"Can Citizens Use Guns Competently?"
from "SHALL ISSUE": THE NEW WAVE OF CONCEALED HANDGUN PERMIT LAWS
[Internet edition -- also published in book form]
By Clayton E. Cramer & David B. Kopel October 17, 1994
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY [of "`Shall Issue'"]
About a third of the states have adopted laws requiring that citizens
who pass a background check and a safety class must be granted a
permit to carry a concealed firearm for protection, if they apply.
Critics of carry reform have predicted that blood will flow in the
streets as hot-tempered citizens shoot each other in trivial disputes.
Analysis of murder rates in carry reform states shows that fears of
reform opponents have been unfounded. Careful study of homicide trends
in these states reveals that carry reform has not led to an increased
homicide rate.
In Florida, for example, a murder rate that was 36% above the national
average when carry reform went into effect in 1987, fell by 1991 to 4%
below the national average.
The fact the permits are available does not mean that everyone will
carry a gun. Usually only about 1% to 4% of a state's population will
choose to obtain a permit.
Accordingly, states considering carry reform can enact such laws
knowing that reform will not endanger public safety. Carry reform, at
least sometimes, allows citizens to save their own lives by protecting
themselves against criminal attack.
An additional reform, already on the books in California, allows
domestic violence victims whom a court has determined to be in
immediate danger, to carry a handgun for protection, without need to
undergo a months-long application process for a permit.
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Can Citizens Use Guns Competently?
Ordinary people, even if they have passed a firearms safety class,
cannot be trusted to use guns competently, it is sometimes claimed.
The guns will be taken away by criminals, or the gun-owners will shoot
an innocent bystander by mistake, it is sometimes predicted. Wherever
the concealed carry issue is raised in the future, it can be predicted
with confidence that these objections will be raised by reform
opponents, including many law enforcement professionals who claim
expertise on the issue.
The existing body of research provides no support for these fears. The
best evidence we have about what happens when people have carry
permits is the experience of the 1/3 of American states that issue
such permits routinely. From these states, the most detailed data are
those compiled by the Dade County (Miami) police. As discussed above,
the police kept track of every known incident involving the county's
more than 21,000 handgun carry permitees over a six-year period. In
that six-year period, there was one known incident of a crime victim
having his gun taken away by the criminal. There were no known
incidents of a crime victim injuring an innocent person by mistake. In
some cases the handgun permit holder was successful in preventing a
crime, and in some cases not, but in no case was any innocent person
injured as a result of mistake by a permit-holder.
Another study examined newspaper reports of gun incidents in Missouri,
involving police or civilians. In this study, civilians were
successful in wounding, driving off, capturing criminals 83% of the
time, compared with a 68% success rate for the police. Civilians
intervening in crime were slightly less likely to be wounded than were
police. Only 2% of shootings by civilians, but 11% of shootings by
police, involved an innocent person mistakenly thought to be a
criminal. [145]
The Missouri research does not prove that civilians are more competent
than police in armed confrontations. Civilians can often choose
whether or not to intervene in a crime in progress, whereas police
officers are required to intervene. Being forced to intervene in all
cases, police officers would naturally be expected to have a lower
success rate, and to make more mistakes. Attorney Jeffrey Snyder
elaborates:
Rape, robbery, and attempted murder are not typically actions rife
with ambiguity or subtlety, requiring special powers of
observation and great book-learning to discern. When a man pulls a
knife on a woman and says, "You're coming with me," her judgment
that a crime is being committed is not likely to be in error.
There is little chance that she is going to shoot the wrong
person. It is the police, because they are rarely at the scene of
the crime when it occurs, who are more likely to find themselves
in circumstances where guilt and innocence are not so clear-cut,
and in which the probability for mistakes is higher. [146]
In addition, the Missouri study was not restricted to "carry"
situations, but also included self-defense in the home. Persons using
a gun to defend their own home, who know its layout much better than
does an intruder, might be expected to have a higher success rate than
would persons using a gun in a less familiar public setting.
