More Guns, Less Crime
Encyclopedia
More Guns, Less Crime is a book by John Lott that says violent crime rates go down when states pass "shall issue" concealed carry
laws. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county
in the United States
during 18 years from 1977 to 1994. The book expands on an earlier study published in 1997 by Lott and his co-author David Mustard in The Journal of Legal Studies. Lott also examines the effects of gun control
laws, including the Brady Law.
His conclusion is that shall issue laws, which allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, steadily decrease violent crime. He explains that this result makes sense because criminals are deterred by the risk of attacking an armed victim. As more citizens arm themselves, the danger to criminals increases.
.
by John Lott resulted in a special issue of The Journal of Law and Economics
. A number of papers from that conference supported Lott's conclusions:
Other academic studies that have supported Lott's conclusions include the following.
The book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies, examines the gun control
policies of many nations around the world and supports the ideas presented in Lott's work.
Concealed carry
Concealed carry, or CCW , refers to the practice of carrying a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in proximity.-In Canada:...
laws. He presents the results of his statistical analysis of crime data for every county
County (United States)
In the United States, a county is a geographic subdivision of a state , usually assigned some governmental authority. The term "county" is used in 48 of the 50 states; Louisiana is divided into parishes and Alaska into boroughs. Parishes and boroughs are called "county-equivalents" by the U.S...
in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during 18 years from 1977 to 1994. The book expands on an earlier study published in 1997 by Lott and his co-author David Mustard in The Journal of Legal Studies. Lott also examines the effects of gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
laws, including the Brady Law.
Shall issue laws
Lott examines the effects of shall issue laws on violent crime across the United States.His conclusion is that shall issue laws, which allow citizens to carry concealed weapons, steadily decrease violent crime. He explains that this result makes sense because criminals are deterred by the risk of attacking an armed victim. As more citizens arm themselves, the danger to criminals increases.
Training requirements
Lott examines the effects of training requirements on crime rate and accident rate. He finds that training requirements have very little effect on both crime rates and accident rates.Waiting periods
Lott examines the effects of waiting periods. These include limiting the time before purchasing a gun, and limiting the time before obtaining a concealed carry permit.Other countries
Lott spends some time discussing gun ownership rates and crime rates in other countries, such as the United KingdomGun politics in the United Kingdom
Gun politics in the United Kingdom generally places its main considerations on how best to ensure public safety and how deaths involving firearms can most effectively be prevented. The United Kingdom has one of the lowest rates of gun homicides in the world, and did so even before strict gun...
.
Support
A conference organized at the American Enterprise InstituteAmerican Enterprise Institute
The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research is a conservative think tank founded in 1943. Its stated mission is "to defend the principles and improve the institutions of American freedom and democratic capitalism—limited government, private enterprise, individual liberty and...
by John Lott resulted in a special issue of The Journal of Law and Economics
The Journal of Law and Economics
The Journal of Law and Economics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It publishes articles on the economic analysis of regulation and the behavior of regulated firms, the political economy of legislation and legislative processes, law and finance, corporate finance...
. A number of papers from that conference supported Lott's conclusions:
- Bruce L. Benson, Florida State University, and Brent D. Mast, American Enterprise Institute, 'Privately Produced General Deterrence', The Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and Economics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It publishes articles on the economic analysis of regulation and the behavior of regulated firms, the political economy of legislation and legislative processes, law and finance, corporate finance...
, October 2001
- Florenz Plassmann, State University of New York at Binghamton, and T. Nicolaus Tideman, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, "Does the right to carry concealed handguns deter countable crimes? Only a count analysis can say", The Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and Economics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It publishes articles on the economic analysis of regulation and the behavior of regulated firms, the political economy of legislation and legislative processes, law and finance, corporate finance...
, October 2001
- Carlisle E. Moody, College of William and Mary, "Testing for the effects of concealed weapons laws: Specification errors and robustness," The Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and Economics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It publishes articles on the economic analysis of regulation and the behavior of regulated firms, the political economy of legislation and legislative processes, law and finance, corporate finance...
, October 2001
Other academic studies that have supported Lott's conclusions include the following.
