September 26, 2013 • 29 mins
Back in the 1990s, Congress effectively banned the scientific study of gun violence. Still, a handful of researchers plugged on and produced a small body of work about the effect of the presence of guns on the human psyche. Chuck and Josh look at the evidence.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Child's w Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff
you should know. Wow. Yeah, Uh you want to give
(00:24):
like just a general ceoa out of the gate. Yes,
this is a hot button issue guns right now in
this country, in the United States. It's a very tough topic,
and we are here to talk about do guns change
your behavior and studies that they've done on that. We
are not advocating for guns or advocating for gun control.
(00:46):
We are just presenting evidence that some people have presented. Yeah,
how's that. Well. We should say also that I think
some especially people who are pro gun, um are they?
I mean, your sensitivity might be a little um right now. Yeah,
but I'm saying, like you, this, this particular podcast may
(01:09):
strike you as as biased, even though it's not, simply
because the studies have found things like you know, there
are increased homicide rates and suicide rates associated with guns
and things like that. So we're again we're just reporting
some compiled body of work and we're presenting in an
(01:31):
unbiased manner. Good job, thanks man. So um, we just
kind of let the cat out of the bank. And
if you are in the guns, if you are pro gun,
you will probably point out that you own guns for sport,
your own guns for home protection. Um. And you may
point to a statistic that ownership of guns in the
(01:53):
United States is higher than it ever has been at
any point and not necessarily coincidentally, the homicide rate has
dropped since that's right, So there's an inverse correlation, you
could say, between gun ownership in the United States and
(02:13):
just by a number of guns and the homicide rate. Yeah, which, uh,
gun advocates will say, you know, like, give people more
guns and it will be actually less violence because if
everyone is armed, then there will be fewer people like
invading your home because hey, I know you've got a
gun in there, that kind of thing. Um. Now, the
(02:37):
other side, people who are in favor of gun control
would point out that, yes, the homicide rate has dropped, um,
but there's actually fewer people who own guns than ever before,
Fewer households, yes, with guns, but more the people that
have guns have more guns. And yeah, as Mark Twain
(03:00):
famously said, there are three types of lies, lies, damn lines,
and statistics. And this is a pretty good example of that. Like,
this is one statistic that can be looked at two
different ways. Yeah, Like, there's more guns in the United
States than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped.
There's also fewer people in the United States who own
guns than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped. Right,
(03:24):
it's just fewer people owning more guns, right. Um, And boy,
you were dead on with the statistic thing in this,
uh topic, Because depending on how you want to research,
you're gonna find statistics to support your way of thinking. Probably, Um,
so what we encourage people to do, you probably have
(03:44):
your mind made up anyway on this issue. A data,
if a statistic, is going to change anyone in his mind.
But go out and just look at all the non
biased research, is what I say. Yeah, don't go to
n r A and get your stats, and don't go
to whatever the n r A equivalent and gun equivalent
is and get your stats. Try and get them from
like unbiased sources. Uh. Yeah. And one of the former
(04:06):
um unbiased sources that used to put out a lot
of UM gun violence studies unbiased you would imagine, is
the CDC. Yeah, And the CDC used to put out
a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff there there,
and then there was a dearth of it beginning in
(04:28):
which I didn't know about this until today. In the
n r A successfully lobbied Congress to stop funding the
CDC's work on gun violence. Yes. Um, And this is
where it gets a little nitpicky with the wording. They
didn't specifically say you can't research gun violence. What they
(04:50):
did was they reduced the amount of funding by the
exact dollar amount that they spent the previous year on research,
and at attached this quote to it in the appropriations bill,
none of the funds made available for injury prevention and
control at the CDC may be used to advocate or
(05:10):
promote gun control. So uh, pro gun folks would say,
you know, and we never said they couldn't do any research.
What we said was, you can't do research that has
findings that support gun control. So if the findings support
gun control, you can't do that, basically, right, And anything
(05:30):
like any finding that showed that, you know, there's an
increased risk of violence linked to guns, you could interpret
under that sentence as advocating gun control. Yeah. And in
two thousand three, the language is updated to include a
whole or in part which expanded things, and then in
twelve it expanded the restriction to all health and human
(05:53):
service agencies. Although January of this year, President Obama has
now hauled for funding specifically for he had I think
it's twenty three point memo, Yeah, of what he wanted
to get through in terms of research. Yeah, those were
the executive orders that he could carry out that had
to do with gun control. Basically ten million bucks for
(06:16):
additional research, which is a lot more than they used
to get it peaked at two point six millions. So
throwing ten million dollars at this today, even adjusted for inflation,
that's going to produce a lot more studies on um
gun violence for the CDC and people. Before you get
worked up, this is research. They are saying, we should
(06:37):
do research on this. They're they're basically framing it as
a public health epidemic because people are dying. And hey,
we study how violent or how how automobiles kill people.
We study how alcohol and drugs skill people, we study
how everything is killed. Everything kills people except the guns, right,
so we should start researching this just to get some
(06:58):
current statistics on it. And if you want to get
rolled up about anything, get rolled up about the idea
that Congress banned scientific study period. Yeah, and you can
basically from the research I found, you can lay this
at the feet of Bob bar and new Gingrich's basically
the two representatives from Georgia new Ingridg's head almost as
much power as Clinton, and um, yeah, that was pretty
(07:23):
much who was responsible for this. Well. J. Dicky, the
the representative who sponsored the amendment back then, has now
recanted and said, you know what, he's no longer in office,
but he wrote an editorial stating that quote, scientific research
should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries, and that ways
to prevent firearm desks can be found without encroaching on
the rights of legitimate gun owners. So basically he's come
(07:46):
out and said, you know, we should research this stuff,
not saying banned guns or go to people's houses and
grab the guns, but at the very least, we should
do the research so we know what we're talking about
and so the American public can make their own informed
decisions one way or the other. Right, that's right, Okay,
So that's why there was a there's been a dearth
of reliable statistics since Um, but CDC is not the
(08:10):
only people carrying out um this kind of research. Other
people have who are independent of Congress for funding. Yeah,
not a ton though, because there's not a lot of
funding period. So it's pretty sad, Like I read this
one article on that a lot of the people that
did this. It's not like you can just pick any
old researcher and say research gun violence like you have
(08:31):
to have it, like it has to be your specialty.