The most detailed information about civilian defensive gun use has
been compiled by Professor Gary Kleck (a liberal Democrat, and member
of the ACLU and Common Cause) in his book Point Blank: Guns and
Violence in America. In 1992 the American Society of Criminology
awarded the book the Hindelang Prize, as the most significant
contribution to criminology in the previous three years. In Point
Blank, Kleck studied computer tapes from the U.S. Department of
Justice's National Crime Survey, for the years 1979-85. Analyzing the
data from over 180,000 crime incidents in the National Crime Survey,
as well from other studies, Kleck found the following:
- In no more than 1% of defensive gun uses was the gun taken
away by a criminal.
- The odds of a defensive gun user accidentally killing an
innocent person are less than 1 in 26,000.
- For robbery and assault victims, the lowest injury rates
(17.4% for robberies, and 12.1% for assaults) were among
victims who resisted with a gun.
- The next lowest injury rates were among persons who did not
resist. Other forms of resistance (such as shouting for help,
or using a knife), had higher injury rates than either passive
compliance or resistance with a gun. [147]
Again, it should be remembered that the above data do not separate
defensive home use (where victim success rates would be expected to be
higher) from use in public areas. Still, taken as a whole, the
National Crime Survey data, like Missouri data do suggest that
uniformed government employees are not the only class of people who
can use a firearm successfully to defend self and others.
THE WILD WEST, OR "WHAT IF EVERYONE CARRIED A HANDGUN?"
To persons opposed to carry reform, the case can be made simply by
stating that allowing licensed, trained citizens to carry guns would
make modern America like the Wild West. A shorthand version of the
statement is simply to raise the rhetorical question, "What if
everyone carried a gun?"
Asking a question such as "What if everyone did X?" is only a useful
contribution to the debate if there is some realistic possibility that
everyone might actually do X. What if everyone had fifteen children?
What if everyone remained celibate? [148] Universal celibacy would
destroy the human race in one generation, whereas the universal
bearing of 15 children per family could cause huge social and
environmental problems. If "What if" questions were the guide to
public policy, then it would be logical to enact a law requiring every
family to have exactly two children, thus preventing the horrible
scenarios of universal celibacy or universal over-fecundity.
But in the real world, some people choose to be celibate, some people
choose to have 15 children, and most people choose something
in-between, resulting in a reasonable population growth rate, without
the need of government regulation.
In the real world, the question "What if everyone carried a gun?" is
as meaningless as the question "What if everyone tried to park at the
state capitol at the same time?" The research presented above shows
that no more than 4% of a state's population is likely to choose to
obtain a handgun carry permit.
To the extent that the "What if" question has any relevance, the best
answer can be found by looking at the most recent era in American
history when everyone really did carry a gun.
Although late 20th century Americans, basing their views mostly on
television and the movies, have one image of the "Wild West,"
historian Roger McGrath set out to study the West in detail, to try to
understand how violent it really was. McGrath's book Gunfighters,
Highwaymen, & Vigilantes examines the 19th century Sierra Nevada
mining towns of Aurora and Bodie. [149]
Aurora and Bodie certainly had more potential for violence than most
other places in the West. The population was mainly young transient
males subject to few social controls. There was one saloon for every
twenty-five men; brothels and gambling houses were also common.
"Sobriety was thought proper only for Sunday school teachers and
women," McGrath observed. [150] Governmental law enforcement was
ineffectual, and sometimes the sheriff was himself the head of a
criminal gang. Nearly everyone carried a gun. (Aurorans usually
carried a Colt Navy .36 six-shot revolver, while Bodeites sported the
Colt Double Action Model known as the "Lightning.") [151]
The homicide rate in those towns was extremely high, as the "bad men"
who hung out in saloons shot each other at a fearsome rate, in some
cases exceeding the homicide rate in modern Washington, D.C. These
shootings amounted to consensual violence among disreputable young men
who enjoyed getting drunk and getting into fights. [152] The presence
of guns turned many petty drunken quarrels into fatalities.
But other crime was virtually nil. The per capita annual robbery rate
was 7% of modern New York City's. The burglary rate was 1%. Rape was
unknown. [153] "The old, the weak, the female, the innocent, and those
unwilling to fight were rarely the targets of attacks," McGrath found.
