Jeffrey, "Impacts of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban: 1994-96," National Institute of Justice Report, March 1999.]' Yet, that DOJ report states on page 10 "The public safety benefits of the 1994 ban have not yet been demonstrated." So, CeaseFire MD falsely uses a DOJ study to claim ban effectiveness explicitly denied in the DOJ report referenced. On page p10 of "Every 48 Hours" CeaseFire claims: "Part of the problem in determining an assault weapon bans effectiveness is the lack of reliable data on assault weapon-related deaths and injuries. Exactly how many people are killed or injured each year by assault weapons is unknown." The issue for Maryland being addressed in this report is the proposed ban of selected semi-automatic rifles (Maryland already banned certain handguns listed as assault weapons). Violence is an important issue in Maryland since it ranks at or near the top in violence measures for more than a decade. While injuries from semi-automatic rifles may not be known, deaths can be bounded. Maryland reported 2 deaths (out of 520) from rifles in 2004 and 4 (out of 551) in 2005. Typically, Maryland reports deaths from trauma received from all rifles at less than 2% since 2000. To quote from the position of the Maryland State Police, March 13, 2003 on House Bill 844 (a bill to ban assault weapons), In 2001, . . . 313 homicides involving firearms were handguns, 15 were shotguns, 2 were riffles [sic], and 6 were classifies [sic] as unknown weapons which include weapons such as crossbows. None of these homicides involved the use of assault type weapons. The state police position goes on to say From 1994 to 2002, with the exception of the sniper shootings, very few homicides involve assault type weapons. . . . Very few crimes involved the use of shotguns or rifles, and in comparison to the number of homicides and handguns used in these crimes, the number of crimes involving shotguns, rifles or assault weapons is negligible. There are many more instances of false claims in this CeaseFire MD too many for this message. Going back to Eugene's blog post title question, "How Wrong Can a Five-Sentence AP Story About Guns Be?" we can say it can as wrong as underlying CeaseFire MD document being reporting and that document is rife with errors, misstatements and downright deceptions. We can also say that understanding of complex issues may not be obtained by the end of the comment period in some blogs. The "assault weapon ban" issue needed more careful attention over longer periods by interested parties. Phil _______________________________________________ To post, send message to Firearmsregprof@lists.ucla.edu To subscribe, unsubscribe, change options, or get password, see http://lists.ucla.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/firearmsregprof Please note that messages sent to this large list cannot be viewed as private. Anyone can subscribe to the list and read messages that are posted; people can read the Web archives; and list members can (rightly or wrongly) forward the messages to others.