And a lot of people have just don't do this
anymore because of that band. So it's sadly it's hard
to find people qualified enough to even do it now. Yeah,
I mean, no matter what it is, people go to
where the money is, right, absolutely, Um, So the the
stuff that we do have though, the studies we do have,
reliable studies that we do have pretty much across the
(08:54):
board point to an increased risk of death if a
gun's present. But before, I guess, before we talk about that, yeah,
I think now it's probably a good time for a message, Rick, Okay,
let's talk about them the weapon effect. Yeah, this is
a very touchy subject as well. Um. In nineteen sixty seven, Uh,
(09:19):
these two dudes, Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony lapage Um did
a little study where they brought people into a room,
had UM the participants UH antagonized basically by someone else,
just to get them rilled up, and then they left
the room and were told that they could give them
(09:39):
electric shocks. Some people had a gun in the room
on the table and they said, don't worry about that,
that's just here from a previous study. Some people had
bad mitten rackets and they said, don't worry about that
from a previous study. And they found that just the
presence of guns in the room caused people to shock
more and harder at a higher voltage. So they dubbed
(10:02):
that the weapons effect, saying, just the mere presence of
a gun in the room, even when told to ignore it,
increased UM I grow behavior basically. And there's that's been
backed up by other studies. There's one in two thousand
six that showed that UM interacting with the gun actually
increases the testosterone levels of men. Wow, that is a lot.
(10:26):
That's a huge increase, right, UM. So this study basically
they said, here, play with this gun and then UM,
now we're gonna firstly, took a swab and tested the
testosterone levels. Then they said, here, play with this gun,
and afterward we're gonna take another swab. But in the meantime,
we're also gonna let you put hot sauce in the
(10:46):
water of somebody who's gonna have to drink it. And
the the men who um handled the gun and messed
around with the gun for a while put um far
more hot sauce into the water than the men who
didn't handle a gun, three times as much hot sauce.
And the same two previous guys, Berkowitz and Lapage did
another one that I found really interesting. Um they put
(11:08):
a pickup truck in traffic with um, well different pickup trucks,
some with guns in the rack and some without a
gun rack at all, and made them sit at a
traffic light that had turned green for twelve seconds to
see how people behind them responded. And surprisingly, people were
more likely to haunk their horns if there was a
gun in the truck ahead of them, which they said
(11:30):
that meant see, the presence of a gun just makes
people more aggressive, Whereas I was kind of like, ah,
that that's sort of weird that they would be more
aggressive towards someone with a gun when you didn't have one. Yeah, well,
it's almost like possibly that people interpret that as a threat.
Just the presence of a gun maybe someone else is
flaunting to the rest of the world is just kind
(11:52):
of some sort of veiled threat despite its very presence.
We UM. We detect guns actually faster than we detect
um snakes, spiders. These are things called fear relevant stimuli
and guns, fall, guns, syringes they fall into this category
as well. And humans are hardwired evolutionarily to to be
(12:12):
able to pick out a snake out of a landscape
faster than say, we can pick out like a wood chuck,
a chipmunk or something like that, because we know from
eons of of of evolution that these things are very
dangerous to us. Studies have found that we can pick
guns out faster than we can pick snakes out. So yeah, yeah,
(12:36):
that's very quick evolution. It's it's called the threat superiority effect,
where we can we can identify threatening objects faster than
non threatening objects. And apparently guns and syringes too, I
think are topping the list these days. Uh. They also
found that UM drivers who have a gun in the
car were significantly more likely to UM do things like
(12:58):
makeup scene gestures that other people compared to sixteen percent,
UM follow too close aggressively four to eight percent, or
both six point three percent to two point eight percent.
So uh. And then they even found that even when
guns weren't around, just the mere suggestion of aggressive words
(13:19):
as opposed to non aggressive words like gun, Uh, people
were more aggressive in these studies. So, you know, people,
a lot of people have supported the weapons effect study
and said no, it's perfectly valid. And a lot of
people have said no, you know what the weapons effect
is bs and that study is invalid. So, um, which
(13:41):
one is? Which one is larger? Yeah? Right? Exactly? Which?
I don't know? I mean I think, as with all things,
that depends on who you're talking to, you know, I
don't know if there's it's been broken down like that. Um. Okay,
So it seems to there seems to be some sort
of evidence at least that there's the potential for increased
(14:02):
aggression um with the presence of a gun. Right. There's
also um studies that show and this is the one apparently.
I don't know why people aren't talking about this more,
especially with the gun debate that's going on now. But
if you want to talk about a correlation, talk about
suicide and the presence of guns. I think that's one
(14:24):
that's pretty much not been refuted. Um, there were a
lot of gun deaths in the US and two thousand
and eleven, UM, eleven thousand of them were homicides and
nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixties six were suicides, all
with firearms. So twice as many people took their own
(14:47):
lives with a gun then took someone else's life. Yeah,
and not only that, you UM. And again I hate
not having more recent research, but it's not our fault
that we it point to a study from three years ago,
you know. Um, but a nine study by the CDC
said that if you have a gun in the home,
(15:08):
you were five times more likely to commit suicide overall.
And um, in two thousand three, there actually was another
study that said access to a gun made someone more
than three times more likely to commit suicide than without.
