Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's w Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff you should know. Wow. Yeah, Uh you want to give like just a general ceoa out of the gate. Yes, this is a hot button issue guns right now in this country, in the United States. It's a very tough topic, and we are here to talk about do guns change your behavior and studies that they've done on that. We are not advocating for guns or advocating for gun control. We are just presenting evidence that some people have presented. Yeah, how's that. Well. We should say also that I think some especially people who are pro gun, um are they? I mean, your sensitivity might be a little um right now. Yeah, but I'm saying, like you, this, this particular podcast may strike you as as biased, even though it's not, simply because the studies have found things like you know, there are increased homicide rates and suicide rates associated with guns and things like that. So we're again we're just reporting some compiled body of work and we're presenting in an unbiased manner. Good job, thanks man. So um, we just kind of let the cat out of the bank. And if you are in the guns, if you are pro gun, you will probably point out that you own guns for sport, your own guns for home protection. Um. And you may point to a statistic that ownership of guns in the United States is higher than it ever has been at any point and not necessarily coincidentally, the homicide rate has dropped since that's right, So there's an inverse correlation, you could say, between gun ownership in the United States and just by a number of guns and the homicide rate. Yeah, which, uh, gun advocates will say, you know, like, give people more guns and it will be actually less violence because if everyone is armed, then there will be fewer people like invading your home because hey, I know you've got a gun in there, that kind of thing. Um. Now, the other side, people who are in favor of gun control would point out that, yes, the homicide rate has dropped, um, but there's actually fewer people who own guns than ever before, Fewer households, yes, with guns, but more the people that have guns have more guns. And yeah, as Mark Twain famously said, there are three types of lies, lies, damn lines, and statistics. And this is a pretty good example of that. Like, this is one statistic that can be looked at two different ways. Yeah, Like, there's more guns in the United States than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped. There's also fewer people in the United States who own guns than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped. Right, it's just fewer people owning more guns, right. Um, And boy, you were dead on with the statistic thing in this, uh topic, Because depending on how you want to research, you're gonna find statistics to support your way of thinking. Probably, Um, so what we encourage people to do, you probably have your mind made up anyway on this issue. A data, if a statistic, is going to change anyone in his mind. But go out and just look at all the non biased research, is what I say. Yeah, don't go to n r A and get your stats, and don't go to whatever the n r A equivalent and gun equivalent is and get your stats. Try and get them from like unbiased sources. Uh. Yeah. And one of the former um unbiased sources that used to put out a lot of UM gun violence studies unbiased you would imagine, is the CDC. Yeah, And the CDC used to put out a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff there there, and then there was a dearth of it beginning in which I didn't know about this until today. In the n r A successfully lobbied Congress to stop funding the CDC's work on gun violence. Yes. Um, And this is where it gets a little nitpicky with the wording. They didn't specifically say you can't research gun violence. What they did was they reduced the amount of funding by the exact dollar amount that they spent the previous year on research, and at attached this quote to it in the appropriations bill, none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the CDC may be used to advocate or promote gun control. So uh, pro gun folks would say, you know, and we never said they couldn't do any research. What we said was, you can't do research that has findings that support gun control. So if the findings support gun control, you can't do that, basically, right, And anything like any finding that showed that, you know, there's an increased risk of violence linked to guns, you could interpret under that sentence as advocating gun control. Yeah. And in two thousand three, the language is updated to include a whole or in part which expanded things, and then in twelve it expanded the restriction to all health and human service agencies. Although January of this year, President Obama has now hauled for funding specifically for he had I think it's twenty three point memo, Yeah, of what he wanted to get through in terms of research. Yeah, those were the executive orders that he could carry out that had to do with gun control. Basically ten million bucks for additional research, which is a lot more than they used to get it peaked at two point six millions. So throwing ten million dollars at this today, even adjusted for inflation, that's going to produce a lot more studies on um gun violence for the CDC and people. Before you get worked up, this is research. They are saying, we should do research on this. They're they're basically framing it as a public health epidemic because people are dying. And hey, we study how violent or how how automobiles kill people. We study how alcohol and drugs skill people, we study how everything is killed. Everything kills people except the guns, right, so we should start researching this just to get some current statistics on it. And if you want to get rolled up about anything, get rolled up about the idea that Congress banned scientific study period. Yeah, and you can basically from the research I found, you can lay this at the feet of Bob bar and new Gingrich's basically the two representatives from Georgia new Ingridg's head almost as much power as Clinton, and um, yeah, that was pretty much who was responsible for this. Well. J. Dicky, the the representative who sponsored the amendment back then, has now recanted and said, you know what, he's no longer in office, but he wrote an editorial stating that quote, scientific research should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries, and that ways to prevent firearm desks can be found without encroaching on the rights of legitimate gun owners. So basically he's come out and said, you know, we should research this stuff, not saying banned guns or go to people's houses and grab the guns, but at the very least, we should do the research so we know what we're talking about and so the American public can make