Gun Control

Gun Control Reduce Violent Crime

Gun Control

Barnet, T. (1998). Gun “control” laws violate the Second Amendment and may lead to higher crime rates. Missouri Law Review,63, 155-193

In this article examines several recent federal, state, and local regulation of firearms possession, in light of empirical data indicating that firearms commonly are used for self-defense by law-abiding citizens. The author questions the legality of these regulations when tested against the Second Amendment. The article examines the legal implications of the absence of a governmental duty to protect individual citizens and posits that effective self-defense may be maintained only by an individual himself.

Black, D. A. & Nagin, D. S. (1998). Do right to carry laws deter violent crime? Journal of Legal Studies (Chicago), 27, 209-219. In this article examines the empirical research question, “do right to carry laws deter violent crime?” Black and Nagin attack John Lott and David Mustard's research suggesting that they failed to compensate for trends over time. Lott repudiated this claim in his subsequent article. Black and Nagin do, however, effectively call into question some of Lott's key assumptions based on trend models and the methodology used to make calculations concerning assumptions about rape and murder reductions resulting from greater saturation of gun ownership within a community or state.

Gorman, L., & Kopel, D.B. (2000) Self-Defense: the equalizer: experiments in tightening gun-control laws have eroded the right of self -defense and failed to stop seriouscrime. Forum for Applied Research and Public Policy, 15(4), 92-100.

In this article examines the empirical question, “What are the financial and criminological results of the efforts of the British, Canadian, Australian, and Japanese to ban or severely restrict firearms ownership in their countries?” The authors perform a cross-sectional analysis of gun control measures in Britain, Canada, Australia, and Japan- countries that have similar gun policies. They then examine the effects of pre-gun control eras to post, or compare them to the US, where gun laws are comparably lax. The results of the study indicate as defensive guns have been banned, overall violent crime rates have risen.

Ik-Whan, G.K., Scott, B., Safranski, M.B. (1997). The effectiveness of gun control laws:multivariate statistical analysis. American Journal of Economics and Sociology,56, 41-50.

This article examined the effectiveness of gun control laws and regulations using state level data. The multivariate statistical regression model suggests that the existence of gun control laws indeed have a deterrent effect on firearm deaths. This study also shows that the major association for firearm fatalities is with socioeconomic factors such as poverty levels and alcohol consumption. Unless this country directs its efforts toward the socioeconomic ills which appear to bear the strongest relationship to violent deaths by firearms, the fatalities likely will remain high whether this country has gun control laws or not.

Kates, D. B., & Mauser, G. (2007). Would banning firearms reduce murder andsuicide? A review of international and some domestic evidence. Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy, 30(2), 649-694.

In this article examines the empirical research question, “would banning firearms reduce ...