UM and eight of people who shoot themselves succeed in dying, Which, well,
that's why they think that the correlation is so strong.
(15:31):
That then, so that's for people who really want to
end it, not to cry for help. Yeah, but probably
not gonna shoot yourself in the head if it's a
cry for help. Right, but what the what what the
people who are saying this is legitimate research are pointing
to is that this is that suicide is frequently an
impulsive act. Uh. And when you're in the midst of
(15:53):
a crisis and you are, um, you've decided to end it. Yeah,
if you do it, if you try hanging or pills
or carbon monoxide or whatever, you are less likely to
be successful than you are with a firearm. And so
the presence of a firearm in the house during that
time of crisis increases your likelihood of committing suicide by
(16:15):
a firearm. Yeah, but also chuck there. There's another study
that found that people who own a handgun and commit
suicide are far more likely to use the handgun than
another type of method. Oh right, even though that's available
to them as well. Right right, Well, I guess, like
I said, those people that probably really want to end
(16:36):
it all. Um. Interestingly, the Israeli Defense Force found that
their suicide rate dropped among its soldiers just by saying
you can't take your weapons home this weekend, so they
banned them from taking the weapons home over the weekend.
Suicide rate drop. Regardless where you stand on this issue,
it has pretty much been proven that guns in suicide.
(16:59):
There is a direct correlation going on there. Okay, homicide,
should we move on, Yes, let's move on. Um. So,
there's study that found that UM family disputes that turned
violent were three times more likely to result in death
if the gun was present in the house. UM, and
(17:20):
this was this was There was another study by the
CDC that found that homicides are about three times more
likely for family members in a house where there's a gun.
Two studies have found virtually the same thing, the presence
of a gun, at least in the nineties. The swing
in nineties, having a gun in the house meant that
each of the family members was three times more likely
(17:42):
apparently to UM die by a homicide. Right, and that
is the domestic dispute that gets out of hand. If
a gun is around, then your chances are hired that
it's going to be in and murder. Well, one said,
a family dispute that turns violent, you're three times more
likely to result in death. The other one, the CDC one,
(18:04):
I think, was just plainly saying just having a gun
in the house to three times more likely to die
by homicide. Right, Okay, I guess it's fair to point
out though that most murdered murders don't happen at your
home unless, yeah, you're a woman, a child, or elderly.
So basically, if you're a average age man, you're you're
(18:26):
less likely to be murdered in your house. Everybody else
is more likely. Right, So, but if you were killed
in your home, um, the vast majority are people who
knew the perpetrator. Like, basically, the cases of someone breaking
into your house who you do not know and ending
(18:46):
and death are are much lower than than here. It
is right here, Fewer than of burglaries in the US
occur when someone's at home, period, and and the seven
percent where violence does occur, Uh, it's more likely to
be someone you know. So five percent of all the
crimes perpetrated by strangers occur, only five percent occur in
(19:10):
the house. So you're basically what the saying is, the
home is a pretty safe place by and large, and
so just having a gun that you keep at home. Um,
these studies then suggest actually increases your likelihood of you
or someone you love who lives in that house killing
one another, rather than somebody coming into your house and
(19:30):
you're protecting yourself USA that. Yeah, and they even, uh,
they went to the streets in night in two thousand
nine in Philadelphia and looked at six and seventy seven
shootings over a couple of years, and they found that
people that carry guns were four and a half times
more likely to be shot and four point two times
more likely to be killed. And I guess the thinking
(19:51):
there is, if you have a gun, you may just
feel more aggressive or more um likely to act ra
actually or put yourself in a bad part of town
because hey, I've got this protection, or to be aggressive
because you know you've got that protection. That kind of thing, um,
if you And there's this really really great article, UM
(20:13):
from two thousand ten that was in Harper's Magazine. It
was in the August two thousand ten UM issue. It's
called Happiness is a Warren Gun, and it's this guy's
like this basically his life carrying a gun and like
just what it's like. It's just a really great look
at what it's like to have a gun on you
(20:35):
at all times and like what that means. Um. He says,
you're in condition white, which is basically you're constantly on
high alert because if you're carrying a gun, you have
a sense of responsibility not just for yourself, but you
also need to protect everybody else if somebody starts shooting
or if there's a robbery or something like that. That's
why you have a gun on you. So you feel
a sense of stewardship of just other people, strangers in public.
(20:59):
Well sort you're the police all of a sudden. Yeah. Um.
And so you live in this thing, this this state
of called condition white, where you're just your threat response,
You're you're is constantly on at some level, which can
control Advocates I'm sure are all about condition white, right,
They're like, yeah, that's exactly what we're looking for, is
people to be alert and armed. Yeah. Um. This guy,
believe came to the conclusion that he was tired of
(21:21):
living in condition white as it's too exhausting, and I
think he stopped carrying. Maybe I don't remember how it ends,
but um, it's a really great article. I would recommend
anybody on either side of the of the issue to
read that Happiness is a Warren Gun in Harper's. I
saw dude in the grocery store the other day with
a piece on his hip, checking out in front of
me by a six pack of beer. Yeah, and it definitely, like,
(21:45):
I don't care who you are. When someone walks in
the room with a gun on their hip these days,
it changes the mood. I'm not saying it makes things
bad or good. I'm just saying it changes things. I
think it probably always has. Yeah, it's a weird thing.
I mean, I definitely see where people get divided on
the issue because here in Atlanta there's a lot of crime.