their own informed decisions one way or the other. Right, that's right, Okay, So that's why there was a there's been a dearth of reliable statistics since Um, but CDC is not the only people carrying out um this kind of research. Other people have who are independent of Congress for funding. Yeah, not a ton though, because there's not a lot of funding period. So it's pretty sad, Like I read this one article on that a lot of the people that did this. It's not like you can just pick any old researcher and say research gun violence like you have to have it, like it has to be your specialty. And a lot of people have just don't do this anymore because of that band. So it's sadly it's hard to find people qualified enough to even do it now. Yeah, I mean, no matter what it is, people go to where the money is, right, absolutely, Um, So the the stuff that we do have though, the studies we do have, reliable studies that we do have pretty much across the board point to an increased risk of death if a gun's present. But before, I guess, before we talk about that, yeah, I think now it's probably a good time for a message, Rick, Okay, let's talk about them the weapon effect. Yeah, this is a very touchy subject as well. Um. In nineteen sixty seven, Uh, these two dudes, Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony lapage Um did a little study where they brought people into a room, had UM the participants UH antagonized basically by someone else, just to get them rilled up, and then they left the room and were told that they could give them electric shocks. Some people had a gun in the room on the table and they said, don't worry about that, that's just here from a previous study. Some people had bad mitten rackets and they said, don't worry about that from a previous study. And they found that just the presence of guns in the room caused people to shock more and harder at a higher voltage. So they dubbed that the weapons effect, saying, just the mere presence of a gun in the room, even when told to ignore it, increased UM I grow behavior basically. And there's that's been backed up by other studies. There's one in two thousand six that showed that UM interacting with the gun actually increases the testosterone levels of men. Wow, that is a lot. That's a huge increase, right, UM. So this study basically they said, here, play with this gun and then UM, now we're gonna firstly, took a swab and tested the testosterone levels. Then they said, here, play with this gun, and afterward we're gonna take another swab. But in the meantime, we're also gonna let you put hot sauce in the water of somebody who's gonna have to drink it. And the the men who um handled the gun and messed around with the gun for a while put um far more hot sauce into the water than the men who didn't handle a gun, three times as much hot sauce. And the same two previous guys, Berkowitz and Lapage did another one that I found really interesting. Um they put a pickup truck in traffic with um, well different pickup trucks, some with guns in the rack and some without a gun rack at all, and made them sit at a traffic light that had turned green for twelve seconds to see how people behind them responded. And surprisingly, people were more likely to haunk their horns if there was a gun in the truck ahead of them, which they said that meant see, the presence of a gun just makes people more aggressive, Whereas I was kind of like, ah, that that's sort of weird that they would be more aggressive towards someone with a gun when you didn't have one. Yeah, well, it's almost like possibly that people interpret that as a threat. Just the presence of a gun maybe someone else is flaunting to the rest of the world is just kind of some sort of veiled threat despite its very presence. We UM. We detect guns actually faster than we detect um snakes, spiders. These are things called fear relevant stimuli and guns, fall, guns, syringes they fall into this category as well. And humans are hardwired evolutionarily to to be able to pick out a snake out of a landscape faster than say, we can pick out like a wood chuck, a chipmunk or something like that, because we know from eons of of of evolution that these things are very dangerous to us. Studies have found that we can pick guns out faster than we can pick snakes out. So yeah, yeah, that's very quick evolution. It's it's called the threat superiority effect, where we can we can identify threatening objects faster than non threatening objects. And apparently guns and syringes too, I think are topping the list these days. Uh. They also found that UM drivers who have a gun in the car were significantly more likely to UM do things like makeup scene gestures that other people compared to sixteen percent, UM follow too close aggressively four to eight percent, or both six point three percent to two point eight percent. So uh. And then they even found that even when guns weren't around, just the mere suggestion of aggressive words as opposed to non aggressive words like gun, Uh, people were more aggressive in these studies. So, you know, people, a lot of people have supported the weapons effect study and said no, it's perfectly valid. And a lot of people have said no, you know what the weapons effect is bs and that study is invalid. So, um, which one is? Which one is larger? Yeah? Right? Exactly? Which? I don't know? I mean I think, as with all things, that depends on who you're talking to, you know, I don't know if there's it's been broken down like that. Um. Okay, So it seems to there seems to be some sort of evidence at least that there's the potential for increased aggression um with the presence of a gun. Right. There's also um studies that show and this is the one apparently. I don't know why people aren't talking about this more, especially with the gun debate that's going on now. But if you want to talk about a correlation, talk about suicide and the presence of guns. I think that's one that's pretty much not been refuted. Um, there were a lot of gun deaths in the US and two thousand and eleven, UM, eleven thousand of them were homicides and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixties six were suicides, all with firearms. So twice as many people took their own lives with a gun then took someone else's life. Yeah, and not only that, you UM. And again I hate not having more recent research, but it's not our fault that we it point to a study from three years ago, you know. Um, but a nine study by the CDC said that if you have a gun in the home, you were five times more likely to commit suicide overall. And um, in two thousand three, there actually was another study that said access to a gun made someone more than three times more likely to commit suicide than without. UM and eight of people who shoot themselves succeed in dying, Which, well, that's why they think that the correlation