Gun Control
Price of Paradise · Hawaii Public Radio · aired 1997-06-08
Guests: John R. Lott Jr. (John M. Olin Law and Economics Fellow, University of Chicago Law School); Cynthia Thielen (Minority Floor Leader, Hawaii House of Representatives)
Duration: 1:00:04

[0:00:02] Randall Roth: Aloha. This is Randy Roth, host of the Price of Paradise radio show. Everyone who works to bring this program to you is a volunteer who believes in the importance of lively and informed dialogue. We believe the future of any community is brightest when there's lots of activity in its marketplace of ideas. Our sponsor is the Hawaii Community Foundation, an organization that supports grass-root efforts to improve the quality of life in Hawaii and that administers charitable funds with efficiency and compassion.

[0:00:29] Randall Roth: Our topic today has to do with gun control, especially as it relates to so-called concealed handgun laws. Currently in Hawaii, it's possible for citizens to get a permit to own a gun as long as they don't have a criminal record or history of significant mental illness, but it's virtually impossible to get a permit that will enable that person to carry a concealed handgun in public. My guest in the studio, state representative Cynthia Henry-Thelan supports this. According to her article in this morning's Honolulu Advertiser, Hawaii's strict gun control laws are working.

[0:01:00] Randall Roth: My guest on the phone is not so sure. His name is John Lott, and currently, he's the Olin Law and Economics Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. Earlier this year, he published an article that suggests that a state like Hawaii would enjoy a significant reduction in violent crimes if it would let citizens carry a concealed handgun in public. John, uh, it's your study that has has generated this controversy. Could you briefly describe what the study is all about?

[0:01:27] John R. Lott Jr.: Uh, good morning, Randy. Thanks for having me on. Um, well, what uh we did was we looked at all 3,054 counties in the United States by year from uh from 1977 through 1992, and uh we were interested in why crime varied in general. Uh, so we looked at things also like arrest rates and conviction rates and prison sentence lengths. We looked at very detailed demographic characteristics and we looked at a range of uh different types of gun laws. So, waiting periods, the length of waiting periods, background checks, penalties for using guns in commission of crime, along with uh these concealed handgun laws that you mentioned. And there are many other things that we could get into that we tried to uh look at in the study. And basically what we found was that when states adopted what are called uh non-discretionary concealed handgun laws, which basically mean that as long as someone doesn't have uh a criminal record and uh meet certain basic training requirements, for example, although that's not even required in all the states, then uh if they apply for a concealed handgun, they're they're automatically granted the permit. There are 31 states that now have those types of laws. Another 12 have what are called, uh discretionary rules, which mean you have like Hawaii's, which mean you have to show need before the police officers or the judges, whoever's in charge granting the permits, allow you to have it. So, we looked at how the crime rates in those counties changed when states adopted these laws relative to where they were previously and relative to the changes that you observed in neighboring or other uh places across the country, how their crime rates changed over the same period of time after you account for the factors that we mentioned earlier. And, and what we found was very dramatic, I thought. We found that when states allowed law-abiding citizens to carry uh these concealed handguns, you saw a very large drop in violent crimes. Murders fell by at least 8%, saw by 7% drop in aggravated assaults, 5% drop in rapes, uh and about 3% drop in robbery. There's some evidence uh that there were increases in some types of property crimes, uh though that was much weaker. And uh what appeared to be happening was that criminals would move out of those areas where they'd come into direct contact with uh with the criminals, or the victims, like robbery, and more into those things like um, uh like uh auto theft or larceny, which involve crimes of theft, where they don't come into contact with the victims. We found some other interesting findings. One of the more interesting ones I thought, was the differential impact for men and women from these laws being passed. While both groups gain, where you saw drops in both murder rate for men and murder rate of women, the effect was particularly pronounced for women. For each additional woman that carried a concealed handgun, the drop in murder rate for women was about 3 to 4 times larger than the drop in murder rate that you observed for men. Um, allowing a woman to carry a concealed handgun represented a much bigger change in her ability to defend herself, excuse me, than it did for men. We also found uh the size of the city, relatively more urban, uh higher crime uh prone areas tended to have the greatest reductions in violent crimes as a result of uh are these laws being enacted.

[0:05:27] Randall Roth: John, to me, the findings in your study are are counterintuitive. I've just always assumed that that the fewer the guns out there, the better off people would be. The fewer the guns, the the lower the the violent crime rate. Um, were you surprised by the results of this study or or did you anticipate that this would be what the the data would show?

[0:06:15] John R. Lott Jr.: Yeah, I was I was definitely surprised. I suppose um my strongest belief was that I was likely to find very little effect one way or the other from from these rules. Uh you basically have two things that can happen. Either these people that are given these permits are going to go out and use guns improperly. There are lots of stories that you see given in legislatures all the time about how there'll be traffic accidents and in the heat of the moment, uh somebody will go and use a gun to go and shoot the other person in a traffic accident. On the other hand, there are about uh 2.5 million times a year, which polls indicate that people go and use guns defensively, but 98% of the time, merely brandishing a gun is sufficient in order to cause an attack to break off. I suppose the most amazing thing to me was when I started looking into some of these stories, uh like these claims about what people use these guns after traffic accidents. Despite having 31 states, some of them for many decades, uh having these types of rules, there's only been one case where a permitted concealed handgun was used after a traffic accident. And in fact in that case, and that happened early last year in Texas, uh in fact in that one case, it wasn't self-defense. So, my views have changed a lot on dealing with this, and I as I say, my my prior beliefs were that um I didn't expect to find much of an effect, but uh I I've been surprised.