(22:05):
You hear about a story where some dude went to
carjack some guy and the dude had a gun in
his car and shot the guy and now that guy
is behind bars. I can see how people would be like, good,
he stopped a criminal like a cop would have. Whereas,
you know, cops generally investigate already happened crimes. Rarely does
a cop like thwart a crime in progress. It's just
(22:27):
right place whereyme time, right time, and so like random
how that works out. Whereas if the citizens had the guns,
they could do that themselves. So I can see how
people get all up in arms and say, yeah, you know,
there's a case of a person that defended themselves successfully,
And then the other person might say, yeah, but what
about that guy whose son accidentally shoots himself in the
house when the guns out, Like it's two separate four
(22:50):
year olds yesterday accidentally killed two different people in two
different states. Yeah, the wife of a sheriff's deputy was
killed by a four year old at her house. Yeah,
Like there's with every story or with no matter how
you feel about it, you can pick the cherry pick
of story to fit your your beliefs. It's pretty like
the issue is very, very far from clear cut, and
(23:12):
it's yeah, it's just very hard to not see both sides.
I agree with you. There's a guy named David hem
and Way that wrote an article called Risks and Benefits
of a Gun in the Home for the American Journal
of Lifestyle Medicine in two thousand eleven. And this is
a sort of a newer thing where they're starting to
frame it. Like I said, it's a health issue, like
(23:34):
when people are dying, you should look at it as
a health issue. So he investigates it as such, and
um came out on the side of the American Academy
of Pediatrics, who officially have said do not have a
gun in in the home if you're a parent, Um
that they've they've the result of this study, at least
(23:56):
from him, and Way says, the evidence is overwhelming that
a gun in the house is more of a risk
factor for completed suicide UH and general violence than the
benefit side. There are fewer studies, UM that come out
saying it's actually a benefit to have in the home.
And kenne Saw George is a big uh. People point
(24:18):
to kenness All out because it very famously had a
law passed that mandated that you have a gun in
your home, and people have always says, well, look at
Kennessaw crime has gone down, he says him, and Way
says that that is not true, and if you look
at the evidence, it is not shown to decrease burglary
reports at all. And also famously in Morton Grove, Illinois,
(24:39):
that was a ban on handguns and uh, he points
out him and Way says, a careful analysis points out
that UM in Morton Grove, the banning of handguns actually
followed was actually followed by a large uh significant decrease
in burglary reports, so no one had guns and there
(25:00):
were a fewer burglaries, which lies in the face of
what Kinnesas is trying to do, saying guns in the
household will prevent burglaries. Well, yeah, there's UM and I
don't know the stats off the top of my head,
but there's a there's a pretty good stat um like
England has very very strict gun control and very low
homicide rates um from guns. Uh. And I think a
(25:23):
lot of people also point out like, Okay, well, if
you don't have guns, you're still gonna have knives, and
people are still going to kill each other. But I
think that UM, if you are a gun control advocate,
you would point out that, UM, it's kind of like
the completed suicide thing, like, yeah, people are still getting
to try to kill themselves, but they might not be successful,
(25:44):
and afterward they might be glad that they weren't successful
because their situation might improve. If you go to kill
somebody in a fit of rage and you have a gun,
you're more likely to be successful than say with a
knife or a baseball bat or something like that. Um,
And therefore not being able to complete this homicide, UH,
this situation may improve for both people, especially the one
(26:06):
who's not killed. UM. All right, well that's guns. I
hope you guys made it through this one. Yeah, well,
I think we should do one on the n r A,
just to learn a little bit more about that organization
and round this thing out. Um. Okay, we'll look for
that one in the future, I guess. Huh Uh. If
you want to learn more about guns, type that word
(26:28):
into the search part how stuff works dot Com and
will bring up a bunch of stuff, uh, including how
guns work. Uh. If I already said that whole spiel
about the search par didn't I, it means, then, friends,
it's now time for message break uh and Chuck take
(26:51):
us out with some listener mail. Huh. Yeah, um, this
is another Peace Corps email, and we we get a
lot of these because we find that a we did
one on the Peace Corps, but before that even we
got a lot from Peace Corps folks because I think
they're world travelers who are curious and like to listen
(27:12):
to things on the Chicken bus. You know what I'm saying.
I wanted to send you guys an email since I
finally finished the long List of Stuff You Shnow podcast
that I downloaded to pass the time while riding on
Chicken busses throughout Ecuador, as a current Peace Corps volunteer
in a gold producing region of your the world and
a former outfitter in Yellowstone National Park. I really enjoyed
(27:33):
the podcast on Peace Corps coffee, gold, Lison Geyser's and
Thoroughbread's what I know about these topics. You guys are
pretty much spot on, uh And I'm also a bit
of a plant nerd, so I really enjoyed the Randy
Moss joke on a Loss episode that that was a
good one, well played. What I was really emailing about
was see if you guys give a shout out to
my long time friend Katherine Lifelong. Even she and I
(27:53):
grew up in South Dakota together and have been friends
since kindergarten. Even though we went to colleges across the
country from each other, we managed to remain close friends
the last twenty years. Unfortunately, due to being in the
Peace Corps, was unable to make it back for her
wedding and miss the opportunity to be her maid of honor.
Although she doesn't have any hard feelings, I still haven't
made that one up to her and she would love
(28:14):
it if you guys gave her a shout She turned
me onto the podcast in fact and saying she enjoys
listening to it on our own way to work. I
have been hooked on it ever since. So thank you guys,
Chuck and Josh and Jerry for providing Katherine and I
with another link in our friendship. Um, not to mention
the fact that you provide me with weekly trivia effects
that have plan on using the twenty something bar scene
(28:37):
when I moved back to the States. So that is
from Whitney and hello Catherine, And that's nice that you
gave Whitney a break for not being your maid of honor. Yeah,
she's in the Peace Corps after all. Yeah, it's much better,
bigger than your little wedding. Geez, the Peace Corps just
bigger than anybody's wedding. I'm sure Catherine would disagree with you,
(28:59):
but um, that was very nice. Who who is the
person who writeing Whitney? That's right, Thanks Whitney for writing in. Um.
