Not a week goes by without new gun-control regulations being pushed. And all manner of statistics are used to back up this effort. Unfortunately, many of the justifications for potential laws are simply wrong.
In addition to President Clinton's earlier proposals for a national waiting period and raising the age of gun possession to age 21, Vice President Al Gore wants to ban inexpensive handguns. This week, Congress appoints conferees who will attempt to hammer out a gun-control measure that can pass both houses.
The Clinton administration has been putting out studies on everything from how criminals obtain guns to the effectiveness of the Brady law. The press rarely questions those studies, which are false or misleading.
Consider some oft-repeated claims by the administration:
* 13 children die every day from guns: Both Clinton and Gore again made prominent mention of this frightening statistic last week, and for years the administration has been placing public service ads linking this claim with elementary school children's voices or pictures.
But few of these 13 deaths fit the image of innocent young children. Nine of the deaths per day involve "children" between 17 and 19 years old, primarily homicides involving gang members. Eleven of the deaths per day involve 15 to 19 year olds. It strains the credulity to have these deaths included as evidence justifying the importance of trigger locks.
This does not alleviate the sorrow created by these deaths or the 1.9 children under age 15 who die from guns every day.
But a little perspective is needed here. While these gun deaths include homicides, suicides, accidents, as well as justifiable homicides, almost as many children die in bicycle accidents, and 40% more die in drowning accidents or house fires. Ignored are the thousands of children's lives that are saved every year because parents or other adults use guns to protect children from violent attacks.
* "Straw" purchases account for between a third and a half of guns used in a crime: In an effort to assist the spate of lawsuits against gun makers, the administration has hyped this claim about "straw" purchases - guns purchased legally with the intent of reselling them to criminals. Yet this evidence is indirect, and purposely excludes most gun crimes from the sample.
The administration simply assumes that guns purchased and then used in a commission of crime within three years involve straw purchases. To arrive at the percentages they report, only guns that were both sold and used in a crime between the beginning of 1990 and the end of 1996 are examined.
Using this method, they could have produced virtually any percentage they wanted. For example, accept their definition of a straw purchase as guns that are both purchased and used within a three-year time period. If the administration had limited the time frame to between 1994 and 1996, then every gun purchased and used in a crime in those three years would have been a straw purchase, under the Clinton team's definition.
* The Brady law reduces crime: The only studies supporting this claim have come from the Clinton administration or from Handgun Control. They are no more than press releases pointing to the fact that crimes have fallen since 1994.
Yet neither background checks nor waiting periods have lowered crime rates.
For example, waiting periods may produce a "cooling off period" as Clinton frequently claims, but some real drawbacks also exist. Those threatened with harm may be unable to quickly obtain a gun for protection.
In the only academic research done on the Brady law, I found that the national waiting period had no significant impact on murder or robbery rates. It was actually associated with a small increase in rape and aggravated assault. Women suffered more from this law than men.
Spin may ultimately matter in political debates. Sadly, the false and misleading statements polluting the debate over guns have real consequences for people's safety.
Whatever the political benefits of making law-abiding citizens more dependent upon the government for their protection, the most vulnerable - the poor who live in high crime urban areas as well as women and the elderly - will pay the ultimate price.
John R. Lott Jr. is the John M. Olin law and economics fellow at the University of Chicago Law School and the author of "More Guns, Less Crime" (University of Chicago Press, 1998).
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