is so strong. That then, so that's for people who really want to end it, not to cry for help. Yeah, but probably not gonna shoot yourself in the head if it's a cry for help. Right, but what the what what the people who are saying this is legitimate research are pointing to is that this is that suicide is frequently an impulsive act. Uh. And when you're in the midst of a crisis and you are, um, you've decided to end it. Yeah, if you do it, if you try hanging or pills or carbon monoxide or whatever, you are less likely to be successful than you are with a firearm. And so the presence of a firearm in the house during that time of crisis increases your likelihood of committing suicide by a firearm. Yeah, but also chuck there. There's another study that found that people who own a handgun and commit suicide are far more likely to use the handgun than another type of method. Oh right, even though that's available to them as well. Right right, Well, I guess, like I said, those people that probably really want to end it all. Um. Interestingly, the Israeli Defense Force found that their suicide rate dropped among its soldiers just by saying you can't take your weapons home this weekend, so they banned them from taking the weapons home over the weekend. Suicide rate drop. Regardless where you stand on this issue, it has pretty much been proven that guns in suicide. There is a direct correlation going on there. Okay, homicide, should we move on, Yes, let's move on. Um. So, there's study that found that UM family disputes that turned violent were three times more likely to result in death if the gun was present in the house. UM, and this was this was There was another study by the CDC that found that homicides are about three times more likely for family members in a house where there's a gun. Two studies have found virtually the same thing, the presence of a gun, at least in the nineties. The swing in nineties, having a gun in the house meant that each of the family members was three times more likely apparently to UM die by a homicide. Right, and that is the domestic dispute that gets out of hand. If a gun is around, then your chances are hired that it's going to be in and murder. Well, one said, a family dispute that turns violent, you're three times more likely to result in death. The other one, the CDC one, I think, was just plainly saying just having a gun in the house to three times more likely to die by homicide. Right, Okay, I guess it's fair to point out though that most murdered murders don't happen at your home unless, yeah, you're a woman, a child, or elderly. So basically, if you're a average age man, you're you're less likely to be murdered in your house. Everybody else is more likely. Right, So, but if you were killed in your home, um, the vast majority are people who knew the perpetrator. Like, basically, the cases of someone breaking into your house who you do not know and ending and death are are much lower than than here. It is right here, Fewer than of burglaries in the US occur when someone's at home, period, and and the seven percent where violence does occur, Uh, it's more likely to be someone you know. So five percent of all the crimes perpetrated by strangers occur, only five percent occur in the house. So you're basically what the saying is, the home is a pretty safe place by and large, and so just having a gun that you keep at home. Um, these studies then suggest actually increases your likelihood of you or someone you love who lives in that house killing one another, rather than somebody coming into your house and you're protecting yourself USA that. Yeah, and they even, uh, they went to the streets in night in two thousand nine in Philadelphia and looked at six and seventy seven shootings over a couple of years, and they found that people that carry guns were four and a half times more likely to be shot and four point two times more likely to be killed. And I guess the thinking there is, if you have a gun, you may just feel more aggressive or more um likely to act ra actually or put yourself in a bad part of town because hey, I've got this protection, or to be aggressive because you know you've got that protection. That kind of thing, um, if you And there's this really really great article, UM from two thousand ten that was in Harper's Magazine. It was in the August two thousand ten UM issue. It's called Happiness is a Warren Gun, and it's this guy's like this basically his life carrying a gun and like just what it's like. It's just a really great look at what it's like to have a gun on you at all times and like what that means. Um. He says, you're in condition white, which is basically you're constantly on high alert because if you're carrying a gun, you have a sense of responsibility not just for yourself, but you also need to protect everybody else if somebody starts shooting or if there's a robbery or something like that. That's why you have a gun on you. So you feel a sense of stewardship of just other people, strangers in public. Well sort you're the police all of a sudden. Yeah. Um. And so you live in this thing, this this state of called condition white, where you're just your threat response, You're you're is constantly on at some level, which can control Advocates I'm sure are all about condition white, right, They're like, yeah, that's exactly what we're looking for, is people to be alert and armed. Yeah. Um. This guy, believe came to the conclusion that he was tired of living in condition white as it's too exhausting, and I think he stopped carrying. Maybe I don't remember how it ends, but um, it's a really great article. I would recommend anybody on either side of the of the issue to read that Happiness is a Warren Gun in Harper's. I saw dude in the grocery store the other day with a piece on his hip, checking out in front of me by a six pack of beer. Yeah, and it definitely, like, I don't care who you are. When someone walks in the room with a gun on their hip these days, it changes the mood. I'm not saying it makes things bad or good. I'm just saying it changes things. I think it probably always has. Yeah, it's a weird thing. I mean, I definitely see where people get divided on the issue because here in Atlanta there's a lot of crime. You hear about a story where some dude went to carjack some guy and the dude had a gun in his car and shot the guy and now that guy is behind bars. I can see how people would be like, good, he stopped a criminal like a cop would have. Whereas, you know, cops generally investigate already happened crimes. Rarely does a cop like thwart a crime in progress. It's just right place whereyme time, right time, and so like random how that works out. Whereas if the citizens had the guns, they could do that themselves. So I can see how people get all up in arms and say, yeah, you know, there's a case of a person