If you have a story that you want to share
about how Chuck and I have brought you closer to somebody,
we love those, let us know all about it. You
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(29:19):
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(29:48):
there with eighteen thousand agents across the country who are
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Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
There's Child's w Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff
you should know. Wow. Yeah, Uh you want to give
(00:24):
like just a general ceoa out of the gate. Yes,
this is a hot button issue guns right now in
this country, in the United States. It's a very tough topic,
and we are here to talk about do guns change
your behavior and studies that they've done on that. We
are not advocating for guns or advocating for gun control.
(00:46):
We are just presenting evidence that some people have presented. Yeah,
how's that. Well. We should say also that I think
some especially people who are pro gun, um are they?
I mean, your sensitivity might be a little um right now. Yeah,
but I'm saying, like you, this, this particular podcast may
(01:09):
strike you as as biased, even though it's not, simply
because the studies have found things like you know, there
are increased homicide rates and suicide rates associated with guns
and things like that. So we're again we're just reporting
some compiled body of work and we're presenting in an
(01:31):
unbiased manner. Good job, thanks man. So um, we just
kind of let the cat out of the bank. And
if you are in the guns, if you are pro gun,
you will probably point out that you own guns for sport,
your own guns for home protection. Um. And you may
point to a statistic that ownership of guns in the
(01:53):
United States is higher than it ever has been at
any point and not necessarily coincidentally, the homicide rate has
dropped since that's right, So there's an inverse correlation, you
could say, between gun ownership in the United States and
(02:13):
just by a number of guns and the homicide rate. Yeah, which, uh,
gun advocates will say, you know, like, give people more
guns and it will be actually less violence because if
everyone is armed, then there will be fewer people like
invading your home because hey, I know you've got a
gun in there, that kind of thing. Um. Now, the
(02:37):
other side, people who are in favor of gun control
would point out that, yes, the homicide rate has dropped, um,
but there's actually fewer people who own guns than ever before,
Fewer households, yes, with guns, but more the people that
have guns have more guns. And yeah, as Mark Twain
(03:00):
famously said, there are three types of lies, lies, damn lines,
and statistics. And this is a pretty good example of that. Like,
this is one statistic that can be looked at two
different ways. Yeah, Like, there's more guns in the United
States than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped.
There's also fewer people in the United States who own
guns than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped. Right,
(03:24):
it's just fewer people owning more guns, right. Um, And boy,
you were dead on with the statistic thing in this,
uh topic, Because depending on how you want to research,
you're gonna find statistics to support your way of thinking. Probably, Um,
so what we encourage people to do, you probably have
(03:44):
your mind made up anyway on this issue. A data,
if a statistic, is going to change anyone in his mind.
But go out and just look at all the non
biased research, is what I say. Yeah, don't go to
n r A and get your stats, and don't go
to whatever the n r A equivalent and gun equivalent
is and get your stats. Try and get them from
like unbiased sources. Uh. Yeah. And one of the former
(04:06):
um unbiased sources that used to put out a lot
of UM gun violence studies unbiased you would imagine, is
the CDC. Yeah, And the CDC used to put out
a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff there there,
and then there was a dearth of it beginning in
(04:28):
which I didn't know about this until today. In the
n r A successfully lobbied Congress to stop funding the
CDC's work on gun violence. Yes. Um, And this is
where it gets a little nitpicky with the wording. They
didn't specifically say you can't research gun violence. What they
(04:50):
did was they reduced the amount of funding by the
exact dollar amount that they spent the previous year on research,
and at attached this quote to it in the appropriations bill,
none of the funds made available for injury prevention and
control at the CDC may be used to advocate or
(05:10):
promote gun control. So uh, pro gun folks would say,
you know, and we never said they couldn't do any research.
What we said was, you can't do research that has
findings that support gun control. So if the findings support
gun control, you can't do that, basically, right, And anything
(05:30):
like any finding that showed that, you know, there's an
increased risk of violence linked to guns, you could interpret
under that sentence as advocating gun control. Yeah. And in
two thousand three, the language is updated to include a
whole or in part which expanded things, and then in
twelve it expanded the restriction to all health and human
(05:53):
service agencies. Although January of this year, President Obama has
now hauled for funding specifically for he had I think
it's twenty three point memo, Yeah, of what he wanted
to get through in terms of research. Yeah, those were
the executive orders that he could carry out that had
to do with gun control. Basically ten million bucks for
(06:16):
additional research, which is a lot more than they used
to get it peaked at two point six millions. So
throwing ten million dollars at this today, even adjusted for inflation,
that's going to produce a lot more studies on um
gun violence for the CDC and people. Before you get
worked up, this is research. They are saying, we should
(06:37):
do research on this. They're they're basically framing it as
a public health epidemic because people are dying. And hey,
we study how violent or how how automobiles kill people.
We study how alcohol and drugs skill people, we study
how everything is killed. Everything kills people except the guns, right,
so we should start researching this just to get some
(06:58):
current statistics on it. And if you want to get
rolled up about anything, get rolled up about the idea
that Congress banned scientific study period. Yeah, and you can
basically from the research I found, you can lay this
at the feet of Bob bar and new Gingrich's basically
the two representatives from Georgia new Ingridg's head almost as
much power as Clinton, and um, yeah, that was pretty
(07:23):
much who was responsible for this. Well. J. Dicky, the
the representative who sponsored the amendment back then, has now
recanted and said, you know what, he's no longer in office,
but he wrote an editorial stating that quote, scientific research
should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries, and that ways
to prevent firearm desks can be found without encroaching on
the rights of legitimate gun owners. So basically he's come
(07:46):
out and said, you know, we should research this stuff,
not saying banned guns or go to people's houses and
grab the guns, but at the very least, we should
do the research so we know what we're talking about
and so the American public can make their own informed
decisions one way or the other. Right, that's right, Okay,
So that's why there was a there's been a dearth
of reliable statistics since Um, but CDC is not the
(08:10):
only people carrying out um this kind of research. Other
people have who are independent of Congress for funding. Yeah,
not a ton though, because there's not a lot of
funding period. So it's pretty sad, Like I read this
one article on that a lot of the people that
did this. It's not like you can just pick any
old researcher and say research gun violence like you have
(08:31):
to have it, like it has to be your specialty.
