Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1996 10:28:02 -0500
To: [liberty and justice] at [pobox.com], [r--c] at [xmission.com], [a--t] at [efn.org],
[s--tn--s] at [alterzone.com]
From: "R. Knauer-AIMNET" <[r c ktexas] at [ix.netcom.com]>
Subject: WSJ: More Guns, Less Violent Crime
This article appears in today's WSJ - you can get it yourself from the WSJ
Interactive site - free for now - see http://wsj.com/ for details.
There is a link in the article which takes you to the study itself:
http://law-lib.uchicago.edu/faculty/lott/guns.html
John Lott's bio is at the end of the article. He is an academic who promotes
RKBA for good reason - it works. Why does klintoon therefore promote gun
control - like Hitler did "to make the streets safe"? Duh, I wonder why!
Now we need to convince the ACLU to change their foolish, hoplophobic
mis-interpretation of the Second Amendment. I am certain Professor Lott's
study will help convince them - and maybe pressure them to get with it.
I wonder how many more deaths and rapes klintoon wants on his conscience for
promoting gun control? Oh, I forgot - he doesn't have a conscience.
Bob Knauer
+++++
Rule of Law
More Guns, Less Violent Crime
By JOHN R. LOTT JR.
For the Democratic Party, whose convention this week is
showcasing gun-control advocates, the solution to violent
crime is clear--more regulation of guns. Monday's
convention speeches by James and Sarah Brady were
filled with moving stories of their personal suffering.
While the impacts described on both sides of the issue do
exist, the crucial question underlying all gun-control laws
is: What is their net effect? Are more lives lost or saved?
Do they deter crime or encourage it? Anecdotal evidence
obviously cannot resolve this debate. To provide a more
systematic answer, I recently completed a study of one
type of gun-control law--laws on concealed handguns,
also known as "shall-issue" laws. Thirty-one states give
their citizens the right to carry concealed handguns if they
do not have a criminal record or a history of significant
mental illness. My study, with David Mustard, a graduate
student in economics at the University of Chicago,
analyzed the FBI's crime statistics for all 3,054 American
counties from 1977 to 1992.
Our findings are dramatic. Our most conservative
estimates show that by adopting shall-issue laws, states
reduced murders by 8.5%, rapes by 5%, aggravated
assaults by 7% and robbery by 3%. If those states that
did not permit concealed handgun in 1992 had permitted
them back then, citizens would have been spared
approximately 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes, 60,000
aggravated assaults and 12,000 robberies. To put it even
more simply: Criminals, we found, respond rationally to
deterrence threats.
The benefits of concealed handguns are not limited to just
those who carry them or use them in self-defense. The
very fact that these weapons are concealed keeps
criminals uncertain as to whether a potential victim will be
able to defend himself with lethal force. The possibility
that anyone might be carrying a gun makes attacking
everyone less attractive; unarmed citizens in effect
"free-ride" on their pistol-packing fellows.
Our study further found that while some criminals avoid
potentially violent crimes after concealed-handgun laws
are passed, they do not necessarily give up the criminal
life altogether. Some switch to crimes in which the risk of
confronting an armed victim is much lower. Indeed, the
downside of concealed-weapons laws is that while
violent crime rates fall, property offenses like larceny
(e.g., stealing from unattended automobiles or vending
machines) and auto theft rise. This is certainly a
substitution that the country can live with.
Our study also provided some surprising information.
While support for strict gun-control laws usually has been
strongest in large cities, where crime rates are highest,
that's precisely where right-to-carry laws have produced
the largest drops in violent crimes. For example, in
counties with populations of more than 200,000 people,
concealed-handgun laws produced an average drop in
murder rates of more than 13%. The half of the counties
with the highest rape rates saw that crime drop by more
than 7%.
Concealed handguns also appear to help women more
than men. Murder rates decline when either sex carries
more guns, but the effect is especially pronounced when
women are considered separately. An additional woman
carrying a concealed handgun reduces the murder rate for
women by about three to four times more than an
additional armed man reduces the murder rate for men.
Victims of violent crime are generally physically weaker
than the criminals who prey on them. Allowing a woman
to defend herself with a concealed handgun makes a
much larger difference in her ability to defend herself than
the change created by providing a man with a handgun.
Guns are the great equalizer between the weak and the
vicious.
At the Democratic convention, President Clinton is likely
to play up his proposed expansion of the 1994 Brady
law, which by making it harder for men convicted of
domestic violence to obtain guns is designed to reduce
crime against women. Our study is the first to provide
direct empirical evidence of the Brady Law's effect on
crime rates--and we found just the opposite result: The
law's implementation is associated with more aggravated
assaults and rapes. Mrs. Brady's exaggerated estimates
of the number of felons denied access to guns in her
speech Monday are a poor measure of the law's impact
on crime rates.
We also collected data on whether owners of concealed
handguns are more likely to use them in committing
violent crimes. The rarity of these incidents is reflected in
Florida's statistics: More than 300,000
concealed-handgun licenses were issued between Oct. 1,
1987, and Dec. 31, 1995, but only five violent crimes
involving permitted pistols were committed in this period,
and none of these resulted in fatalities.
What about minor disputes such as traffic accidents? Are
legal owners of concealed handguns more likely to use
them in such situations? In 31 states, some of which have
had concealed weapons laws for decades, there is only
one recorded incident (earlier this year in Texas) in which
a concealed handgun was used in a shooting following an
accident. Even in that one case, a grand jury found that
the shooting was in self-defense: The shooter was being
beaten by the other driver.
And what about accidental deaths? The number of
accidental handgun deaths each year is fewer than 200.
Our estimates imply that if the states without "shall issue"
laws were to adopt them, the increase in accidental
handgun deaths would be at most nine more deaths per
year. This is small indeed when compared to the at least
1,570 murders that would be avoided.
While no single study is likely to end the debate on
concealed handguns, ours provides the first systematic
national evidence. By contrast, the largest prior study
examined only 170 cities within a single year. The nearly
50,000 observations in our data set allow us to control
for a range of factors that have never been accounted for
in any previous study of crime, let alone any previous
gun-control study. Among other variables, our
regressions control for arrest and conviction rates, prison
sentences, changes in handgun laws such as waiting
periods and the imposition of additional penalties for
using a gun to commit a crime, income, poverty,
unemployment, and demographic changes.
Preventing law-abiding citizens from carrying handguns
does not end violence, but merely makes them more
vulnerable to attack. The very size and strength of our
results should at least give pause to those who oppose
concealed handguns. The opportunity to reduce the
murder rate by simply relaxing a regulation ought to be
difficult to ignore.
Mr. Lott is a professor at the University of Chicago
Law School. The results of his study will be published
in the January 1997 issue of the university's Journal
of Legal Studies.
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