[0:07:39] Randall Roth: Um, I'm going to get Cynthia Thelan's reactions to this in just a minute, but real quickly, can you tell us generally what your life has been like since this study was issued because I know it's it's generated a tremendous controversy.

[0:08:33] John R. Lott Jr.: Well, uh, I've written, I guess 70 some academic articles before and nothing that I've done has uh come remotely close to what I've experienced with it.

[0:09:05] Randall Roth: Were any of those articles about guns or gun control?

[0:09:07] John R. Lott Jr.: No. This is the first uh research that I've ever done on guns. Uh I was chief economist at the U.S. Sentencing Commission in Washington during the late 80s and a lot of my research has been on crime. In fact, probably the most of my research has been on crime, many different aspects of it, but I've never I've never dealt with guns before and maybe that's the reason why I never ran into this. But uh uh there are lots of things not only the intensity but also uh um just the types of attacks that I never would have uh anticipated before. Uh while the gun control groups have engaged in systematic uh letter writing campaigns or holding press conferences or other types of things in order to try to make the accusation that somehow I've been funded by gun manufacturers on this um which is an absurd uh statement but it's something even uh about a month and a half ago uh uh the Violence Policy Center and Handgun Control sent out uh uh a five-page kind of press release to a thousand news media organizations in the country entitled, "Who is John Lott?" where they were making claims about uh funding and lots of other strange things. So it uh um if you'd ask me a year ago whether somebody would be sending out those types of blanket press releases across the country, I would have I would have laughed. I wouldn't have thought it would have been possible. But uh I suppose the most amazing thing on that is just uh you know they've been told by the University of Chicago, they've been told by other groups that these things are false but you know, it doesn't seem to uh and I believe they know it's false without doubt but it doesn't seem to slow them down very much.

[0:10:45] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, we're going to come back to you in in just a little bit and my hunch is we're going to get a lot of callers that are going to uh um be pointing out why they believe the study isn't valid or correct or relevant or whatever, and we'll give you an opportunity to defend against that. But right now, I want to hear from Cynthia Henry-Thelan who's in the studio with me. Cynthia is a practicing attorney here in Hawaii and has been a member of the Hawaii State legislature since 1991. Currently, she's the minority floor leader in the State House of Representatives and co-chair of the Women's uh the House Women's Caucus, uh and she just happens to be a direct descendant of the great American Patriot Patrick Henry. Good morning, Cynthia.

[0:12:22] Cynthia Thielen: Good morning, Randy, and good morning, John.

[0:12:25] Randall Roth: Cynthia, you when I ask people down at the legislature, uh who has been a staunch supporter of strict gun control, control legislation over the years, uh yours is one of three or four names that kept coming up, uh as I talked to people. Um, I've read your piece in this morning's Honolulu Advertiser, and I know you like strict gun control. What's your reaction to what you've been listening to from John?

[0:12:50] Cynthia Thielen: I can sum it up in one sentence. Guns don't convey the aloha spirit. We need to look at this from a policy level. Do we want to say the answer to violence or to crime in our society is to arm more people, and to allow people to carry concealed weapons on the streets in their cars, frankly I say, no. America has the greatest number of guns per person in the world and we're really one of the most dangerous countries in the world. If you take a look at Great Britain and Canada, you'll find the contrary and those most people there are not armed. We have a situation in Hawaii where we're rather unique. We can control our borders. We're an island state. So, when we implement gun control laws, those laws are very likely to be enforced and to be be very effective. You can't just drive to a neighboring state and purchase a weapon and then bring it back into the home state. So, our laws are working. They're working for the violent crime. Uh we are not don't have as good statistics of course for our normal break-ins in a residential area but those usually don't involve guns and those are usually not what is called a a hot um crime where the person is at home asleep or at home working during the day. I I can't agree with um John's study for Hawaii. And I can't agree with it on two levels. First, I think that our solution should be deterrence, that we should look at higher arrest and conviction rates which are effective and which John agrees with in his study, are effective and we should look at education. We are um an island state, we are an aloha state and frankly, arming people just doesn't mix with what we want to convey to the world that we are aloha, Hawaii.

[0:14:05] Randall Roth: Okay. Well if you've tuned in late, you're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth and our topic today is gun control. If you would like to ask a question or make a brief comment, our number is 955-8821. If you're on a neighbor island, the number is 1-800-955-8821. The topic again, gun control. With me in the studio is Cynthia Henry-Thelan who is a practicing attorney and member of the state legislature. She's the minority floor leader and co-chair of the House Women's Caucus and a direct descendant of Patrick Henry of give me liberty or give me death fame. On the phone, we have John Lott who is the visiting fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School. He's also held positions at the Chicago Business School, Wharton, UCLA, Stanford, Rice, and Texas A&M. He was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission, and has published about 70 or so articles in scholarly journals. The topic again is gun control and our phone number is 955-8821. John, you just had an opportunity to hear Cynthia summarize her position. Any reaction to that before we go to the calls?