And a lot of people have just don't do this
anymore because of that band. So it's sadly it's hard
to find people qualified enough to even do it now. Yeah,
I mean, no matter what it is, people go to
where the money is, right, absolutely, Um, So the the
stuff that we do have though, the studies we do have,
reliable studies that we do have pretty much across the
(08:54):
board point to an increased risk of death if a
gun's present. But before, I guess, before we talk about that, yeah,
I think now it's probably a good time for a message, Rick, Okay,
let's talk about them the weapon effect. Yeah, this is
a very touchy subject as well. Um. In nineteen sixty seven, Uh,
(09:19):
these two dudes, Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony lapage Um did
a little study where they brought people into a room,
had UM the participants UH antagonized basically by someone else,
just to get them rilled up, and then they left
the room and were told that they could give them
(09:39):
electric shocks. Some people had a gun in the room
on the table and they said, don't worry about that,
that's just here from a previous study. Some people had
bad mitten rackets and they said, don't worry about that
from a previous study. And they found that just the
presence of guns in the room caused people to shock
more and harder at a higher voltage. So they dubbed
(10:02):
that the weapons effect, saying, just the mere presence of
a gun in the room, even when told to ignore it,
increased UM I grow behavior basically. And there's that's been
backed up by other studies. There's one in two thousand
six that showed that UM interacting with the gun actually
increases the testosterone levels of men. Wow, that is a lot.
(10:26):
That's a huge increase, right, UM. So this study basically
they said, here, play with this gun and then UM,
now we're gonna firstly, took a swab and tested the
testosterone levels. Then they said, here, play with this gun,
and afterward we're gonna take another swab. But in the meantime,
we're also gonna let you put hot sauce in the
(10:46):
water of somebody who's gonna have to drink it. And
the the men who um handled the gun and messed
around with the gun for a while put um far
more hot sauce into the water than the men who
didn't handle a gun, three times as much hot sauce.
And the same two previous guys, Berkowitz and Lapage did
another one that I found really interesting. Um they put
(11:08):
a pickup truck in traffic with um, well different pickup trucks,
some with guns in the rack and some without a
gun rack at all, and made them sit at a
traffic light that had turned green for twelve seconds to
see how people behind them responded. And surprisingly, people were
more likely to haunk their horns if there was a
gun in the truck ahead of them, which they said
(11:30):
that meant see, the presence of a gun just makes
people more aggressive, Whereas I was kind of like, ah,
that that's sort of weird that they would be more
aggressive towards someone with a gun when you didn't have one. Yeah, well,
it's almost like possibly that people interpret that as a threat.
Just the presence of a gun maybe someone else is
flaunting to the rest of the world is just kind
(11:52):
of some sort of veiled threat despite its very presence.
We UM. We detect guns actually faster than we detect
um snakes, spiders. These are things called fear relevant stimuli
and guns, fall, guns, syringes they fall into this category
as well. And humans are hardwired evolutionarily to to be
(12:12):
able to pick out a snake out of a landscape
faster than say, we can pick out like a wood chuck,
a chipmunk or something like that, because we know from
eons of of of evolution that these things are very
dangerous to us. Studies have found that we can pick
guns out faster than we can pick snakes out. So yeah, yeah,
(12:36):
that's very quick evolution. It's it's called the threat superiority effect,
where we can we can identify threatening objects faster than
non threatening objects. And apparently guns and syringes too, I
think are topping the list these days. Uh. They also
found that UM drivers who have a gun in the
car were significantly more likely to UM do things like
(12:58):
makeup scene gestures that other people compared to sixteen percent,
UM follow too close aggressively four to eight percent, or
both six point three percent to two point eight percent.
So uh. And then they even found that even when
guns weren't around, just the mere suggestion of aggressive words
(13:19):
as opposed to non aggressive words like gun, Uh, people
were more aggressive in these studies. So, you know, people,
a lot of people have supported the weapons effect study
and said no, it's perfectly valid. And a lot of
people have said no, you know what the weapons effect
is bs and that study is invalid. So, um, which
(13:41):
one is? Which one is larger? Yeah? Right? Exactly? Which?
I don't know? I mean I think, as with all things,
that depends on who you're talking to, you know, I
don't know if there's it's been broken down like that. Um. Okay,
So it seems to there seems to be some sort
of evidence at least that there's the potential for increased
(14:02):
aggression um with the presence of a gun. Right. There's
also um studies that show and this is the one apparently.
I don't know why people aren't talking about this more,
especially with the gun debate that's going on now. But
if you want to talk about a correlation, talk about
suicide and the presence of guns. I think that's one
(14:24):
that's pretty much not been refuted. Um, there were a
lot of gun deaths in the US and two thousand
and eleven, UM, eleven thousand of them were homicides and
nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixties six were suicides, all
with firearms. So twice as many people took their own
(14:47):
lives with a gun then took someone else's life. Yeah,
and not only that, you UM. And again I hate
not having more recent research, but it's not our fault
that we it point to a study from three years ago,
you know. Um, but a nine study by the CDC
said that if you have a gun in the home,
(15:08):
you were five times more likely to commit suicide overall.
And um, in two thousand three, there actually was another
study that said access to a gun made someone more
than three times more likely to commit suicide than without.
UM and eight of people who shoot themselves succeed in dying, Which, well,
that's why they think that the correlation is so strong.