One resident of Bodie did "not recall ever hearing of a respectable
women or girl in any manner insulted or even accosted by the hundreds
of dissolute characters that were everywhere. In part this was due to
the respect depravity pays to decency; in part to the knowledge that
sudden death would follow any other course." [154] Everyone carried a
gun and except for young men who liked to drink and fight with each
other, everyone was far more secure than today's residents of cities
where ordinary people cannot carry a firearm for protection.
The experience of Aurora and Bodie was repeated throughout the West.
One study of five major cattle towns with a reputation for
violence--Abilene, Ellsworth, Wichita, Dodge City, and Caldwell--found
that all together the towns had less than two criminal homicides per
year. [155] During the 1870s, Lincoln County, New Mexico was in a
state of anarchy and civil war. Homicide was astronomical, but (as in
Bodie and Aurora) confined almost exclusively to drunken males
upholding their "honor." Modern big-city crimes such as rape,
burglary, and mugging were virtually unknown. [156] A study of the
Texas frontier from 1875-1890 found that burglaries and robberies
(except for bank, train, and stage coach robberies) were essentially
non-existent. People did not bother locking doors, and murder was
rare, except of course for young men shooting each other in "fair
fights" in which they voluntarily engaged. [157]
John Umbeck's investigation of the High Sierra gold fields in the
mid-19th century yielded similar results. After the Gold Rush brought
on the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848, thousands of
prospectors rushed to gold fields in the California mountains. There
was no police force. Indeed, there was no law at all regarding
property rights, since the military governor of California had just
proclaimed as invalid (without offering a replacement), the Mexican
land law. There was intense competitive pressure (and greed) for gold,
and nearly everyone carried firearms. Yet there was hardly any
violence. [158] Similarly, when much of the Indian territory of
Oklahoma was opened all at once for white settlement, heavily armed
settlers rushed in immediately to stake their claims, and the settlers
with their guns arrived long before effective law enforcement did. Yet
there was almost no violence. [159]
In sum, historian W. Eugene Hollon found "the Western frontier was a
far more civilized, more peaceful, and safer place than American
society is today." [160] Frank Prassel concludes "this last frontier
left no significant heritage of offenses against the person, relative
to other sections of the country." [161] Americans living under gun
prevalence conditions of the Old West were far safer than Americans
living in modern cities such as San Francisco, Detroit, or Cleveland,
where citizens are not allowed to protect themselves when they leave
their homes.
In modern Washington, D.C., criminals sometimes murder drivers who
have stopped at a traffic light, simply for the pleasure of watching
them die. Yet the Washington, D.C. government, which cannot protect
those drivers (or anyone else) forbids the law-abiding populace to
possess a handgun in their car, in their home, or on their person.
Columnist Samuel Francis describes the system of government in
Washington (and many other cities) as "anarcho-tyranny." The
government provides little effective protection against violent
criminals, but mobilizes the full power of the state against crime
victims who attempt to protect themselves. [162]
Crime flourishes in modern American cities because the American people
and their government tolerate it, because much of the government and
the populace fear the idea that a victim might carry a gun more than
they fear the rapists, robbers, and murderers who rule the streets of
so much of our nation. Bodie, Aurora, and the rest of the Old West had
little high culture, and their streets were made of dirt and littered
with horse manure. But a woman could walk alone safely after dark in
those towns; good people did not cower in fear and allow predatory
thugs to terrorize the innocent. Perhaps the people of the Old West
understood what civilization was all about much better than do modern
Americans who choose to accept the current system of anarcho-tyranny.
The evidence from Aurora, Bodie, and the rest of America does not
prove that guns are an unalloyed good, or that no form of gun control
is desirable. Guns in the wrong hands (such as drunken young men) can
wreak great harm. Disarming gun abusers would obviously be beneficial.
The problem of the laws proposed by the various "gun control" groups,
however, is the that very persons who have no compunction about
violating substantive laws (such as the law against murder) will also
have no compunction about violating lesser laws (such as a ban on
carrying guns).
As this paper has detailed, the possession of guns by potential crime
victims is a nearly unalloyed social good. Blanket bans on the
carrying of guns (or licensing systems which are de facto bans) are a
virtually unalloyed evil, because such laws disarm the victims while
doing virtually nothing to disarm the criminals.