[0:15:03] John R. Lott Jr.: Yeah. Uh, I think it's kind of a selective comparison of the countries that she's made. If you look, there are lots of countries with very similar gun ownership rates to what we have in the United States. New Zealand, for example, is virtually identical, Switzerland is very high, Israel is also very high. And I'm not sure you can really draw much of a relationship between the levels of gun ownership in a country and the level of violence. In fact, if you look in the United States, across states, uh, I think there's a very clear negative relationship. The states that have the the highest gun ownership rate tend to have the lowest murder rates, believe it or not. Something that I also was surprised by, but, you know, Hawaii, there are 18 states in the country that had lower murder rates than Hawaii did in the United States. And uh 14 of those have gun ownership rates that are that are quite a bit above the national average as far as gun ownership goes. I mean, you think there are basically two trade-offs that you have here again. You have some people are going to use guns in bad ways, but you're also going to have some people who are going to be able to protect themselves. I mean, it'd be nice if criminals didn't try to zero in on relatively weak people when they attack, but unfortunately that's what who they like to go after, whether it's women or whether it's the elderly. And you have to recognize and I don't know how to judge this a priori without looking at the data first, that there's that there's this trade-off, and you don't know what the net effect is going to be whether there's going to be more bad things that happen or whether you're going to have more defensive things. You know, a woman who's going up against a 220-pound guy, the question is what types of means does she have in order to try to protect herself? And um uh, you know, I just uh yeah, when you look at these things, when gun control goes into effect, my concern is that the first people that you're going to be removing guns from, and the ones you primarily remove the guns from are the law-abiding honest people. And the criminals are going to keep on having the guns and get them at relatively easy rate, and that creates a even greater imbalance between the relative ability of criminals to go and create crimes versus the law-abiding. And in the case like Hawaii, you know, it's true that uh Hawaii is has many benefits uh but um uh I think it's pretty difficult to go and argue that any type of uh uh stricter gun control that it has, and and indeed it does have a relatively strict gun control, can explain how its murder rate ranks about in the middle of the country relative to all these other states that have much, much higher gun ownership rates.

[0:17:15] Randall Roth: John, let me get a reaction to all of that from Cynthia, and then we've got some people on the line and we'll go to them. Cynthia?

[0:17:20] Cynthia Thielen: You have to remember that we're talking today about letting people carry concealed weapons on the street in their cars, not just in the home. This is what the this is what the Lott study is proposing. If you don't have a criminal record, then you go into the police department, get a permit issued with no questions asked and you can carry a concealed weapon. That's what the lot that's what the Lott study is proposing. What would happen to women in those instances, when you take a look at the data, most women are likely to be killed by a husband or a boyfriend. Carrying a weapon for those women being able to carry a weapon is not going to work. When they're approached by someone that is within a domestic relationship with them, they're not going to be always armed and always ready to pull out a gun and shoot that abuser when the abuser when the abuse begins to escalate. I mean, it's not realistic to say that arming women is going to protect them in domestic violence situations.

[0:18:19] John R. Lott Jr.: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:19:08] Randall Roth: John, I've got a feeling we could keep keep this particular line of conversation going, but I want to get some callers involved in this and and others who just tuned in late. Uh we're talking about gun control and our number is 955-8821. Let's go to Ann in Nuuanu. Good morning, Ann.

[0:19:00] Speaker 1: No, I I have no problem with the way the law stands in Hawaii, which allows people to have permits to have guns. I have absolute um 100% opposition to allowing people to carry concealed weapons on the streets.

[0:19:13] Speaker 2: Okay, and and you're saying that that you've gotten a permit, you have the gun, but you would like the ability, the legal ability, to carry that on the street.

[0:19:21] Speaker 1: Well, I would like the criminals on the street to at least look at me and say, 'Well, I better not attack that person or, or because they might have a gun.' And I think Texas has proved that uh that the crime has really gone down when they allow people to to carry concealed weapons.

[0:19:35] Speaker 1: This, this state is no longer, this place is no longer an island with a big wall, fortress of water around it. Uh, like I said, the mainland criminals are coming over here. Look at your arrest and conviction conviction records. Uh, you know, you're no longer an isolated little island in the middle of the Pacific. They are coming over here and people have to protect themselves, and whatever that takes, that's whatever they're going to have to do.

[0:19:56] Speaker 2: Okay, and thanks. Thanks for your call. We appreciate it. Um, folks, we sure hope we have a real rounded conversation here and I'm hoping that uh we've got callers on every side of this issue. So if if you don't like the point of view that you're hearing from callers, please uh give us a ring at 955-8821. Let's go to Steve in uh Miley. Good morning, Steve.

[0:20:14] Speaker 3: How are you?

[0:20:15] Speaker 2: Fine.

[0:20:16] Speaker 3: One thing that I wanted to comment on is the attitude. I think Mr. Lot has the the study is correct, and Representative Thielen has the right attitude that we are distinctly different than what the study would apply from the mainland, but my spin on Hawaii is, I wouldn't trust a lot of people in Hawaii. I don't think we have the maturity, and we don't have the background in our history for having weapons to be carried. I like the laws the way they are and I'm probably in opposition because I am a life member of the NRA and I do that I I joined that just so I'd be able to speak out against it, on the issue, and not from the inside out.

[0:20:55] Speaker 2: So, along the lines of Cynthia's piece in this morning's paper, when you're writing on a bus, you just assume that the people around you not have a gun in their pocket or purse.

[0:21:02] Speaker 3: That's absolutely true. I've also have, I I have uh uh police officer friends who have told me that, yes, they wish some people would they they would have no problems with people having concealed carry permits. This is from police officers. They would trust me with one because of uh who I am and how uh in my background, but also, um I just don't think uh Hawaii has the background historically to handle that kind of action. And also, one thing I want to say about Miss uh Representative Thielen, I think her coming up with legislation, we've been legislated to death in this state, and um what uh um she's coming up with this uh education bill here to to uh it's I think it's uh to teach the kids how to settle their problems peacefully.