- William Alan Bartley and Mark A. Cohen, Vanderbilt University, 'The Effect of Concealed Weapons Laws: An Extreme Bound Analysis', Economic Inquiry, 1998
- Florenz Plassmann, State University of New York at Binghamton, and John Whitley, University of Adelaide, 'Confirming "More Guns, Less Crime"', Stanford Law Review, 2003.
- Eric Helland, Claremont-McKenna College and Alexander Tabarrok, George Mason University, "Using Placebo Laws to Test 'More Guns, Less Crime'," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 2008.
- Carlisle E. Moody, College of William and Mary, and Thomas B. Marvell, Justec Research, 'The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws', Econ Journal Watch, 2008.
The book The Samurai, the Mountie, and the Cowboy: Should America Adopt the Gun Controls of Other Democracies, examines the gun control
Gun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
policies of many nations around the world and supports the ideas presented in Lott's work.
Studies Against
Academic studies that have rejected Lott's conclusions include the following. With the exception of the 2003 study by John J. Donohue, these studies generally contend that there seems to be little or no effect on crime from the passage of license-to-carry laws. Donohue's 2003 study finds an increase in violence.- Albert Alschuler, Two Guns, Four Guns, Six Guns, More Guns: Does Arming the Public Reduce Crime? Valparaiso U Law Rev. Spring 1997. Alschuler notes that while PPBM2029 (as perpetrators of crime) and PPBF64+ (as victims) are strongly correlated to high homicide rates in the dataset used by Lott & Mustard 1997, PPBF4049 is rated more highly as a predictor of homicide rate. Alschuler notes that Lott supplied him with his copy of Ludwig's 1996 paper as well as the Lott & Mustard data.
- Franklin Zimring and Gordon Hawkins, Concealed Handguns: The Counterfeit Deterrent, 7 The Responsive Community 2 (Spring 1997). Zimring & Hawkins cite recognition of the legitimacy of defensive gun use as an impediment to the socially desirable goal of eliminating private ownership of handguns and set out to criticise Lott & Mustard.
- Both Albert Alschuler and Jens Ludwig note a number of problems in their separate papers. Why, for example, should the concentration of older black women in a population predict higher crime rates in the Lott and Mustard model, but not the increased concentration of young men, age 20 to 29, who are vastly more likely to commit such offenses?
- David Hemenway, 'Review of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws', New England Journal of MedicineNew England Journal of MedicineThe New England Journal of Medicine is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It describes itself as the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.-History:...
, 1998. Hemenway's review states
- Lott finds, for example, that both increasing the rate of unemployment and reducing income reduces the rate of violent crimes and that reducing the number of black women 40 years old or older (who are rarely either perpetrators or victims of murder) substantially reduces murder rates. Indeed, according to Lott's results, getting rid of older black women will lead to a more dramatic reduction in homicide rates than increasing arrest rates or enacting shall-issue laws
- Rutgers sociology professor Ted Goertzel stated that "Lott’s massive data set was simply unsuitable for his task", and that he "compar[ed] trends in Idaho and West Virginia and Mississippi with trends in Washington, D.C. and New York City" without proper statistical controls. He alleged that econometric methods (such as the Lott & Mustard RTC study or the Levitt & Donohue abortion study) are susceptible to misuse and can even become junk scienceJunk scienceJunk science is a term used in U.S. political and legal disputes that brands an advocate's claims about scientific data, research, or analyses as spurious. The term may convey a pejorative connotation that the advocate is driven by political, ideological, financial, or other unscientific...
.
- Ian Ayres, Yale Law School, and John Donohue, Stanford Law School, 'Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis'. Stanford Law ReviewStanford Law ReviewThe Stanford Law Review is a legal journal produced independently by Stanford Law School students. The journal was established in 1948 with future U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher as its first president...
, 2003.
- Jens Ludwig, Georgetown University, "Concealed-Gun-Carrying Laws and Violent Crime: Evidence from State Panel Data", published in International Review of Law and Economics, 1998.
- Dan Black and Daniel Nagin, "Do 'Right-to-Carry' Laws Deter Violent Crime?" Journal of Legal Studies, Vol. 27, No. 1, pp. 209–213 (January 1998).