In both Aurora/Bodie (where there were no gun control laws) and in
modern Washington, D.C. (where owning, let alone carrying, a handgun
is illegal), the criminals all carried guns. In both Aurora/Bodie and
modern Washington, the homicide rate caused by those gun-toting
criminals was astronomical. In Aurora/Bodie, however, the homicide
victims were almost entirely other criminals; in Washington, the
homicide victims are much more likely to be innocents.
POLICE OPINION AND POLICE COMPETENCE
Most Americans who believe that use of deadly force for self-defense
is immoral conduct, and that society should outlaw such immorality do
not really oppose the use of violence for protection. They simply
oppose the use of violence by crime victims, as opposed to government
employees. If it is agreed that the police may lawfully use force,
then the question is no longer whether force per se is legitimate, but
who may legitimately use force.
As a moral matter, the creature of government cannot have powers
greater than its creator the people. If an individual police officer,
acting in his own best judgment under his reasonable understanding of
the facts of a particular encounter, has the moral authority, on his
own, to fire a weapon to protect himself or another person, how can
the same act, performed by a crime victim, suddenly become immoral?
Or, rather than being immoral, is citizen self-defense simply
impractical? Many police lobbyists so insist, as they work at state
capitols in opposition to concealed carry reform. To some persons,
police opinion about carry reform is dispositive. If the police are
against it, the idea must be a danger to public safety.
But it should hardly be surprising to find monopolists who favor
preservation of their monopoly, and who can convince themselves and
others that their monopoly genuinely protects the public good. If a
current law gives the police administration unbridled discretion over
who may exercise the "privilege" of carrying a gun, then it is not
unexpected that many police administrators would vigorously resist any
effort to deprive them of their boundless discretion.
The opinions of police administration lobbyists, however, are not
necessarily representative of the entire law enforcement community.
The first survey of police attitudes toward concealed carry was a 1976
poll conducted by Boston Police Commissioner Robert diGrazia, in an
effort to find national police support for an initiative to ban
handgun ownership in Massachusetts. In the national survey, 51% of
chiefs agreed with the statement "Persons who have a general need to
protect their own life and property, like those who regularly carry
large sums of money to the bank late at night, should be allowed to
possess and carry handguns on their person." Fifty-seven percent of
chiefs expected their subordinates to be more supportive of such
carrying. [163]
Rank-and-file police officers are even more supportive of citizens
carrying guns. In 1991, Law Enforcement Technology magazine conducted
a poll of all ranks of police officers. Seventy-six percent of street
officers believed that all trained, responsible adults should be able
to obtain handgun carry permits; 59% of managers agreed. [164]
In fact, the police appear to be more supportive of carry reform laws
than is the general public. Carry reform generally garners about 35%
support in opinion polls of the general public; the range is between
about 20% and about 55%. Since only about 4% (at most) of the public
ever obtains a carry permit, it is interesting that carry reform can
attract support from a much larger percentage of the public than is
likely to obtain a permit.
Fundamental rights such as self-defense (or free speech, or
reproductive rights), are not dependent on majority vote, or upon
police approval. A majority of the public does have the right to
prevent the exercise of self- defense (or other fundamental rights) in
ways that may inappropriately endanger other people. For example, a
majority could appropriately forbid the carrying of grenades for
self-defense, since grenades produce an indiscriminate blast with a
high risk of injuring innocent bystanders. In contrast, the carrying
of firearms for lawful defense by licensed, trained citizens poses no
net risk to members of the public who are not carrying. To the
contrary, all the data demonstrate the members of the public are made
safer (or at least not harmed) by the availability of carry permits to
other law-abiding citizens. Accordingly, opinion polls are of little
use in resolving the carry permit issue, since a man who does not want
to carry has no legitimate moral right to prevent a stranger from
defending herself.
In regards to police opinion, the police argument is frequently a
pretext for politicians who oppose concealed carry, regardless of what
the police think. In 1990, during a crime wave in New York City, a
retired police officer named Stephen D'Andrilli appeared on a
television talk show, and proposed that one million New Yorkers be
given permits to carry handguns. The show's host, Dick Oliver, asked
New York Governor Cuomo what he thought of the idea. Cuomo denounced
the idea, and the exchange continued:
Cuomo: "Why don't you ask the cops what they think of everybody
packing guns?"
