With Crime on the Rise, Is It Safer to Take Up Firearms?

It is one of the existential dilemmas of the 1990s: To be armed or not to be?

Is it safer to take up firearms against what many perceive as a rising tide of crime, including burglary and home-invasion robberies, or is stashing a .38-caliber pistol in the night stand or under the pillow an invitation to disaster?

One view gets support from a recent study published in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology: Gary Kleck and Miriam A. DeLone report that those who use a gun to resist a robbery attempt are less likely to be injured than those who are unarmed.

“Guns are basically effective for everyone using them,” said Kleck, a professor at Florida State University in Tallahassee. “A gun will get you what you want.”

Kleck does not suggest homeowners arm themselves. He will not even say if he owns a handgun himself. But he says his research shows that guns are deterrents to crime and are used defensively more than 1 million times a year in the United States, although they are usually not fired in those cases.

“When crime victims use guns in self-defense, they are less likely to be injured, even compared to people who do nothing to resist,” he said.

Kleck has been studying the use of handguns for years, and his work is often cited by gun lobbies, such as the National Rifle Assn., in making the case for a well-armed citizenry.

But gun-control advocates charge that Kleck’s figures are bogus, inflated, misinterpreted and based on data from government surveys that even Kleck admits are up to 14 years old.

“The risks of having a gun greatly outweigh any possible benefit,” said Susan Whitmore, a spokesperson for Handgun Control Inc., a Washington-based lobbying group.

She noted the frequency of deaths stemming from accidental and impetuous use of readily available firearms: On an average day in this country, 14 people under the age of 19 die from gunshot wounds. Last year, some 34,000 people died from gunshot wounds, and about 1,500 of those shootings were accidental. More than 200,000 others suffered injuries from firearms.

The arguments about gun ownership often mix emotion with reason and can confuse even those who have had personal experience with armed assault and gunplay.

In May, for example, Miami Beach Police Chief Phillip Huber was awakened by a burglar in the middle of the night, grabbed his .38-caliber revolver and chased the man, firing a shot as the would-be thief sped away in a car. The chief missed, but he said he is sure having a gun saved him from harm.

Just across Biscayne Bay, armed thugs invaded Miami Mayor Xavier Suarez’s home three years ago. Suarez picked up his handgun and screamed a warning from the top of the stairs. The men fled after taking money and jewelry. Suarez never fired a shot. Suarez says he isn’t sure having a handgun helped save his family from injury or death. “I can’t imagine shooting at a human being,” he said. Today, Miami’s mayor does not own a gun; he’s studying karate.

With 200 million firearms in the United States, including 65 million to 70 million handguns, no gun-control legislation is expected to result in disarmament.

At least one city, Kennesaw, Ga., about 20 miles northwest of Atlanta, requires its citizens to own a gun. Under an ordinance passed in 1982, only convicted felons, the mentally ill and conscientious objectors are exempted.

Even as Kennesaw’s population doubled, from 5,000 in 1982 to about 10,000 today, crime decreased. Although there have been no studies to prove that the gun law is responsible, Cheryl Peppers, the clerk of courts, thinks it’s only common sense.

“If you come down here and was going to break in, knowing they had a gun in the house, that would keep you from doing it, wouldn’t it?” she asked. “It would me.”

Researchers Anna Virtue in Miami and Edith Stanley in Atlanta contributed to this story.