NCJ Number
160785
Journal
Journal of Quantitative Criminology Volume: 11 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1995) Pages: 411-424
Date Published
1995
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This essay considers the empirical foundations for some of the more important and controversial conclusions about guns, crime, and gun control advanced in Gary Kleck's influential treatise, "Point Blank."
Abstract
Kleck's book and its arguments have become paradigmatic for scholars who adopt a critical stance toward gun control. Four central pillars support Kleck's overall argument. First, guns have important defensive and deterrent uses in the battle against crime; second, there is little, if any, net effect of levels of gun ownership on overall rates of violent crimes; third, crime committed with guns does not involve much greater risk of homicide than any other type of violent crime, including that in which the criminal has no weapon; and fourth, gun-control laws are generally ineffective in reducing levels of violent crime and presumably the same is true regarding the availability of guns to those likely to use them to commit crimes. This essay argues throughout that the evidence Kleck presents is not sufficient to establish his conclusions, and they constitute only one of the possible interpretations of the data he uses. This ambiguity results partly from the methodological deficiencies and difficulties. It also results partly from an underlying paradigm about the place of guns in the social order. Kleck imparts a degree of structure to the raw data to give his argument overall coherence, but some data and alternative interpretations are not encompassed by this structure. The crime-inhibiting role of guns receives so much emphasis that Kleck is led to conclude that much of the social order in America depends on the fact that millions of people are armed and dangerous to each other. The interpretation not considered is whether criminals would arm themselves if gun ownership were not so widespread. Further, Kleck does not consider what happens to the quality of life in a society where people fear that death from a firearm may result from a random conflict with another citizen. 27 references