Host: "It happens that Mr. Byrne, head of the PBA, walked by
before and I asked him. He said, 'It's a good idea.'"
Cuomo: "Well, somebody better talk to Mr. Byrne, straighten him
out." [165]
Central to the idea that the police, and the police alone, should be
privileged to carry defensive firearms is the presumption that the
police possess abilities which are not possessed by licensed, trained
permit holders. As we have already seen, however, scholarly research
and police data both indicate that ordinary citizens are capable of
using firearms competently for defense.
While the vast majority of police officers are likewise competent, it
would be a grave mistake to imagine that police officers are immune
from the foibles and stresses can lead to unlawful shootings. ne study
of 1,500 incidents involving police use of deadly force concluded that
deadly force was not justified in 40% of the incidents, and was
questionable in another 20%. [166] Using evidence from the Chicago
Police Department's internal investigations, one scholar found 14% of
killings by Chicago officers to be "prima facie cases of manslaughter
or murder" and "Several others presented factual anomalies sufficient
to suggest that a thorough investigation might well have revealed such
prima facie cases." Not a single one of those was prosecuted--or even
reprimanded for shootings in plain violation of official policy. [167]
Whenever a New York City police officer fires a gun (outside of a
target range), police officials review the incident. About 20% of
discharges have been determined to be accidental, and another 10% to
be intentional discharges in violation of force policy. In other
words, only 70% of firearms discharges by police are intentional and
in compliance with force policy. [168] In Los Angeles, 75% of
shootings by police officers led to discipline of the officer or
retraining because the officer had made an error. [169]
Many police officers work difficult, stressful jobs for many years.
Ordinary citizens, if they find themselves under stress, can simply
retreat back to their houses or apartments. If ordinary citizens are
not trusted to carry handguns, how can handgun carrying be defended
for a group of people who are under significantly higher emotional
stress than ordinary people? Not only are police misuses of firearms
in the line of duty common, police misuse of guns outside the line of
duty is all too frequent. When an off- duty New York City policeman
fires a gun, one time out of four the firing will be an accident, a
suicide, or an act of frustration. [170] The rate of substantiated
crimes perpetrated by New York City police officers is approximately
7.5 crimes per year per thousand officers. The number of New York
police crimes alleged is 112.7 per thousand officers. [171]
Opponents of concealed carry can readily imagine hypotheticals of how
an armed citizen might overreact to a particular situation; actual
instances of over-reaction by licensed, trained citizens are rare, as
we have detailed. But actual instances of police over-reaction are
already well known:
- In Portland, Oregon, police officers on a drug raid used
German MP-5 submachine guns to shoot a grandfather at least 28
times; the autopsy suggested that over 20 of the shots were
fired in his back has he lay collapsed face down over a chair.
Justifying the police action, the police chief predicted "the
shooting was a sign of things to come as criminals become
better armed and police try to match their firepower." The
grandfather had been carrying an unloaded 2-shot derringer.
[172]
- In Tyler, Texas, a police officer who had previously been
accused of using excessive force shot a bedridden 84-year-old
Black woman during a 2 a.m. drug raid in Tyler, Texas. No drugs
were found. [173]
- One Los Angeles officer entered the following message on his
computer report: "I almost got me a Mexican lst nite but he
dropped the dam gun to quick, lots of wit." [spelling errors in
original]. [174]
The above incidents are, of course, the exception to the generally
high level of conduct of the American police. Anecdotal stories of
police abuse do not provide a good reason for believing the police as
a whole cannot be trusted with guns. And unsupported hypotheticals
about what a licensed, trained citizen might do not provide a good
reason for believing the citizens cannot be trusted with guns.
In general, police do not receive an amount of training which places
them far above ordinary trained citizens. More typically, they receive
a few dozen hours of training at the police academy, and may be, at
most, required every so often to recertify their ability to hit a
target. A deplorably large number of handgun-toting officers have not
practiced marksmanship since they passed their firearms certification
test as a police recruit. The amount of training which police officers
have in defensive gun use rarely exceeds what a civilian could learn
at a good firearms instruction academy. With the advent of inexpensive
indoor laser target systems and high-technology video trainers for
"shoot-don't shoot" programs, and the proliferation of civilian
firearms schools, citizens willing to invest some time can be schooled
in defensive firearms use to at least the same level of competence as
the average police officer. [175]
Few persons who object to ordinary citizens carrying handguns raise
the same objections about security guards carrying handguns. [176] And
security guards generally receive even less training than the police.