(15:31):
That then, so that's for people who really want to
end it, not to cry for help. Yeah, but probably
not gonna shoot yourself in the head if it's a
cry for help. Right, but what the what what the
people who are saying this is legitimate research are pointing
to is that this is that suicide is frequently an
impulsive act. Uh. And when you're in the midst of
(15:53):
a crisis and you are, um, you've decided to end it. Yeah,
if you do it, if you try hanging or pills
or carbon monoxide or whatever, you are less likely to
be successful than you are with a firearm. And so
the presence of a firearm in the house during that
time of crisis increases your likelihood of committing suicide by
(16:15):
a firearm. Yeah, but also chuck there. There's another study
that found that people who own a handgun and commit
suicide are far more likely to use the handgun than
another type of method. Oh right, even though that's available
to them as well. Right right, Well, I guess, like
I said, those people that probably really want to end
(16:36):
it all. Um. Interestingly, the Israeli Defense Force found that
their suicide rate dropped among its soldiers just by saying
you can't take your weapons home this weekend, so they
banned them from taking the weapons home over the weekend.
Suicide rate drop. Regardless where you stand on this issue,
it has pretty much been proven that guns in suicide.
(16:59):
There is a direct correlation going on there. Okay, homicide,
should we move on, Yes, let's move on. Um. So,
there's study that found that UM family disputes that turned
violent were three times more likely to result in death
if the gun was present in the house. UM, and
(17:20):
this was this was There was another study by the
CDC that found that homicides are about three times more
likely for family members in a house where there's a gun.
Two studies have found virtually the same thing, the presence
of a gun, at least in the nineties. The swing
in nineties, having a gun in the house meant that
each of the family members was three times more likely
(17:42):
apparently to UM die by a homicide. Right, and that
is the domestic dispute that gets out of hand. If
a gun is around, then your chances are hired that
it's going to be in and murder. Well, one said,
a family dispute that turns violent, you're three times more
likely to result in death. The other one, the CDC one,
(18:04):
I think, was just plainly saying just having a gun
in the house to three times more likely to die
by homicide. Right, Okay, I guess it's fair to point
out though that most murdered murders don't happen at your
home unless, yeah, you're a woman, a child, or elderly.
So basically, if you're a average age man, you're you're
(18:26):
less likely to be murdered in your house. Everybody else
is more likely. Right, So, but if you were killed
in your home, um, the vast majority are people who
knew the perpetrator. Like, basically, the cases of someone breaking
into your house who you do not know and ending
(18:46):
and death are are much lower than than here. It
is right here, Fewer than of burglaries in the US
occur when someone's at home, period, and and the seven
percent where violence does occur, Uh, it's more likely to
be someone you know. So five percent of all the
crimes perpetrated by strangers occur, only five percent occur in
(19:10):
the house. So you're basically what the saying is, the
home is a pretty safe place by and large, and
so just having a gun that you keep at home. Um,
these studies then suggest actually increases your likelihood of you
or someone you love who lives in that house killing
one another, rather than somebody coming into your house and
(19:30):
you're protecting yourself USA that. Yeah, and they even, uh,
they went to the streets in night in two thousand
nine in Philadelphia and looked at six and seventy seven
shootings over a couple of years, and they found that
people that carry guns were four and a half times
more likely to be shot and four point two times
more likely to be killed. And I guess the thinking
(19:51):
there is, if you have a gun, you may just
feel more aggressive or more um likely to act ra
actually or put yourself in a bad part of town
because hey, I've got this protection, or to be aggressive
because you know you've got that protection. That kind of thing, um,
if you And there's this really really great article, UM
(20:13):
from two thousand ten that was in Harper's Magazine. It
was in the August two thousand ten UM issue. It's
called Happiness is a Warren Gun, and it's this guy's
like this basically his life carrying a gun and like
just what it's like. It's just a really great look
at what it's like to have a gun on you
(20:35):
at all times and like what that means. Um. He says,
you're in condition white, which is basically you're constantly on
high alert because if you're carrying a gun, you have
a sense of responsibility not just for yourself, but you
also need to protect everybody else if somebody starts shooting
or if there's a robbery or something like that. That's
why you have a gun on you. So you feel
a sense of stewardship of just other people, strangers in public.
(20:59):
Well sort you're the police all of a sudden. Yeah. Um.
And so you live in this thing, this this state
of called condition white, where you're just your threat response,
You're you're is constantly on at some level, which can
control Advocates I'm sure are all about condition white, right,
They're like, yeah, that's exactly what we're looking for, is
people to be alert and armed. Yeah. Um. This guy,
believe came to the conclusion that he was tired of
(21:21):
living in condition white as it's too exhausting, and I
think he stopped carrying. Maybe I don't remember how it ends,
but um, it's a really great article. I would recommend
anybody on either side of the of the issue to
read that Happiness is a Warren Gun in Harper's. I
saw dude in the grocery store the other day with
a piece on his hip, checking out in front of
me by a six pack of beer. Yeah, and it definitely, like,
(21:45):
I don't care who you are. When someone walks in
the room with a gun on their hip these days,
it changes the mood. I'm not saying it makes things
bad or good. I'm just saying it changes things. I
think it probably always has. Yeah, it's a weird thing.
I mean, I definitely see where people get divided on
the issue because here in Atlanta there's a lot of crime.
(22:05):
You hear about a story where some dude went to
carjack some guy and the dude had a gun in
his car and shot the guy and now that guy
is behind bars. I can see how people would be like, good,
he stopped a criminal like a cop would have. Whereas,
you know, cops generally investigate already happened crimes. Rarely does
a cop like thwart a crime in progress. It's just
(22:27):
right place whereyme time, right time, and so like random
how that works out. Whereas if the citizens had the guns,
they could do that themselves. So I can see how
people get all up in arms and say, yeah, you know,
there's a case of a person that defended themselves successfully,
And then the other person might say, yeah, but what
about that guy whose son accidentally shoots himself in the
house when the guns out, Like it's two separate four
(22:50):
year olds yesterday accidentally killed two different people in two
different states. Yeah, the wife of a sheriff's deputy was
killed by a four year old at her house. Yeah,
Like there's with every story or with no matter how
you feel about it, you can pick the cherry pick
of story to fit your your beliefs. It's pretty like
the issue is very, very far from clear cut, and
(23:12):
it's yeah, it's just very hard to not see both sides.
