More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws.

• Author: Ludwig, Jens

It is almost impossible to separate the problem of crime in America from questions about how guns should be regulated. There is typically some uncertainty about how a change to our gun laws will impact crime, since guns in principle have both helpful and harmful aspects.

Given this uncertainty, it is noteworthy that more than 30 states have now passed "right-to-carry" laws that allow private citizens to carry concealed guns. Proponents of these laws hope that increased gun carrying will increase the "costs" of crime and thereby deter some criminals. Yet it's also possible that some criminals will respond to an increase in gun carrying among the citizenry by using a gun more frequently themselves, which may increase the number of shootings that result from street crimes. The other potential drawback of these laws is that the daily annoyances of modern life, such as rude driving or Yankees fans, can lead to fights that would be more lethal if one or both of the parties is armed.

Ideally, we would measure the effects of right-to-carry laws by comparing the crime rate that a state like Idaho experienced after enacting a right-to-carry law in 1990 with the crime rate that Idaho would have experienced had that state not enacted a right-to-carry law in 1990. Because we cannot actually observe what would have happened had this law not passed, we are forced to compare Idaho with other states without such laws, such as California. The challenge is to statistically control for all of the relevant factors that will cause crime to be different between places like California and Idaho, is not a trivial exercise, since reliable measures for many of these factors are simply not available.)

The first attempt at a national study of the effects of right-to-carry laws is found in a new book by John Lott Jr., whose conclusions are hinted at in the book's title: More Guns, Less Crime. The book is a dizzying collection of 27 graphs, 27 figures, five appendices, 30 pages of footnotes, and even a few qualifications about the research. Most readers are unlikely to appreciate the importance of these qualifications, and will walk away with just the message of the concluding sentences: "Will allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns save lives? The answer is yes, it will" This is unfortunate, since Lott's analysis ultimately cannot support his conclusion.

John Lott first called me in August 1996, as I was enjoying a cup of coffee in my windowless office...