It is true that security guards are visible targets for attack, but so
are women who must walk alone at night in dangerous neighborhoods. If
law-abiding citizens pass a licensing and training system equivalent
to that of security guards or police, there is no basis for denying
these citizens a permit. To structure the handgun carry permit system
so wealthy owners of jewelry stores can hire security guards for
protection, but low-income owners of convenience stores, who cannot
afford a security guard, are deprived of protection--even though the
convenience store owner is as objectively qualified as a security
guard to carry a gun--is economic discrimination, and amounts to
valuing the property of the jewelry store owner more highly than the
life of the convenience store owner.
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[These endnotes are cut and pasted from the full text of "`Shall Issue'."
Some citations are abbreviated (e.g., #145 and 147): earlier notes had
given the complete bibliographic information. For complete information, see
the full text, obtainable from several sources on the World Wide Web. --K.D.]
NOTES:
145. Silver & Kates, supra.
146. Jeffrey Snyder, "A Nation of Cowards," The Public Interest no.
113, Fall 1993.
147. Kleck, pp. 120-26.
148. Blackman, p. 29.
149. Roger D. McGrath, Gunfighters, Highwaymen, & Vigilantes: Violence
on the Frontier (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984).
150. McGrath, p. 255.
151. The Lightning was a double action version of the famous
Peacemaker or Frontier revolver. Ian V. Hogg, The Illustrated
Encyclopedia of Firearms (Secaucus, N.J.: Chartwell, 1978), p. 121.
152. The homicide rate in Aurora was approximately 64 per 100,000, and
in Bodie as 116. The Washington, D.C. rate is usually somewhere
in-between.
153. Bodie had a robbery rate of 84 per 100,000 persons per year. The
rate in 1980 New York City was 1,140; in San Francisco-Oakland, 521,
and the United States as a whole, 243. The Bodie burglary rate was 6.4
per 100,000 population per year. The 1980 New York City rate as 2,661;
the San Francisco-Oakland rate was 2,267. The overall American rate
was 1,668. The Bodie theft rate was 180, in contrast to New York's
3,369 and San Francisco-Oakland's 4,571. The American rate was 3,156.
All data from McGrath, pp. 247-54.
154. Grant Smith, "Bodie, Last of the Old Time Mining Camps," Calif.
Hist. Soc'y Q. vol. 4 (1925), p. 78, quoted in McGrath, p. 157.
155. Robert A. Dykstra, The Cattle Towns: A Social History of the
Kansas Cattle Trading Centers (1968), pp. 144-47.
156. Robert M. Utley, High Noon in Lincoln: Violence on the Western
Frontier (1987), pp. 173-79. Again, as in Aurora and Bodie, the
ubiquity of firearms turned many drunken quarrels into homicides. Id.
157. William C. Holden, "Law and Lawlessness on the Texas Frontier
1875-1890," 44 Sw. Hist. Q. 188 (1940).
158. John Umbeck, "Might Makes Rights: A Theory of Formation and
Distribution of Property Rights," 9 Econ. Inquiry 38 (1981).
In other parts of the West, citizens also successfully used a variety
of private mechanisms to protect property rights in the absence of
effective government. Terry L. Anderson & P.J. Hill, "An American
Experiment in Anarcho- Capitalism: The Not So Wild, Wild West," 3 J.
Libertarian Stud. 9 (1979).
159. Day, "'Sooners' or 'Goners,' They Were Hell Bent on Grabbing Free
Land," 20 Smithsonian 192 (1989).
160. W. Eugene Hollon, Frontier Violence: Another Look (1974), p. x.
161. Frank Richard Prassel, The Western Peace Officer: A Legacy of Law
and Order (1972), p. 17.
162. Samuel Francis, "Anarcho-Tyranny U.S.A.," Chronicles, July 1994:
14--19.
163. Boston Police, Handgun Control: A Survey of Leading Law
Enforcement Officials in the Country (1976), pp. 53ff, discussed in
Blackman, p. 31.