- Mark Duggan, University of Chicago, "More Guns, More Crime," National Bureau of Economic Research, NBER Working Paper No. W7967, October 2000, later published in Journal of Political EconomyJournal of Political EconomyThe Journal of Political Economy is an academic journal run by economists at the University of Chicago and published every two months by the University of Chicago Press. The journal publishes articles in both theoretical economics and empirical economics...
.
- Steven LevittSteven LevittSteven David "Steve" Levitt is an American economist known for his work in the field of crime, in particular on the link between legalized abortion and crime rates. Winner of the 2004 John Bates Clark Medal, he is currently the William B...
, University of Chicago, 'Understanding Why Crime Fell in the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain the Decline and Six that Do Not'. Journal of Economic PerspectivesJournal of Economic PerspectivesThe Journal of Economic Perspectives is an economic journal published by the American Economic Association. The journal is very broad in its scope...
, 2004. Levitt lists 'Laws allowing a right to carry concealed weapons' as number five in his list of 'Six Factors that Played Little or No Role in the Crime Decline'.
- Jeffrey MironJeffrey MironJeffrey Alan Miron is an American economist. He served as the chairman of the Department of Economics at Boston University from 1992 to 1998, and currently teaches at Harvard University, serving as a Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies in Harvard's Economics Department.Miron is an...
, Boston University, 'Violence, Guns, and Drugs: A Cross-Country Analysis'. The Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and Economics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It publishes articles on the economic analysis of regulation and the behavior of regulated firms, the political economy of legislation and legislative processes, law and finance, corporate finance...
, October 2001.
- Tomislav V. Kovandzic and Thomas B. Marvell, "Right-To-Carry Concealed Firearms and Violent Crime: Crime Control Through Gun Decontrol?" Criminology and Public Policy 2, (2003) pages 363-396.
- John J. Donahue III, Stanford Law School, 'The Final Bullet in the Body of the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis', Criminology and Public Policy, 2003.
- John Donohue and Ian Ayres. "More Guns, Less Crime Fails Again: The Latest Evidence from 1977–2006" Econ Journal Watch 6.2 (2009): 218-238.
Ambiguous results
Academic studies that have both agreed and disagreed with aspects of Lott's conclusions include the following.- David E. Olson, Loyola University Chicago, and Michael D. Maltz, University of Illinois at Chicago, "Right-to-carry concealed weapons laws and homicide in large U.S. counties: the effect on weapon types, victim characteristics, and victim-offender relationships," The Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and EconomicsThe Journal of Law and Economics is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It publishes articles on the economic analysis of regulation and the behavior of regulated firms, the political economy of legislation and legislative processes, law and finance, corporate finance...
, October 2001.
Editions
There have been three editions of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, all published by University of Chicago Press,- First Edition, hardback, 1998, 236 pages, ISBN 978-0226493633
- Second Edition, paperback, 2000, 321 pages, ISBN 978-0226493640
- Third Edition, paperback, 2010, 472 pages, ISBN 978-0226493664
See also
- FreedomnomicsFreedomnomicsFreedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't is a book by John R. Lott, Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime and The Bias Against Guns. Freedomnomics takes an economic look at the effects of the free market, and presents some arguments against those found in...
- Lott's most recent book, focusing on the free market. - The Bias Against GunsThe Bias Against GunsThe Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong is a book by John Lott, following up on his controversial More Guns, Less Crime. It is intended to reach a broader audience than its highly technical predecessor...
- A related book by John Lott, suggesting that psychological bias prevents some from accepting the results of his study. - Gun PoliticsGun politicsGun politics addresses safety issues and ideologies related to firearms through criminal and noncriminal use. Gun politics deals with rules, regulations, and restrictions on the use, ownership, and distribution of firearms.-National sovereignty:...
- Carrying concealed weaponCarrying concealed weaponConcealed carry, or CCW , refers to the practice of carrying a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in proximity....
s
External links
- http://www.johnlott.org/ - John Lott's website, with instructions for obtaining the raw data used in his studies.
- http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayres_Donohue_article.pdf - Ayres and Donohue's analysis of Lott's work
- http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=372361 - Lott's response to the Ayres and Donohue article
- http://teapot.usask.ca/cdn-firearms/Lott/lott.pdf - A paper relating to the work in this book.
- http://www.time.com/time/community/transcripts/chattr070198.html - A debate transcript where Lott defends his work.