[0:21:46] Speaker 2: I think that is, but is that the role of the school? I mean, the school's taken over everything. This is uh she's coming in from a real liberal democratic attitude on this, the social attitude and it's like the parents don't have the responsibility for that and they can't handle it, so the school's got to take it. More money for that. Okay, I'll tell you what, our topic next week is public education in Hawaii, so I'm going to save part of that last comment, Steve, for next week. But I'm going to give Cynthia a quick uh reaction to that and then we want to hear from some more callers. Cynthia.

[0:22:12] Speaker 1: Hello. Steve, Steve, thanks for your comment. I happen to be a Republican. Um I do believe that the schools play a part along with the family. And when you have violence being the solution on the playground, we want to be able to say, wait a minute, um within the school setting, there are other ways to handle disputes rather than violence.

[0:22:31] Speaker 2: Okay, let's go to Oh, yes, John.

[0:22:33] Speaker 4: Right, because I think the caller brought up a lot of interesting points. I just Okay, just so our listeners know, this is John Lot now at the University of Chicago. Go ahead, John.

[0:22:40] Speaker 4: Thanks, man. Um the types of concerns that the caller brings up are concerns that when you read the legislative debates and the 31 states that passed these rules have come up time and time again. And uh and I'm sure uh Cynthia has studied these things in other states. You just don't find people who meet the requirements for these laws using them to kill other people. It just doesn't happen. I mean, I would if she can name me one case in any of these 31 states where a permitted gun holder who's met the requirements to get the gun has used it to go and kill somebody. I mean, we have millions of people now who have these permitted gun license. And uh you just you just don't see that type of thing happening. It's something that I wouldn't have guessed before I looked at this. But uh you at least think you'd find even a few where somebody would have been killed as a result of these things. But you you don't see that happening and I and uh it seems like you know, I can't speak directly to what the people are like in Hawaii but I have a hard time believing that they're that different than the people that are living in the other 31 states.

[0:23:50] Speaker 4: One last fast thing and that is with regard to police officers, there's surveys that have been done on police officers nationwide and about 75% of them consistently in these polls, think that for law-abiding citizens that meet certain criteria, they should be allowed to carry concealed handguns.

[0:24:08] Speaker 2: Okay, let's give Cynthia a chance to respond to that and then we'll go to uh some more callers.

[0:24:13] Speaker 1: Two points. Guns aren't the solution in Hawaii. Second point is the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, which is made up of all the law enforcement in Hawaii, is strongly against um permitting concealed weapons.

[0:24:26] Speaker 2: Okay, let's go to Keith in Honolulu. Good morning, Keith.

[0:24:29] Speaker 5: Hello, good morning.

[0:24:31] Speaker 5: Um, I agree that uh for some places, the idea of concealed weapons is is a good idea. That's what I think. I mean, look at someone like in some place in New York City or someone like Bernard Goetz, right? He comes up how many times? I think it was the third time he was robbed by people of a number of people, younger than him, stronger than him with sharpened screwdrivers, right? And on the third time he's got a gun, hey that equalized things, you know? When people hear that happening, you know, 10, 20, maybe 30 times that some people, you know, with weapons get blown away because they were doing the wrong thing, they start to think twice. Right now, it's easy to do it. The only thing you have to worry about is is a cop going to be there at the time. Yeah. In Hawaii, I don't think we have as much violent crime. I don't think it's as big of a worry. All right. In other places, I think it's it's almost necessary.

[0:25:22] Speaker 2: Keith, we really appreciate your call. We're going to try and get as many callers on this morning as possible. Thank you, Keith. Let's go to Leslie on the Big Island. Good morning, Leslie.

[0:25:29] Speaker 6: Yes, good morning. Um, thank you for bringing up this very important subject. Um, I just want to say that I had a situation happen to me about 10 years ago in a in in the Caribbean, it wasn't here, where uh a friend of mine and I were attacked by a lot of people and we could have had 15 guns on us and it wouldn't have helped. Um, so I don't think that guns are the answer to solving problems and and protecting oneself. However, I do have uh uh handgun that I keep with me. I don't carry it around because it's the illegal. It is recently, I realized that I was walking around and could have been slapped with a felony um charge because I had a clip. It's I have a Glock and it holds more than 10 bullets in the clip. I realize that if I'd been caught with that, even though I got it about three years ago when it was legal to have that, I would I could I would be processed as as a prosecuted as a felon for having that. Now I've gotten the new clip and I'm within the law. I am strongly in favor of being have being given the ability to carry concealed weapons. As far as I know, and I'm not an expert on this, but the states that have given the right for people, citizens to carry concealed weapons with permits, the crime rate has gone down substantially immediately. Putting all of these legislations and laws on people who legally carry guns is not going to reduce or make a difference in any way with the problem of dangerous people illegally carrying weapons. It will actually reduce it if these people who are illegally carrying weapons know that anybody may have a gun, any store owner, any woman on the street at night may have a gun. They're going to think twice.

[0:26:57] Speaker 2: Leslie, we're going to keep moving but I really appreciate your call this morning. Thank you.

[0:27:01] Speaker 1: Thank you.