164. "The Law Enforcement Technology, Gun Control Survey," Law
Enforcement Technology, July-Aug. 1991. The poll was based on readers
sending in a survey form to the magazine. Since the polling was not
conducted by random sample, the poll might not reflect a true
cross-section of all police opinion. Of course a cadre of police
chiefs who show up at the state capitol to testify against a concealed
carry bill may also not be representative of police opinion,
especially the opinion of street patrol officers.
165. Tony Codella, letter to Stephen D'Andrilli, Sept. 21, 1990 (on
file with authors).
166. A. Kobler, "Figures (and perhaps some facts) on Police Killings
of Civilians in the U.S. 1965-1969," 31 J. Soc. Issues 185 (1975).
Internal police department review of Kansas City police shootings in
which a person was struck by a bullet found that for the years
1973-1978, 40.2% of the police firearms discharges were unjustifiable.
William A. Geller & Michael S. Scott, Deadly Force: What We Know 282
(Wash.: Police Exec. Res. Forum, 1992).
167. Richard Harding, "Killings by Chicago Police, 1969-70: An
Empirical Study," 46 University of Southern California Law Review 284
(1973). See also Geller & Karales, "Shootings of and By Chicago
Police: Uncommon Crises, Part I: Shootings by Chicago Police," 72
Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology 1813 (1981).
168. Gina Goehl, 1989 Firearms Discharge Assault Report (New York:
Police Academy Firearms and Tactics Section, April 1989) (BM 369). For
1985-89, the cumulative figures are 1193 total discharges, 824
intentional and not in violation of force policy (69.1%), 112
intentional and in violation (9.4%); 135 accidental but not in
violation of policy (11.3%), and 122 accidental and in violation
(10.2%). [The percentages and numbers are slightly different from
those in the Report itself, due to a Departmental mathematical errors
in addition; the Department mistakenly totals the number of
intentional lawful shootings as 836 (rather than 824), and mistakenly
records the total of all incidents at 1,143, rather than 1,193. As a
result, Department reports that the sum of all categories of incidents
is 105.4%, rather than 100%.] In Philadelphia in 1989, accidents
comprised 27% of police firearms discharges; in Dade County, Florda
(Miami) that same year, accidents were 31%. Geller & Scott, p. 196.
169. Licthblau, "LAPD Officers Faultedin 3 of 4 Shooting Cases," Los
Angeles Times, Aug. 14, 1994.
170. "The Guns of Kennesaw," N.Y. Times, Mar. 28, 1982, p. A26, col.
1. Some studies suggest that as many as one in four police officers
may be an alcoholic. Geller & Scott, p. 288 n.26.
171. Richard Neely, Take Back Your Neighborhood (1990), pp. 74- 75.
Other major cities reported similar rates of substantiated
allegations. Id.
172. James Crawford, "Police Firepower a Cause for Concern,"
Oregonian, May 29, 1991; Letter from Hap Wong, attorney for family of
shooting victim, to James Crawford (March 16, 1992)(on file with
authors).
173. "Texas Grand Jury Fails to Indict Officer Who Killed Elderly
Black Woman in 'Cocaine Raid' that Yielded no Drugs or Charges," News
Briefs (National Drug Strategy Network), Aug. 1992, p. 8, citing Todd
Gillman, "Kilgore Officer Not Indicted in Black Woman's Slaying," Dal.
Morn. News, July 11, 1992, p. 1A; Lee Hancock, "Gnawing Question:
Grand Jury in East Texas will Consider Case of Officer who Killed
Black Woman in Drug Raid", Dal. Morn. News, July 7, 1992, p. 1A.
174. Independent Commission on the Los Angeles Police Dept.
("Christopher Comm."), Report of the Independent Commission on the Los
Angeles Police Department (1991), pp. 72-73, cited in Geller & Scott,
p. 205.
175. For a good analysis of giving the police special handgun
privileges, see James B. Jacobs, "Exceptions to a General Prohibition
on Handgun Possession: Do They Swallow Up the Rule?" 49 Law &
Contemporary Problems 1 (1986).
176. "Private security guards are simply vigilantes for the rich,"
observes West Virginia Supreme Court Justice Richard Neely. Neely, p.
51.