In his September 15, 2000, piece for the New York Times entitled "2 Economists Give Far Higher Cost of Gun Violence" Fox Butterfield reports the findings of two economists that "gun violence costs Americans $100 billion dollars a year". The economists in question, Philip J. Cook of Duke University and Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University, came to these findings for their new book Gun Violence: The Real Costs, to be published next month by Oxford University Press.
According to the article, the researchers "departed from earlier approaches that looked only at costs like the medical expense of treating gunshot wounds and the lost productivity of gunshot victims. Those are only a small part of the real total, the authors say." Butterfield continues, "The much larger price, they say, involves u2018the devastating emotional costs experienced by relatives and friends of gunshot victims, and the fear and general reduction in quality of life that the threat of gun violence imposes on everyone in America, including people who are not victimized.' These include all manner of costs, from the time lost waiting in line at airports to pass through metal detectors, to the difference between actual property values in violent neighborhoods and what those values would be if there was no gun violence."
Now, at this juncture, you may be asking yourself "How did these esteemed economists arrive at this figure of $100 billion dollars from such a large pool of data?" According to Mr. Butterfield, they used a method called "contingent valuation", in which they ask people how much they would pay to avoid a problem, in this case gun violence. To arrive at their conclusion, the authors of the study executed "a nationally representative telephone survey", in which "1,200 people were asked how much they would pay per year to reduce criminal gunshot injuries. The authors applied the results to the nation’s entire population to reach a figure of $80 billion." What of the remaining $20 billion? Butterfield writes, "As for accidental shootings and gun suicides, the authors drew on previous studies of losses in the workplace and on jury awards to determine the statistical value of life and the costs of nonfatal injuries. That sum came to $20 billion."
Or thereabouts. Give-or-take. Plus-or-minus. In the vicinity of.
Now, I get a lot of calls during the dinner hour from folks doing their best to sell me time share condos, switch my long distance carrier, or get me to donate to the Police Benevolent Association, but I have got to admit, I have never received a call like the aforementioned "nationally representative telephone survey". If I were to receive a call in which the first question is "How much money would you pay to avoid gun violence?" I can assure you, I would come up with a pretty damned big number. On the other hand, if the question were rephrased, "How much would you pay so that somebody-you-don't-know-two-hundred –and-fifty- miles-from-here-in-another -state could avoid gun violence?" well, that figure might slip just a tad.
I must also admit, right up front, that I don't have an advanced degree in economics like the gentlemen in question, so I don't know how to cut through all the subtleties of such polling to arrive at "the hard numbers." Still, I have to think that there is something amiss here.
Using the "contingent valuation" methodology, I would think you could come up with all kinds of amazing statistics. For example, let's say I get a call while I'm eating my Hamburger Helper tonight, and a gentlemen on the other end of the line asks me how much I would pay per year to avoid dealing with my mother-in law. I give him a figure of, say, $1,500. If she had just done something to really get me steamed, I might up it to $2,000, so there is a variable right there. But, for the sake of argument, let's stick with the $1,500 number for now. I have to assume here that the callers would now proceed to dial up 1,199 other hapless diners and ask the man-of-the-house the same question.
If my fifteen hundred dollars was representative of the average figure, the total amount that American husbands (using 1998 U.S. Census figures for married couples) would be willing to pay to avoid their mothers-in-law would top $82 billion dollars! Even if I were to allow that some guys would probably not be willing to cough up the fifteen hundred, I would have to think that the number would still be in the tens of billions! We could then refer to that downsized number of, say $60 billion, as "a conservative estimate."
These expert researchers would now be able to publish a book called Mothers-In-Law: The Real Costs and officially declare that the adverse cost to Americans of mothers-in-law is in excess of $60 billion, because that is how much American men are willing to pay annually to avoid them based, of course, on a "nationally representative telephone survey."
What baloney.
The truth is that no one can arrive at an accurate number for the intangibles that these individuals are tying to measure. How much is a human life worth? What is the quantitative effect of a life lost, especially a life lost early. You might be able to get close to guessing lifetime earnings, but that's about it. Would the deceased have had children? What would those children have accomplished? What was the deceased's occupation? Did the deceased's lost life impact others directly or indirectly in terms of their financial productivity? If an individual's life were saved through the use of a gun, would you add some figure back in as an offset to the $100 billion, just to keep things honest?
The other problem with this type of analysis is that is assumes "either-or" absolutes. It deals with the concept of "gun violence", as though that were somehow worse than "plain old violence" of the generic sort. You know, the kind of violence that doesn't frighten people. Stabbings, beatings, strangling – that sort of thing.
Also, does a violent neighborhood suddenly become nonviolent in the absence of firearms? One could argue that it might become more violent, since the weak and infirm would have no chance against the predators in society. If there were no guns, would airports eliminate metal detectors? Hardly. If there were no guns, would we no longer require a Secret Service, or security personnel for our elected officials? Fat chance.
These researchers, Cook and Ludwig, are the same individuals who have spent vast amounts of energy attempting to debunk the findings of Dr. Gary Kleck (Florida State University) that 2.5 million Americans use a gun defensively against a criminal attacker each year (Kleck and Gertz, 1995). The primary argument against Dr. Kleck's study is to attack his methodology, which was – surprise! – a survey! Why would Dr. Kleck's survey be suspect? Because you can't count on people to tell the truth in a survey! Unless, apparently, the survey is to ask you how much you would pay to avoid gun violence.
The reality is that this study was created for the sole purpose of pumping a bogus, astronomical figure regarding "gun violence" costs out to the public just in time for the media lapdogs of the Democrats to regurgitate the numbers ad infinitum prior to the 2000 election.
Wait and see. My bet is we'll be hearing a lot more about this study before November 7th rolls around.
September 18, 2000
Jef Allen is a technology professional in Georgia. As a reformed Yankee, who has lived in the South for roughly twenty years, he has very little tolerance for Northern sanctimony, or the erosion of individual liberty.