[0:27:01] Speaker 2: And again, listeners out there, we're sure hoping to hear from from everybody and um so far, Cynthia is keeping a a list over here and and it's weighted a little bit heavily in the uh um anti-gun control side, so

[0:27:13] Speaker 1: No, no, no, the other yes, you're right. Anti-gun control. Right. So uh

[0:30:12] Speaker 2: on, good morning.

[0:30:13] Speaker 1: Uh, this is Ron from Mililani. I'm with Cynthia on this. I think that we need to spend more time uh getting people educated about maturity handling, being able to handle violence, rather than just giving everybody a uh chance to own a to carry a gun. I think that's shortsighted. Wrong, wrong answer to the problem.

[0:30:30] Speaker 2: Okay. Um, let me ask John Lot. John, I'm assuming that that you don't have anything necessarily against teaching kids how to solve their problems peacefully.

[0:30:41] Speaker 4: Right, no, I have nothing against that.

[0:30:42] Speaker 2: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:30:50] Speaker 4: I would agree with that.

[0:30:50] Speaker 2: And because of Leslie's comment about uh the gun with the clip and that sort of thing, I'm assuming that you would agree that there are certain types of weapons, and everyone would draw the line differently, but if we could start with nuclear bombs, I guess and all agree. You would agree that there are certain types of weapons that that no citizen should be allowed to carry, either in public or keep in their home or whatever?

[0:31:11] Speaker 4: Yeah, I have no problem with that.

[0:31:12] Speaker 2: So, you would agree with Cynthia's characterization earlier in our conversation that really what we're talking about right now is relatively narrow, and that is carrying a certain type of handgun uh concealed in public, whether that should be allowed or not.

[0:31:29] Speaker 4: Uh, well, I think that's one basic concern. I mean, I guess there's broader concerns about whether people should be able to have guns in general, but uh you know, I I feel the arguments I've looked at specifically address the last question that you're talking about and that is uh what are the benefits and costs of allowing people to be able to try to defend themselves in this way.

[0:31:48] Speaker 2: Okay. And and I'm doing this just because I want to try to to frame this issue so that we can can stay a little bit focused, because there are a lot of of related issues that we could get to. Well, if if you joined us late, you're listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. My name is Randy Roth. We're talking about gun control. If you would like to ask a question or make a comment, our number is 955-8821 or on a neighbor island, just call 1-800-955-8821. We do have a few open lines and we really encourage you to weigh in on this important topic. 955-8821. With me in the studio is Cynthia Henry-Theilen, who's a practicing attorney here in Honolulu and a member of the Hawaii State Legislature. Currently, she's the minority floor leader in the State House of Representatives and co-chair of the House Women's Caucus. She also is a direct descendant of Patrick Henry. On the phone with us this morning is John Lott, the visiting fellow in Law and Economics at the University of Chicago Law School, who also has held academic positions at the Chicago Business School, Wharton, UCLA, Stanford, Rice, and Texas A&M. He was the chief the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission in the late 80s, and he's published about 70 articles in scholarly journals. If you haven't seen them this morning, each of the my guests has written a piece that's in the Honolulu Advertiser. The headline is Concealed Guns and in a nutshell, John has recently published a study suggesting that states that liberalize their gun control laws by allowing law-abiding citizens to carry a concealed handgun in public that they enjoy an immediate and substantial drop in violent crimes, and Cynthia is suggesting that that isn't the way to go, especially here in Hawaii. Well, we've got some people lined up on the phone and we're going to hear from them. Let's start with Jeff. Good morning, Jeff.

[0:33:30] Speaker 7: Good morning, Jeff.

[0:33:30] Speaker 2: Good morning.

[0:33:31] Speaker 7: And you're on a cellular phone, I think.

[0:33:33] Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm in Waikiki right now, listening to you guys go over this. I can see that you know, there's a lot there's a problem, everybody admits there's a problem, and then everybody has almost what's a personal opinion on how it should or shouldn't be solved, but I think this fellow that you got on your show has done a research on it and collect statistics and, you know, where people are saying people in Hawaii are different, or what have you. I don't agree with that. And I think that we should take is a rational approach to it and look at the facts of what has happened in these places where they've already done this. Okay, well let's Jeff, I appreciate your call and I hate to rush you but I've got a bunch of people bunch of people just called in and we're going to try and hear from all of them and then we'll go back to John and Cynthia.

[0:34:11] Speaker 2: Let's go to another cell phone, this one on Maui. Eugene, good morning.

[0:34:15] Speaker 8: Uh, good morning. Uh, I have two points. One, concealed carry permits do not um allow people to carry guns uh in a blanket type of way. What they do is lay the mantle of legality over it. What they do is allow law-abiding people to do it. Criminals are going to carry guns to carry out crimes, whether it's legal or not.

[0:34:34] Speaker 2: Okay, I appreciate your call. We go to Rachel on the Big Island. Good morning, Rachel.

[0:34:39] Speaker 9: Good morning. Um, uh, my concern is being a woman who likes to go to the beach sometimes by myself, or with another woman, or with my children. Uh, I since I've lived in Hawaii, uh, I've heard, which has been about three years, I've heard of several instances where people have been attacked on the beach with even just knives and, personally, I would feel much safer and have a uh bigger range of activity if I felt that I could legally carry a weapon, just for protection and just to feel that I as a woman alone could go to the beach uh at any time and so on like that. So that's my opinion on it.