that defended themselves successfully, And then the other person might say, yeah, but what about that guy whose son accidentally shoots himself in the house when the guns out, Like it's two separate four year olds yesterday accidentally killed two different people in two different states. Yeah, the wife of a sheriff's deputy was killed by a four year old at her house. Yeah, Like there's with every story or with no matter how you feel about it, you can pick the cherry pick of story to fit your your beliefs. It's pretty like the issue is very, very far from clear cut, and it's yeah, it's just very hard to not see both sides. I agree with you. There's a guy named David hem and Way that wrote an article called Risks and Benefits of a Gun in the Home for the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine in two thousand eleven. And this is a sort of a newer thing where they're starting to frame it. Like I said, it's a health issue, like when people are dying, you should look at it as a health issue. So he investigates it as such, and um came out on the side of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who officially have said do not have a gun in in the home if you're a parent, Um that they've they've the result of this study, at least from him, and Way says, the evidence is overwhelming that a gun in the house is more of a risk factor for completed suicide UH and general violence than the benefit side. There are fewer studies, UM that come out saying it's actually a benefit to have in the home. And kenne Saw George is a big uh. People point to kenness All out because it very famously had a law passed that mandated that you have a gun in your home, and people have always says, well, look at Kennessaw crime has gone down, he says him, and Way says that that is not true, and if you look at the evidence, it is not shown to decrease burglary reports at all. And also famously in Morton Grove, Illinois, that was a ban on handguns and uh, he points out him and Way says, a careful analysis points out that UM in Morton Grove, the banning of handguns actually followed was actually followed by a large uh significant decrease in burglary reports, so no one had guns and there were a fewer burglaries, which lies in the face of what Kinnesas is trying to do, saying guns in the household will prevent burglaries. Well, yeah, there's UM and I don't know the stats off the top of my head, but there's a there's a pretty good stat um like England has very very strict gun control and very low homicide rates um from guns. Uh. And I think a lot of people also point out like, Okay, well, if you don't have guns, you're still gonna have knives, and people are still going to kill each other. But I think that UM, if you are a gun control advocate, you would point out that, UM, it's kind of like the completed suicide thing, like, yeah, people are still getting to try to kill themselves, but they might not be successful, and afterward they might be glad that they weren't successful because their situation might improve. If you go to kill somebody in a fit of rage and you have a gun, you're more likely to be successful than say with a knife or a baseball bat or something like that. Um, And therefore not being able to complete this homicide, UH, this situation may improve for both people, especially the one who's not killed. UM. All right, well that's guns. I hope you guys made it through this one. Yeah, well, I think we should do one on the n r A, just to learn a little bit more about that organization and round this thing out. Um. Okay, we'll look for that one in the future, I guess. Huh Uh. If you want to learn more about guns, type that word into the search part how stuff works dot Com and will bring up a bunch of stuff, uh, including how guns work. Uh. If I already said that whole spiel about the search par didn't I, it means, then, friends, it's now time for message break uh and Chuck take us out with some listener mail. Huh. Yeah, um, this is another Peace Corps email, and we we get a lot of these because we find that a we did one on the Peace Corps, but before that even we got a lot from Peace Corps folks because I think they're world travelers who are curious and like to listen to things on the Chicken bus. You know what I'm saying. I wanted to send you guys an email since I finally finished the long List of Stuff You Shnow podcast that I downloaded to pass the time while riding on Chicken busses throughout Ecuador, as a current Peace Corps volunteer in a gold producing region of your the world and a former outfitter in Yellowstone National Park. I really enjoyed the podcast on Peace Corps coffee, gold, Lison Geyser's and Thoroughbread's what I know about these topics. You guys are pretty much spot on, uh And I'm also a bit of a plant nerd, so I really enjoyed the Randy Moss joke on a Loss episode that that was a good one, well played. What I was really emailing about was see if you guys give a shout out to my long time friend Katherine Lifelong. Even she and I grew up in South Dakota together and have been friends since kindergarten. Even though we went to colleges across the country from each other, we managed to remain close friends the last twenty years. Unfortunately, due to being in the Peace Corps, was unable to make it back for her wedding and miss the opportunity to be her maid of honor. Although she doesn't have any hard feelings, I still haven't made that one up to her and she would love it if you guys gave her a shout She turned me onto the podcast in fact and saying she enjoys listening to it on our own way to work. I have been hooked on it ever since. So thank you guys, Chuck and Josh and Jerry for providing Katherine and I with another link in our friendship. Um, not to mention the fact that you provide me with weekly trivia effects that have plan on using the twenty something bar scene when I moved back to the States. So that is from Whitney and hello Catherine, And that's nice that you gave Whitney a break for not being your maid of honor. Yeah, she's in the Peace Corps after all. Yeah, it's much better, bigger than your little wedding. Geez, the Peace Corps just bigger than anybody's wedding. I'm sure Catherine would disagree with you, but um, that was very nice. Who who is the person who writeing Whitney? That's right, Thanks Whitney for writing in. Um. If you have a story that you want to share about how Chuck and I have brought you closer to somebody, we love those, let us know all about it. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to uh stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. He can join us at our home on the web that is www. Dot stuff you should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com? Like a good neighbor state farm is there with eighteen thousand agents across the country who are ready to help you. Seven that's getting to a better state.

Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Child's w Chuck Bryant, and uh, this is stuff you should know. Wow. Yeah, Uh you want to give like just a general ceoa out of the gate. Yes, this is a hot button issue guns right now in this country, in the United States. It's a very tough topic, and we are here to talk about do guns change your behavior and studies that they've done on that. We are not advocating for guns or advocating for gun control. We are just presenting evidence that some people have presented. Yeah, how's that. Well. We should say also that I think some especially people who are pro gun, um are they? I mean, your sensitivity might be a little um right now. Yeah, but I'm saying, like you, this, this particular podcast may strike you as as biased, even though it's not, simply because the studies have found things like you know, there are increased homicide rates and suicide rates associated with guns and things like that. So we're again we're just reporting some compiled body of work and we're presenting in an unbiased manner. Good job, thanks man. So um, we just kind of let the cat out of the bank. And if you are in the guns, if you are pro gun, you will probably point out that you own guns for sport, your own guns for home protection. Um. And you may point to a statistic that ownership of guns in the United States is higher than it ever has been at any point and not necessarily coincidentally, the homicide rate has dropped since that's right, So there's an inverse correlation, you could say, between gun ownership in the United States and just by a number of guns and the homicide rate. Yeah, which, uh, gun advocates will say, you know, like, give people more guns and it will be actually less violence because if everyone is armed, then there will be fewer people like invading your home because hey, I know you've got a gun in there, that kind of thing. Um. Now, the other side, people who are in favor of gun control would point out that, yes, the homicide rate has dropped, um, but there's actually fewer people who own guns than ever before, Fewer households, yes, with guns, but more the people that have guns have more guns. And yeah, as Mark Twain famously said, there are three types of lies, lies, damn lines, and statistics. And this is a pretty good example of that. Like, this is one statistic that can be looked at two different ways. Yeah, Like, there's more guns in the United States than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped. There's also fewer people in the United States who own guns than ever before, and the homicide rate has dropped. Right, it's just fewer people owning more guns, right. Um, And boy, you were dead on with the statistic thing in this, uh topic, Because depending on how you want to research, you're gonna find statistics to support your way of thinking. Probably, Um, so what we encourage people to do, you probably have your mind made up anyway on this issue. A data, if a statistic, is going to change anyone in his mind. But go out and just look at all the non biased research, is what I say. Yeah, don't go to n r A and get your stats, and don't go to whatever the n r A equivalent and gun equivalent is and get your stats. Try and get them from like unbiased sources. Uh. Yeah. And one of the former um unbiased sources that used to put out a lot of UM gun violence studies unbiased you would imagine, is the CDC. Yeah, And the CDC used to put out a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff there there, and then there was a dearth of it beginning in which I didn't know about this until today. In the n r A successfully lobbied Congress to stop funding the CDC's work on gun violence. Yes. Um, And this is where it gets a little nitpicky with the wording. They didn't specifically say you can't research gun violence. What they did was they reduced the amount of funding by the exact dollar amount that they spent the previous year on research, and at attached this quote to it in the appropriations bill, none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the CDC may be used to advocate or promote gun control. So uh, pro gun folks would say, you know, and we never said they couldn't do any research. What we said was, you can't do research that has findings that support gun control. So if the findings support gun control, you can't do that, basically, right, And anything like any finding that showed that, you know, there's an increased risk of violence linked to guns, you could interpret under that sentence as advocating gun control. Yeah. And in two thousand three, the language is updated to include a whole or in part which expanded things, and then in twelve it expanded the restriction to all health and human service agencies. Although January of this year, President Obama has now hauled for funding specifically for he had I think it's twenty three point memo, Yeah, of what he wanted to get through in terms of research. Yeah, those were the executive orders that he could carry out that had to do with gun control. Basically ten million bucks for additional research, which is a lot more than they used to get it peaked at two point six millions. So throwing ten million dollars at this today, even adjusted for inflation, that's going to produce a lot more studies on um gun violence for the CDC and people. Before you get worked up, this is research. They are saying, we should do research on this. They're they're basically framing it as a public health epidemic because people are dying. And hey, we study how violent or how how automobiles kill people. We study how alcohol and drugs skill people, we study how everything is killed. Everything kills people except the guns, right, so we should start researching this just to get some current statistics on it. And if you want to get rolled up about anything, get rolled up about the idea that Congress banned scientific study period. Yeah, and you can basically from the research I found, you can lay this at the feet of Bob bar and new Gingrich's basically the two representatives from Georgia new Ingridg's head almost as much power as Clinton, and um, yeah, that was pretty much who was responsible for this. Well. J. Dicky, the the representative who sponsored the amendment back then, has now recanted and said, you know what, he's no longer in office, but he wrote an editorial stating that quote, scientific research should be conducted into preventing firearm injuries, and that ways to prevent firearm desks can be found without encroaching on the rights of legitimate gun owners. So basically he's come out and said, you know, we should research this stuff, not saying banned guns or go to people's houses and grab the guns, but at the very least, we should do the research so we know what we're talking about and so the American public can make their own