I agree with you. There's a guy named David hem
and Way that wrote an article called Risks and Benefits
of a Gun in the Home for the American Journal
of Lifestyle Medicine in two thousand eleven. And this is
a sort of a newer thing where they're starting to
frame it. Like I said, it's a health issue, like
(23:34):
when people are dying, you should look at it as
a health issue. So he investigates it as such, and
um came out on the side of the American Academy
of Pediatrics, who officially have said do not have a
gun in in the home if you're a parent, Um
that they've they've the result of this study, at least
(23:56):
from him, and Way says, the evidence is overwhelming that
a gun in the house is more of a risk
factor for completed suicide UH and general violence than the
benefit side. There are fewer studies, UM that come out
saying it's actually a benefit to have in the home.
And kenne Saw George is a big uh. People point
(24:18):
to kenness All out because it very famously had a
law passed that mandated that you have a gun in
your home, and people have always says, well, look at
Kennessaw crime has gone down, he says him, and Way
says that that is not true, and if you look
at the evidence, it is not shown to decrease burglary
reports at all. And also famously in Morton Grove, Illinois,
(24:39):
that was a ban on handguns and uh, he points
out him and Way says, a careful analysis points out
that UM in Morton Grove, the banning of handguns actually
followed was actually followed by a large uh significant decrease
in burglary reports, so no one had guns and there
(25:00):
were a fewer burglaries, which lies in the face of
what Kinnesas is trying to do, saying guns in the
household will prevent burglaries. Well, yeah, there's UM and I
don't know the stats off the top of my head,
but there's a there's a pretty good stat um like
England has very very strict gun control and very low
homicide rates um from guns. Uh. And I think a
(25:23):
lot of people also point out like, Okay, well, if
you don't have guns, you're still gonna have knives, and
people are still going to kill each other. But I
think that UM, if you are a gun control advocate,
you would point out that, UM, it's kind of like
the completed suicide thing, like, yeah, people are still getting
to try to kill themselves, but they might not be successful,
(25:44):
and afterward they might be glad that they weren't successful
because their situation might improve. If you go to kill
somebody in a fit of rage and you have a gun,
you're more likely to be successful than say with a
knife or a baseball bat or something like that. Um,
And therefore not being able to complete this homicide, UH,
this situation may improve for both people, especially the one
(26:06):
who's not killed. UM. All right, well that's guns. I
hope you guys made it through this one. Yeah, well,
I think we should do one on the n r A,
just to learn a little bit more about that organization
and round this thing out. Um. Okay, we'll look for
that one in the future, I guess. Huh Uh. If
you want to learn more about guns, type that word
(26:28):
into the search part how stuff works dot Com and
will bring up a bunch of stuff, uh, including how
guns work. Uh. If I already said that whole spiel
about the search par didn't I, it means, then, friends,
it's now time for message break uh and Chuck take
(26:51):
us out with some listener mail. Huh. Yeah, um, this
is another Peace Corps email, and we we get a
lot of these because we find that a we did
one on the Peace Corps, but before that even we
got a lot from Peace Corps folks because I think
they're world travelers who are curious and like to listen
(27:12):
to things on the Chicken bus. You know what I'm saying.
I wanted to send you guys an email since I
finally finished the long List of Stuff You Shnow podcast
that I downloaded to pass the time while riding on
Chicken busses throughout Ecuador, as a current Peace Corps volunteer
in a gold producing region of your the world and
a former outfitter in Yellowstone National Park. I really enjoyed
(27:33):
the podcast on Peace Corps coffee, gold, Lison Geyser's and
Thoroughbread's what I know about these topics. You guys are
pretty much spot on, uh And I'm also a bit
of a plant nerd, so I really enjoyed the Randy
Moss joke on a Loss episode that that was a
good one, well played. What I was really emailing about
was see if you guys give a shout out to
my long time friend Katherine Lifelong. Even she and I
(27:53):
grew up in South Dakota together and have been friends
since kindergarten. Even though we went to colleges across the
country from each other, we managed to remain close friends
the last twenty years. Unfortunately, due to being in the
Peace Corps, was unable to make it back for her
wedding and miss the opportunity to be her maid of honor.
Although she doesn't have any hard feelings, I still haven't
made that one up to her and she would love
(28:14):
it if you guys gave her a shout She turned
me onto the podcast in fact and saying she enjoys
listening to it on our own way to work. I
have been hooked on it ever since. So thank you guys,
Chuck and Josh and Jerry for providing Katherine and I
with another link in our friendship. Um, not to mention
the fact that you provide me with weekly trivia effects
that have plan on using the twenty something bar scene
(28:37):
when I moved back to the States. So that is
from Whitney and hello Catherine, And that's nice that you
gave Whitney a break for not being your maid of honor. Yeah,
she's in the Peace Corps after all. Yeah, it's much better,
bigger than your little wedding. Geez, the Peace Corps just
bigger than anybody's wedding. I'm sure Catherine would disagree with you,
(28:59):
but um, that was very nice. Who who is the
person who writeing Whitney? That's right, Thanks Whitney for writing in. Um.
If you have a story that you want to share
about how Chuck and I have brought you closer to somebody,
we love those, let us know all about it. You
can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff
(29:19):
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
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us at our home on the web that is www.
Dot stuff you should Know dot com for more on
this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
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(29:48):
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