[0:35:18] Speaker 2: Great, thank you, Rachel. We appreciate your sharing it with us. Let's go to Rick on Maui. Good morning, Rick. Rick on Maui, are you there? Jeff, did we lose Rick? Let's move on down to Brant in Honokaa on the Big Island. Good morning, Brant. Brant, are you there? Well, we've got a little bit of a problem. Uh, let's try one more and then we'll go to Cynthia and John. Let's go to Pierre from Maui. Good morning, Pierre.

[0:35:44] Speaker 10: Uh, good morning. Good morning. Uh, yeah, I just had a little comment on uh, on uh, guns. Um, I'm originally from France. I've been living in in the US for 10 years now. Um, and as far as I recall and as far as uh, seeing things, uh probably still are right now, um uh, in Europe we don't seem to have as many um uh, crimes related to um, to guns because guns are totally controlled. We cannot um, uh possess them. Uh, we cannot walk around with them. Uh, so allowing them, in in my mind would certainly increase the risk of having people use them.

[0:36:18] Speaker 2: Okay. Pierre, we appreciate your call this morning. We're going to take one more call and and folks, continue to call us and and just be patient and and we'll get to you. Uh, but we're going to take one more call and then we're going to go to Cynthia and to John and give them an opportunity to react to everything that they've been listening to. Let's go to Gary on the Big Island.

[0:36:34] Speaker 11: Yes, just on an emotional level that everyone must carry a gun for protection is just a sad commentary on our society.

[0:36:41] Speaker 2: Okay, I appreciate that. And let's uh let's start Cynthia, you've listened to the 345 callers. Uh, quick reactions to anything that you've heard that requires a reaction.

[0:36:50] Speaker 1: I wanted to say merci to Pierre, and I also want to say thank you to the last caller. That's what I'm trying to say, as policy makers, do we want to look at guns as the solution to our problems in Hawaii? Or do we want to look at let's have a higher arrest and conviction rates? Let's pass the laws that will ensure that. Let's do the funding that's going to ensure that the police will be able to make those arrests, that the judiciary will be able to get those convictions. Lot in his study recognizes that that is a powerful deterrent, and I think I would refer um John Lot to page 65 of his study. I'm sure he has this all memorized. Higher arrest and conviction rates consistently and dramatically reduce the crime rate. To me, that makes good common sense.

[0:37:37] Speaker 2: So you're saying even if a concealed handgun law would help, there are better ways to solve it than that one.

[0:37:43] Speaker 1: I can't agree with the first part of that. You don't think it would help. Okay. I don't believe, no, I for Hawaii, no. I do not believe it would help.

[0:37:48] Speaker 2: John, I give you a chance to react either to what Cynthia just said, or to anything that the callers have said, or to both, go for it.

[0:37:56] Speaker 4: Sure. Well, I mean, I agree that higher arrest rates and higher conviction rates help.

[0:38:00] John R. Lott Jr.: it's due to dramatically lower crime, but what we found was that, I mean, that's those are fairly costly options. You know, the question is, how much are you going to be able to spend or how much are you willing to spend in order to try to reduce it that way. And it's great if Cynthia and other legislators are willing to spend a lot more on those types of things, but, you know, you still with concealed handguns, you, you're not talking about that large of a portion of the population. You're talking about maybe 1 to to 5% or so of the adult population that carries these guns. And you get, even with that small amount, you get these very large reductions in violent crimes. And it's, it's just not anybody who does. The type of people that tend to get these types of permits are the ones that feel the most threatened. Whether they're women whose jobs that require that they have to, uh, go through parking lots or other places late at night, where they may be unaccompanied by other types of people, who could protect them, or, uh, people who feel threatened from other ways. I don't think that this is just a random portion of the population that's going to be willing to spend the money, meet the training requirements, pay the fees. I mean, it's just not your average person that goes out and is willing to bear these cost to be able to get these guns. It's people who feel threat. And, um, and the question is, how best can we try to protect these people. There are lots of different ways to do it. But, uh, why not try a combination of different types of things? Particularly something that's such a low-cost way of doing it. And I, and I want to make one other comment and that is, not everybody has to carry these permits to benefit. I think one of the callers said it, inaccurately, on the head earlier. And that was that since with concealed handguns, a criminal doesn't know until they actually attack someone, whether that person's going to be able to defend themselves or not. And again, defending themselves doesn't mean actually using the gun. Surveys that have been done of this indicate that about 98% of the time when somebody's attacked by by a criminal, they merely have to brandish a gun in order to cause the criminal to break off the attack and leave. And, uh, but that doubt that's created in the criminal's mind, that he doesn't know until he attacks somebody that he normally would perceive as a weak victim until he attacks, that creates benefit for those people who, who don't bear these costs of getting the gun.

[0:40:12] Randall Roth: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:40:44] Cynthia Thielen: Quick reaction. Um the Kellerman study concludes that having a gun in the home makes it three times more likely that a family member or a friend will be killed, and five times more likely that someone in the home will use the gun to commit suicide. The looking at at guns as a solution in Hawaii, just means that we're asking legislators to uh do a knee-jerk reaction and um say, okay, we'll arm people and that will reduce crime. There are better options, maybe the cost is higher, but I think the cost is more um responsible for us to take as legislators. Let's go with higher risks, let's go with conviction rates, let's go with education in the schools to show alternate ways of handling uh violent behavior.

[0:41:09] Randall Roth: Okay. uh, can make one fast question, it's gotta be gotta be quick, gotta be quick, John.