informed decisions one way or the other. Right, that's right, Okay, So that's why there was a there's been a dearth of reliable statistics since Um, but CDC is not the only people carrying out um this kind of research. Other people have who are independent of Congress for funding. Yeah, not a ton though, because there's not a lot of funding period. So it's pretty sad, Like I read this one article on that a lot of the people that did this. It's not like you can just pick any old researcher and say research gun violence like you have to have it, like it has to be your specialty. And a lot of people have just don't do this anymore because of that band. So it's sadly it's hard to find people qualified enough to even do it now. Yeah, I mean, no matter what it is, people go to where the money is, right, absolutely, Um, So the the stuff that we do have though, the studies we do have, reliable studies that we do have pretty much across the board point to an increased risk of death if a gun's present. But before, I guess, before we talk about that, yeah, I think now it's probably a good time for a message, Rick, Okay, let's talk about them the weapon effect. Yeah, this is a very touchy subject as well. Um. In nineteen sixty seven, Uh, these two dudes, Leonard Berkowitz and Anthony lapage Um did a little study where they brought people into a room, had UM the participants UH antagonized basically by someone else, just to get them rilled up, and then they left the room and were told that they could give them electric shocks. Some people had a gun in the room on the table and they said, don't worry about that, that's just here from a previous study. Some people had bad mitten rackets and they said, don't worry about that from a previous study. And they found that just the presence of guns in the room caused people to shock more and harder at a higher voltage. So they dubbed that the weapons effect, saying, just the mere presence of a gun in the room, even when told to ignore it, increased UM I grow behavior basically. And there's that's been backed up by other studies. There's one in two thousand six that showed that UM interacting with the gun actually increases the testosterone levels of men. Wow, that is a lot. That's a huge increase, right, UM. So this study basically they said, here, play with this gun and then UM, now we're gonna firstly, took a swab and tested the testosterone levels. Then they said, here, play with this gun, and afterward we're gonna take another swab. But in the meantime, we're also gonna let you put hot sauce in the water of somebody who's gonna have to drink it. And the the men who um handled the gun and messed around with the gun for a while put um far more hot sauce into the water than the men who didn't handle a gun, three times as much hot sauce. And the same two previous guys, Berkowitz and Lapage did another one that I found really interesting. Um they put a pickup truck in traffic with um, well different pickup trucks, some with guns in the rack and some without a gun rack at all, and made them sit at a traffic light that had turned green for twelve seconds to see how people behind them responded. And surprisingly, people were more likely to haunk their horns if there was a gun in the truck ahead of them, which they said that meant see, the presence of a gun just makes people more aggressive, Whereas I was kind of like, ah, that that's sort of weird that they would be more aggressive towards someone with a gun when you didn't have one. Yeah, well, it's almost like possibly that people interpret that as a threat. Just the presence of a gun maybe someone else is flaunting to the rest of the world is just kind of some sort of veiled threat despite its very presence. We UM. We detect guns actually faster than we detect um snakes, spiders. These are things called fear relevant stimuli and guns, fall, guns, syringes they fall into this category as well. And humans are hardwired evolutionarily to to be able to pick out a snake out of a landscape faster than say, we can pick out like a wood chuck, a chipmunk or something like that, because we know from eons of of of evolution that these things are very dangerous to us. Studies have found that we can pick guns out faster than we can pick snakes out. So yeah, yeah, that's very quick evolution. It's it's called the threat superiority effect, where we can we can identify threatening objects faster than non threatening objects. And apparently guns and syringes too, I think are topping the list these days. Uh. They also found that UM drivers who have a gun in the car were significantly more likely to UM do things like makeup scene gestures that other people compared to sixteen percent, UM follow too close aggressively four to eight percent, or both six point three percent to two point eight percent. So uh. And then they even found that even when guns weren't around, just the mere suggestion of aggressive words as opposed to non aggressive words like gun, Uh, people were more aggressive in these studies. So, you know, people, a lot of people have supported the weapons effect study and said no, it's perfectly valid. And a lot of people have said no, you know what the weapons effect is bs and that study is invalid. So, um, which one is? Which one is larger? Yeah? Right? Exactly? Which? I don't know? I mean I think, as with all things, that depends on who you're talking to, you know, I don't know if there's it's been broken down like that. Um. Okay, So it seems to there seems to be some sort of evidence at least that there's the potential for increased aggression um with the presence of a gun. Right. There's also um studies that show and this is the one apparently. I don't know why people aren't talking about this more, especially with the gun debate that's going on now. But if you want to talk about a correlation, talk about suicide and the presence of guns. I think that's one that's pretty much not been refuted. Um, there were a lot of gun deaths in the US and two thousand and eleven, UM, eleven thousand of them were homicides and nineteen thousand, seven hundred and sixties six were suicides, all with firearms. So twice as many people took their own lives with a gun then took someone else's life. Yeah, and not only that, you UM. And again I hate not having more recent research, but it's not our fault that we it point to a study from three years ago, you know. Um, but a nine study by the CDC said that if you have a gun in the home, you were five times more likely to commit suicide overall. And um, in two thousand three, there actually was another study that said access to a gun made someone more than three times more likely to commit suicide than without. UM and eight of people who shoot themselves succeed in dying, Which, well, that's why they think that the correlation is so strong. That then, so that's for people