The Scientific Case for Outlawing Guns

Efforts to pass new federal gun control laws in the aftermath of the Newtown massacre are making progress, while the NRA has argued that arming more citizens, even teachers in schools, is the answer to stopping gun deaths.

Two researchers, an evolutionary biologist and a mathematician at University of California, Irvine, have now stepped back from the emotional debate and taken a dispassionate look at which kind of gun policies would save more lives, both in a one-on-one attack (as in a homicide) and in a shooting in a crowd (as in a movie theater or mall). 

Their findings suggest that President Obama, who has said he supports the right for private individuals to own a gun, is not going far enough if he wants to prevent the greatest number of gun-related deaths.

The study starts by showing that the optimal survival strategies could be either of the extreme approaches: a total ban on private gun ownership, or a policy allowing anyone in the general population to get a gun.

Which of the two save the most lives in practice depends on a few key parameters that are at the center of the gun debate: how effectively illegal gun purchases are stopped; the fraction of people who purchase guns legally and also carry them around; and, finally, the extent to which a gun is effective at stopping an attacker. In mass shooting scenario, this also depends on the “efficiency” of the shooter’s weapon compared to any weapons in the crowd.

Using existing statistical data to put numbers to these factors, their model comes out squarely in favor of gun control. If a gun ban can be enforced in the U.S. at least as effectively as in the U.K., the results show such a policy would minimize the number of death compared to a gun buying free-for-all. The effect is strong enough that even a partial reduction in firearm availability is preferable to allowing more guns, the researchers write. 

The crucial factor is enforcement of gun laws. Private guns are banned in all but a few special circumstances in the U.K, which has one of the world’s lowest rates of gun deaths. Put simply, criminals are less likely to have guns. Only 8 percent of English and Welsh prisoners had owned an illegal gun in the year prior to their conviction, and of those, only 23 percent carried it with them at the time of their offense. Compare that to Mexico, a country that also has strict gun control but poor enforcement that leads to high rates of violence. If the U.S. had enforcement similar to Mexico, then yes, the authors acknowledge, we might be better off just arming everyone.