[0:41:14] John R. Lott Jr.: The Kellerman study, basically the survey of 400 people, uh, and there's lots of problems that we could talk about with regard to how they did it. We looked at accidental gun deaths in the entire United States over this 16 year period of time. So, you know, you're talking about the entire population we were examining that. And basically, we were we're not able to find any relationship between these types of concealed handgun laws and accidental gun deaths. Just I think people think they may be a little bit higher I mean than they are. I mean, it's horrible when anybody dies obviously from this type of thing, but you're talking about about 180 or so accidental handgun deaths in the United States each year. And, um, even if that were to somehow double as a result of these types of laws. And as I say, we weren't able to find any change as a result of them. That is tiny compared to the number of saved lives that we estimate is going to be occurring by allowing people to be able to have these guns to defend themselves. I mean, the smallest estimate that we had in terms of reduction in murders, for just those states that didn't have the laws, if they were to adopt it was about 1,400.

[0:42:43] Randall Roth: John, I'm I'm going to have to um to get to our callers or we're not going to have time to get to them. Hang on, I'm going to come back to you and Cynthia at least one more time, but we're going to try to get through every one of the callers who's been waiting real patiently. Let's start with Steve. Good morning, Steve.

[0:42:56] Steve: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:44:13] Brent: Hey there. Am I on now?

[0:44:14] Randall Roth: Is this Brent?

[0:44:15] Brent: Yeah, this is. Yeah, I'll make this real brief. Okay. The first comment I have is that um the law enforcement profession ought to be primarily concerned with ways to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, not guns out of the hands of honest citizens, which is what I believe we're talking about here. I live in a very rural area of the of the Big Island, and if I place a 911 call, I'll be lucky if those guys get here 10 to 15 minutes later. Now, I could understand not having a concealed weapon if the police could absolutely guarantee my safety against violent crime. But I think, you know, there's so many rural areas in the island that, uh, it it would be far more safe for the people to be allowed this, and then the police to do what they can, you know, they're they're really, uh, good service professionals and and they really do their job well, but they're very limited by the distances in a lot of cases and they simply can't do anything to keep us safe. And it's up to us in a lot of cases. And the only other thing I want to say is that right before the totalitarian government took over in Nazi Germany, they did a lot of gun control measures. I just want everybody to think about that.

[0:45:19] Randall Roth: All right. Brent, thanks, thanks for your call. We appreciate it. We go to Dana. I have a hard time hearing most people. I don't know if is it possible to turn up the volume a little bit? Yeah, we we'll get uh we'll get our technical wiz uh Jeff Alardy to turn up the the volume for you. Let's go to Dana on the Big Island. Good morning, Dana.

[0:45:35] Dana: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:46:36] Ken: Hi, how you doing?

[0:46:37] Randall Roth: Fine.

[0:46:38] Ken: Uh I just have a little question on John's data. Uh that's what we're basing most of this discussion on. When you're you're talking about murders, are you talking about deaths by guns, or are you just talking about murders? I know you brought in Israel and Switzerland as examples earlier on. Uh I know in the United States, I can't I don't know the number exactly. It's somewhere in the 25,000 uh range, people are killed every year. In Germany, there are 60 million people, which is a quarter of their population. Like 13 were killed last year. I I just I guess I'm going to leave that out there for discussion or whatever, because the whole handgun issue and the concealed weapon is kind of moot if you know, if we all carry around guns and shoot each other.

[0:47:13] Randall Roth: Okay. John, just in in one minute or less, because we've got some callers that have been waiting and I want to get to them in one minute or less. What would you say to Ken?

[0:47:21] John R. Lott Jr.: Well, I mean, I think it's possible surely to pick one or two countries and make a comparison just between those two countries. I think what one needs to do is not selectively pick countries, but look across all countries, and I don't think you're going to find a positive relationship between gun ownership and murders. We definitely don't see that within the United States. In fact, across states within the United States there is a very strong negative relationship. The states which have the most guns tend to have the lowest murder rates. Uh 14 of the 18 states that have lower murder rates than Hawaii does in the United States have gun ownership rates that are significantly above the national average. Right and I already said this. You know, again, there are these two effects that you have to balance off. There is the fact that some people may use it wrong, but other people are going to be able to defend themselves. And, and, uh the only way you can judge that is by looking at the total.

[0:48:10] Randall Roth: Okay. Well, let's let's leave it at that so that we can get to our last two callers, and I'm going to come back to you, John. I'm going to give Cynthia an opportunity to close her uh this part of the show on this side too. Let's go to Roger and Millilani. Good morning, Roger.

[0:48:21] Roger: Good morning. Um John, considering your statement that citizens carrying concealed weapons uh dramatically deters crime in this somewhat and states that enact legislation. Um I have an example of a case where the opposite is true. In Singapore, they have very very strong gun control laws, you probably are aware of them. If you get caught carrying a bullet, you get five years in jail. If you get caught carrying a gun, you get an automatic death penalty. The last time I checked, the instances of crime, violent crime over there was zero when a gun was involved. Can you comment on that?

[0:48:57] Randall Roth: Let's get a quick comment from John, and then I've got one more caller who's been waiting so long. I feel a more obligation to get to him, but John, can you react to to uh Roger's call real quickly?