who really want to end it, not to cry for help. Yeah, but probably not gonna shoot yourself in the head if it's a cry for help. Right, but what the what what the people who are saying this is legitimate research are pointing to is that this is that suicide is frequently an impulsive act. Uh. And when you're in the midst of a crisis and you are, um, you've decided to end it. Yeah, if you do it, if you try hanging or pills or carbon monoxide or whatever, you are less likely to be successful than you are with a firearm. And so the presence of a firearm in the house during that time of crisis increases your likelihood of committing suicide by a firearm. Yeah, but also chuck there. There's another study that found that people who own a handgun and commit suicide are far more likely to use the handgun than another type of method. Oh right, even though that's available to them as well. Right right, Well, I guess, like I said, those people that probably really want to end it all. Um. Interestingly, the Israeli Defense Force found that their suicide rate dropped among its soldiers just by saying you can't take your weapons home this weekend, so they banned them from taking the weapons home over the weekend. Suicide rate drop. Regardless where you stand on this issue, it has pretty much been proven that guns in suicide. There is a direct correlation going on there. Okay, homicide, should we move on, Yes, let's move on. Um. So, there's study that found that UM family disputes that turned violent were three times more likely to result in death if the gun was present in the house. UM, and this was this was There was another study by the CDC that found that homicides are about three times more likely for family members in a house where there's a gun. Two studies have found virtually the same thing, the presence of a gun, at least in the nineties. The swing in nineties, having a gun in the house meant that each of the family members was three times more likely apparently to UM die by a homicide. Right, and that is the domestic dispute that gets out of hand. If a gun is around, then your chances are hired that it's going to be in and murder. Well, one said, a family dispute that turns violent, you're three times more likely to result in death. The other one, the CDC one, I think, was just plainly saying just having a gun in the house to three times more likely to die by homicide. Right, Okay, I guess it's fair to point out though that most murdered murders don't happen at your home unless, yeah, you're a woman, a child, or elderly. So basically, if you're a average age man, you're you're less likely to be murdered in your house. Everybody else is more likely. Right, So, but if you were killed in your home, um, the vast majority are people who knew the perpetrator. Like, basically, the cases of someone breaking into your house who you do not know and ending and death are are much lower than than here. It is right here, Fewer than of burglaries in the US occur when someone's at home, period, and and the seven percent where violence does occur, Uh, it's more likely to be someone you know. So five percent of all the crimes perpetrated by strangers occur, only five percent occur in the house. So you're basically what the saying is, the home is a pretty safe place by and large, and so just having a gun that you keep at home. Um, these studies then suggest actually increases your likelihood of you or someone you love who lives in that house killing one another, rather than somebody coming into your house and you're protecting yourself USA that. Yeah, and they even, uh, they went to the streets in night in two thousand nine in Philadelphia and looked at six and seventy seven shootings over a couple of years, and they found that people that carry guns were four and a half times more likely to be shot and four point two times more likely to be killed. And I guess the thinking there is, if you have a gun, you may just feel more aggressive or more um likely to act ra actually or put yourself in a bad part of town because hey, I've got this protection, or to be aggressive because you know you've got that protection. That kind of thing, um, if you And there's this really really great article, UM from two thousand ten that was in Harper's Magazine. It was in the August two thousand ten UM issue. It's called Happiness is a Warren Gun, and it's this guy's like this basically his life carrying a gun and like just what it's like. It's just a really great look at what it's like to have a gun on you at all times and like what that means. Um. He says, you're in condition white, which is basically you're constantly on high alert because if you're carrying a gun, you have a sense of responsibility not just for yourself, but you also need to protect everybody else if somebody starts shooting or if there's a robbery or something like that. That's why you have a gun on you. So you feel a sense of stewardship of just other people, strangers in public. Well sort you're the police all of a sudden. Yeah. Um. And so you live in this thing, this this state of called condition white, where you're just your threat response, You're you're is constantly on at some level, which can control Advocates I'm sure are all about condition white, right, They're like, yeah, that's exactly what we're looking for, is people to be alert and armed. Yeah. Um. This guy, believe came to the conclusion that he was tired of living in condition white as it's too exhausting, and I think he stopped carrying. Maybe I don't remember how it ends, but um, it's a really great article. I would recommend anybody on either side of the of the issue to read that Happiness is a Warren Gun in Harper's. I saw dude in the grocery store the other day with a piece on his hip, checking out in front of me by a six pack of beer. Yeah, and it definitely, like, I don't care who you are. When someone walks in the room with a gun on their hip these days, it changes the mood. I'm not saying it makes things bad or good. I'm just saying it changes things. I think it probably always has. Yeah, it's a weird thing. I mean, I definitely see where people get divided on the issue because here in Atlanta there's a lot of crime. You hear about a story where some dude went to carjack some guy and the dude had a gun in his car and shot the guy and now that guy is behind bars. I can see how people would be like, good, he stopped a criminal like a cop would have. Whereas, you know, cops generally investigate already happened crimes. Rarely does a cop like thwart a crime in progress. It's just right place whereyme time, right time, and so like random how that works out. Whereas if the citizens had the guns, they could do that themselves. So I can see how people get all up in arms and say, yeah, you know, there's a case of a person that defended themselves successfully, And then the