Posted on 01/23/2003 8:53:32 AM PST by Gothmog
WASHINGTON -- State laws that allow private citizens to carry concealed weapons do not reduce crime and may even increase it, according to a study released Wednesday by the Brookings Institution.
The findings, by Stanford University law professor John Donohue, contradict an influential study by economist John R. Lott Jr., a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute who in 1997 concluded that by adopting such laws, states can substantially curb violent crime.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I would be interested to see if one or the other included or excluded certain types of violent crime.
Is it a liberal trick to get our information registered with this leftist rag?
What I find very strange is that the only result that seems to hold up in all the studies is that CCW is associated with higher non-violent property crime. This makes no sense. Lott theorizes that would-be violent criminals move away from violent crime to non-violent crime because they are deterred by CCW. I don't buy it. Is a rapist is going start stealing cars instead of raping? The only type of crime where I would buy this argument is robbery, but even in Lott's results, CCW has barely any affect on this category of crime.
And then, of course, the negative relationship between CCW and violent crime all but disappears when you add the 1993-1999 data, so that argument holds no water in any case.
Anyone trained in econometrics can immediately see that there are major specification problems in all the studies, and they all need to be taken with a grain of salt.
If you control for the demographic and economic factors, which both Lott and Donohue do, and CCW really reduces crime, a statistically significant relationship should still be apparent.
The only way I can think of that you might not detect a true relationship is if it is nonlinear and you use a linear specification. Suppose, for example, that CCW significantly lowers crime if it is already high, but that its effect on crime diminishes as the crime rate goes down. Since crime rates were lower during the 1993-1999 period for reasons mostly unrelated to CCW, the researcher would not find any beneficial effect of CCW, even if he controlled for demographic and economic factors.
Of course, when you start talking about non-linear specifications, you open up a whole new can of worms.
I would believe that CCW would have exactly such an effect.
Here's my guess as to what will happen: some specifications will show that CCW decreases crime, others will show that it increases it, others will show that it has no effect, and all will be equally plausible.
That's why I think Gary Kleck has the right approach to the gun control debate. Trying to figure out whether gun rights (CCW as well as others) on net increase or decrease crime is a fruitless excercise, so arguments should instead be based on principle.
"Trying to figure out whether gun rights (CCW as well as others) on net increase or decrease crime is a fruitless excercise, so arguments should instead be based on principle."
Precisely. The testimonial of a Social Security recipient or a handicapped person as to their freedom of movement issues positively effected by CCW should be weighed into any equation. These "scientific studies" are highly suspect at best.
I think common sense demands that it not be linear, specifically that it has more effect in high crime areas. Moreover, common sense is the most reliable guide in studying such trends. The vanity of Socialogy as a hard science that should be approached in the same show me manner as Physics or Chemestry is very annoying to reasonable people. No tightly controled repeatable experiments are involved. So the Donohue study boils down to "you can't be absolutely sure about everything Lott did". This is true, but at least Lott had some common sense!
To spell out the obvious: Concealed weapons might stop a little crime by being shot, more by being displayed, but stop the most by pontentialy existing. Thugs really really hate it when their victims might be armed. Thugs are numerous in areas high crime areas. Thus one would expect this third and most potent effect to be higher in these areas.
Left wing psychosis does not even allow for the consideration of certain obvious concepts someone being though of as a "thug". Missing the obvious in forming initial premisis for such an analysis makes it complete hogwash. Such hogwash gets Left wing faculty tenure, prestige, and influence. Resonable people are offended by this.
I think they are still useful for countering arguments by the gun grabbers that CCW will lead to rampant increases in gun violence. After all, look at the wistful headline for the story from the Slimes:
More Guns in Citizens' Hands Can Worsen Crime, Study Says
They lead off with this aspect of the study, even though it is by far the weakest of Donohue's premises. So we still need factual information to counter the slop spewed out by the Brady Center, because too many swing voters, frankly, don't understand the underlying prinicples of limited government and enumerated rights.
I'm running out of creative ways of saying "Bull shyte"! This is so blatantly erroneous that it MUST be another liberal lie! Unbelievable, except in the context of the liberal bull speak!
Stay vigilent, stay armed, and NEVER trust a muslim or a liberal (both are terrorists, differing only in weaponry and technique)!
I agree, but we also need to be careful not to overreach, which is what I think Lott did. I think he went to far in saying that CCW reduces crime. He should have been more careful about his inferences, particularly because even without the benefit of the 1993-1999 data his results were not robust. He should have instead have said, "I can say with confidence that CCW doesn't affect crime very much, and the evidence seems to suggest that it might reduce it, though this second finding is not very robust."
Oh gee, the Brookings Institute finds that guns are bad. Who woulda thunk that?
These studies are like my 7th grade "Theses". I take some position and then find "evidence" to support it.
It boils down to a lot more: Lott's results are highly sensitive to minor changes in specification, and they don't hold out of sample. Hence they are highly suspect.
This is true, but at least Lott had some common sense!
I disagree. Donohue uses Lott's methodology (as well as some variations of it), so if Donohue doesn't have common sense, neither does Lott.
I agree in a way: Viewed in the objective vaccumm of a hard science Lott's work is not conclusive. But then I maintain that Socialogy is not a hard science. At best it is reasoned speculation.
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