[0:49:06] John R. Lott Jr.: Yeah, well, uh you see a lot of variation across countries. What you need to do to study this is you have to look at a country over time, and you have to see was this country was it a high crime country or a low crime country relate to to begin with, and how did its crime rate change relative to other countries when it adopted certain types of rules. And I think if you try to do that type of cross-sectional time series, look at the data across all the countries, you basically find that those countries that uh uh that have relatively strict gun control laws have increases in crime in all sorts of unintended ways. Like one thing that I talk about in the newspaper article that was published today is that if you look at hot burglary rates, those are burglaries that occur while the residents are in the dwelling. The United States, Canada, and Britain have very and Australia have very similar burglary rates. But if you look at hot burglary rates, where the United States is about 13%, and Canada, Britain and Australia, it's about 50%. And what you have happening there is that, uh, the burglars when they're asked, how long do they spend the case a dwelling? They spend about uh twice as long in the United States. And when they do do that, they make sure that nobody is there. And the reason why they do when they're asked is because they're afraid that if they break into a house in the United States, they may get shot. In these other countries, they express no such fear. And, uh, I think when you see gun ownership in these countries change over time, uh because, you know, again you want to look at what the background level of crime is because there are lots of things. They may have different penalties for other things for committing crimes in these countries. Uh there are lots of different reasons why countries have different crime rates. I'm, I think it would be silly to argue that guns are the only thing that's related to this. Okay. We just see an increase in hot burglary rate when uh they have stricter gun control laws and people own fewer guns.

[0:50:58] Randall Roth: We've got a a Craig from Maui, who's been waiting so patiently. I've got to go to him. Craig, good morning.

[0:51:04] Craig: Good morning, and thanks. Uh I have a lot of questions about this data. I haven't seen the paper yet so I I can't really comment. Try to give us your best question because we really are running out of time, Craig. Sure. Uh, we've heard a lot in the last year or so about crime rates in general, specifically violent crime going down across the country and I question whether uh whether the the data that have been compiled by uh by the professor are are relevant in light of that.

[0:51:29] Randall Roth: [unintelligible — audio glitch]

[0:52:31] John R. Lott Jr.: Yeah, no, I think Craig's exactly right. Uh and it's a good question to bring up about why we've been seeing this downward trend since uh 91 in the United States with regard to murder and other types of violent crimes. And I think there are a couple reasons why we see it. And I think we see much higher arrest rates, prison sentences have increased over time. Uh I think also, uh you see big reductions in drug prices over the last uh six or seven years or so, and I think that also has something to do with the reduction in crime. But um but I think what my study shows is that even after you take into account these different factors for why there have been drops in crime, you see drops over and above what the national drop has been in those places which have adopted these uh concealed handgun laws. And John, so I sure understand, we're talking about a majority of the states. Is it you know, when when I first met you John, I assumed that the only states that allowed people to carry a concealed handgun in public would be maybe Texas and Wyoming and Idaho and kind of the wild Wild West states. Am Am I right in saying that it's 31 states, that's what you had in your article this morning. 31 states. Right. It's it's an amazing cross section of states. You have states like Connecticut and Vermont and New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and Kentucky and Washington and Oregon, uh uh you know, and I kind of sidetracked you there, you've got one more minute, John, to close up your side of this discussion. Why don't you go ahead and take that and then I've got to go to Cynthia. Sure. Well, I think a lot of us can easily relate to stories that are on the news about horrible events that happen with people who who use guns improperly. Unfortunately, I don't think we hear quite as often about times where vulnerable people have few options other than having a gun in order to try to prevent horrible and violent things from happening to them. And I think it's wrong to just concentrate on just either side of that equation. What I think we're all concerned about is can we save lives or not? And if we can find a policy that can on net reduce the number of people who are going to be dying from murder by at least 8% or so, seems hard for me to believe that we don't try to look into that more carefully. And if, and I think the evidence shows very strongly that on net, number of lives saved is very dramatic from allowing those people who are the most vulnerable, the most likely to be attacked and in crime situations to be able to try to defend themselves. Police officers can't always be there. And I think when you look at surveys, nationally, police officers, you see overwhelming support for that idea that police officers know they can't protect everybody all the time. John and for law-abiding citizens, I think they're willing to make a distinction than they would from just everybody carrying a gun. John, I really appreciate you participating with us this morning. Uh we shift to Cynthia. Cynthia, we're down to the last couple minutes, go for it.

[0:55:16] Cynthia Thielen: Okay. First of all, if you're going to force permits to be issued for people to carry a concealed weapon, there is absolutely no guarantee that every person that gets a permit is someone that you would feel comfortable with carrying a concealed gun. The corporations that make the guns are going to want to make a profit. They're going to start with an advertising campaign that's going to urge that the solution to everything in our society is to be armed. Do you have your concealed weapon? Here's your option, these are the kinds you could buy. I don't want that for Hawaii. And I'd like to ask our listeners, would you feel safer if the person sitting near you at the football stadium cheering for the opposite side carried a concealed weapon? Would you feel safer if the person on the gun or on the bus with you was carrying a concealed weapon? What about the person in the bar where an argument arises? Do you want that person to be armed? Is this what Hawaii is? Are guns the answer to the Aloha spirit? Cynthia, John, thank you very much. Listeners, you've been listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. Our producer is Susie Roth, our director of operations Jeff Alardy, helping out this morning on the phones Wally and John Roth. Our sponsor is the Hawaii Community Foundation. Next week we're going to be talking about the quality of public education in Hawaii. We have June Motokawa from HSTA, the Teachers Union, Karen Knutson, the chair of the Board of Education, Rod McPhee, retired president of Punoho school, and Cliff Slater, a businessman here in Honolulu, who's very critical of the quality of education in our public schools. You've been listening to the Price of Paradise radio show. I'm Randy Roth. Aloha.