other person might say, yeah, but what about that guy whose son accidentally shoots himself in the house when the guns out, Like it's two separate four year olds yesterday accidentally killed two different people in two different states. Yeah, the wife of a sheriff's deputy was killed by a four year old at her house. Yeah, Like there's with every story or with no matter how you feel about it, you can pick the cherry pick of story to fit your your beliefs. It's pretty like the issue is very, very far from clear cut, and it's yeah, it's just very hard to not see both sides. I agree with you. There's a guy named David hem and Way that wrote an article called Risks and Benefits of a Gun in the Home for the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine in two thousand eleven. And this is a sort of a newer thing where they're starting to frame it. Like I said, it's a health issue, like when people are dying, you should look at it as a health issue. So he investigates it as such, and um came out on the side of the American Academy of Pediatrics, who officially have said do not have a gun in in the home if you're a parent, Um that they've they've the result of this study, at least from him, and Way says, the evidence is overwhelming that a gun in the house is more of a risk factor for completed suicide UH and general violence than the benefit side. There are fewer studies, UM that come out saying it's actually a benefit to have in the home. And kenne Saw George is a big uh. People point to kenness All out because it very famously had a law passed that mandated that you have a gun in your home, and people have always says, well, look at Kennessaw crime has gone down, he says him, and Way says that that is not true, and if you look at the evidence, it is not shown to decrease burglary reports at all. And also famously in Morton Grove, Illinois, that was a ban on handguns and uh, he points out him and Way says, a careful analysis points out that UM in Morton Grove, the banning of handguns actually followed was actually followed by a large uh significant decrease in burglary reports, so no one had guns and there were a fewer burglaries, which lies in the face of what Kinnesas is trying to do, saying guns in the household will prevent burglaries. Well, yeah, there's UM and I don't know the stats off the top of my head, but there's a there's a pretty good stat um like England has very very strict gun control and very low homicide rates um from guns. Uh. And I think a lot of people also point out like, Okay, well, if you don't have guns, you're still gonna have knives, and people are still going to kill each other. But I think that UM, if you are a gun control advocate, you would point out that, UM, it's kind of like the completed suicide thing, like, yeah, people are still getting to try to kill themselves, but they might not be successful, and afterward they might be glad that they weren't successful because their situation might improve. If you go to kill somebody in a fit of rage and you have a gun, you're more likely to be successful than say with a knife or a baseball bat or something like that. Um, And therefore not being able to complete this homicide, UH, this situation may improve for both people, especially the one who's not killed. UM. All right, well that's guns. I hope you guys made it through this one. Yeah, well, I think we should do one on the n r A, just to learn a little bit more about that organization and round this thing out. Um. Okay, we'll look for that one in the future, I guess. Huh Uh. If you want to learn more about guns, type that word into the search part how stuff works dot Com and will bring up a bunch of stuff, uh, including how guns work. Uh. If I already said that whole spiel about the search par didn't I, it means, then, friends, it's now time for message break uh and Chuck take us out with some listener mail. Huh. Yeah, um, this is another Peace Corps email, and we we get a lot of these because we find that a we did one on the Peace Corps, but before that even we got a lot from Peace Corps folks because I think they're world travelers who are curious and like to listen to things on the Chicken bus. You know what I'm saying. I wanted to send you guys an email since I finally finished the long List of Stuff You Shnow podcast that I downloaded to pass the time while riding on Chicken busses throughout Ecuador, as a current Peace Corps volunteer in a gold producing region of your the world and a former outfitter in Yellowstone National Park. I really enjoyed the podcast on Peace Corps coffee, gold, Lison Geyser's and Thoroughbread's what I know about these topics. You guys are pretty much spot on, uh And I'm also a bit of a plant nerd, so I really enjoyed the Randy Moss joke on a Loss episode that that was a good one, well played. What I was really emailing about was see if you guys give a shout out to my long time friend Katherine Lifelong. Even she and I grew up in South Dakota together and have been friends since kindergarten. Even though we went to colleges across the country from each other, we managed to remain close friends the last twenty years. Unfortunately, due to being in the Peace Corps, was unable to make it back for her wedding and miss the opportunity to be her maid of honor. Although she doesn't have any hard feelings, I still haven't made that one up to her and she would love it if you guys gave her a shout She turned me onto the podcast in fact and saying she enjoys listening to it on our own way to work. I have been hooked on it ever since. So thank you guys, Chuck and Josh and Jerry for providing Katherine and I with another link in our friendship. Um, not to mention the fact that you provide me with weekly trivia effects that have plan on using the twenty something bar scene when I moved back to the States. So that is from Whitney and hello Catherine, And that's nice that you gave Whitney a break for not being your maid of honor. Yeah, she's in the Peace Corps after all. Yeah, it's much better, bigger than your little wedding. Geez, the Peace Corps just bigger than anybody's wedding. I'm sure Catherine would disagree with you, but um, that was very nice. Who who is the person who writeing Whitney? That's right, Thanks Whitney for writing in. Um. If you have a story that you want to share about how Chuck and I have brought you closer to somebody, we love those, let us know all about it. You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know. You can send us an email to uh stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. He can join us at our home on the web that is www. Dot stuff you should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works dot com? Like a good neighbor state farm is there with eighteen thousand agents across the country who are ready to help you. Seven that's getting to a better state.