New Study Shows no Relationship Between CCW, Homicide or Violent Crime

Gun Watch ^ | 15 December, 2018 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

A new study of violent crime and concealed carry law found no correlation between them. The study compared homicide and violent crime at the state level with changes in concealed carry law over a 30 year period, from 1986 to 2015. During this period there where large changes in the laws regulating the carry of concealed weapons. From the study:

Results

During the study period, all states moved to adopt some form of concealed-carry legislation, with a trend toward less restrictive legislation. After adjusting for state and year, there was no significant association between shifts from restrictive to nonrestrictive carry legislation on violent crime and public health indicators. Adjusting further for poverty and unemployment did not significantly influence the results.

Conclusions

This study demonstrated no statistically significant association between the liberalization of state level firearm carry legislation over the last 30 years and the rates of homicides or other violent crime. Policy efforts aimed at injury prevention and the reduction of firearm-related violence should likely investigate other targets for potential intervention.

The study was published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons.

This study confirms what a number of other studies have found: Having more people without criminal records, carrying concealed firearms, does not increase violent crime.

The study examined the levels of homicide and violent crime when states moved from "no carry" to "may carry" to "shall issue" to "unrestricted carry".

It is a significant finding to be published in a medical journal, as most papers I have read about the subject, in health related journals, make obvious errors in data selection and in the scope of the study.

This study avoids the errors of scope by looking at the data over all the states for a 30 year period.   It avoids selection bias by considering all homicides and violent crime, not just those involving guns.

The study is much coarser than the studies done by Dr. John Lott. Lott looks at data down to the county level, not just the states. Lott examines concealed carry by looking at the number of actual permits issued, not just when the law changed. That level of examination is  likely to find subtle differences.

Only a small number of studies claim that homicides or violent crime go up as more people carry concealed weapons legally. They suffer from limited scope and/or data selection bias.

Dr. Lott has debunked studies that claim more guns equal more crimes.

This study differs from studies done by Dr. Lott. It attempts to examine the effect of  "unrestricted carry" also known as Constitutional Carry.  Dr. Lott's methods have difficulty with measuring the effect of Constitutional Carry. There are no permit numbers to track with Constitutional Carry.

This paper will be used to counter the claims of studies of limited scope, which suffer from data selection bias.

Limiting data to only "gun deaths" or "gun violence" is clear data selection bias. If prevents any consideration of a weapons substitution effect, or of deterrence from self defense cases.

Limiting the scope of research to only one state, or only a few years allows researchers to pick state or years that agree with their favored thesis.

Public health journals have generally been willing to publish poorly done research if it validates preconceptions that "guns are bad".

Perhaps public health researchers will read this paper, and see the effect of biased data selection and limited scope in the other studies.  

©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch 

[marktwain]

The image shows what the status of the State were for legal carry of concealed guns in 2015. Several states have moved to Constitutional Carry since then.

[Texas Eagle]

I’d like to see the study that shows the correlation between CCW and the violent crimes they prevented.

[poinq]

I wonder how he study would be if they just looked at those states which had Shall License for at least ten years. That way we know how things are after people had time to get their guns. In Illinois there were/are lots of restrictions to slow down the permits. I would say that few people that want concealed carry actually have those permits.

Then you have to wait until the criminals get mowed down a few times for the deterrent affect to take hold. I am not sure what the numbers would be. But watching Illinois and Wisconsin, I see that concealed care is generally a good thing. But intercity black neighborhoods have and had guns. And they are less safe now under both types of laws. In other words, black neighborhoods have guns regardless of laws. White neighborhoods get more pistols when the laws allow. But black neighborhoods seem to go after blacks. Whites seem to rarely suffer from violence, even when they are next to a black neighborhood. Theft is an issue but violence is far worse for blacks in or near a black neighborhood than whites.

[marktwain]

But intercity black neighborhoods have and had guns. And they are less safe now under both types of laws.

John Lott says the greatest decreases in violent crime from increases in concealed carry permits happen in urban minority areas.

[Manly Warrior]

Seems the good doctors will use the “no correlation” between rates of CCW/lawful guns and crime in any way they wish. Fact is there has been a tremendous decrease in violent crime with a huge increase in lawful carry/possession of arms over the last 30-40 years. How no correlation in the decrease of violent crime per capita with a great increase in lawful arms is past me.

Kinda like saying a decrease in drownings while boating while increase in use of PFDs has no correlation....

Knowing the AMA etc, this will be used to say that increased arms does not make us safer....

[marktwain]

This study is in opposition to many "studies" in public health journals that are actively attempting to frame "gun violence" as a "public health" issue.

The point of framing anything to do with guns as a "public health" issue is to remove such regulations from Constitutional restraint.

One of the first enormous victories of Progressives was to have the courts define "safety and health" as issues the government could address without most Constitutional protections.

The First and Fourth amendments mostly do not apply with mandatory vaccinations.

They also intend to use the medical profession as a strong propaganda force to decrease gun ownership as "unsafe" and a "risk factor".

Those studies are shoddy affairs, as the article mentions.

This study is a breath of sanity, in comparison.

[Pecos]

A recent FBI study, noted on FR a little while ago, has made that correlation. Sorry I son’t have the link.

[backwoods-engineer]

I suspect not. There's just not enough concealed-carry citizens to make a statistically-significant difference in the general-population crime rate. There's just too many sheeple, and too many criminals in the big cities, which are controlled by Demonrats. Plus, all the anti-gun propaganda drives the curious away from every buying a gun. Just like the Demonrats want.

However, when the criminal and the murderer comes to YOU and ME who carry concealed, it makes ALL the difference to our family.

[Don Corleone]

Children from pre-school on are being indoctrinated with this crapola. By the time they are old enough to vote they are total slaves to the meme.

[1Old Pro]

Children from pre-school on are being indoctrinated with this crapola. By the time they are old enough to vote they are total slaves to the meme.

Had a conversation with a lib this weekend, they first off think the 2nd amendment doesn't protect individual rights, only for "militia's, and second, they want to solve mental illness gun crimes by limiting magazine capacity, total ignorance and it's frustrating.

[Manly Warrior]

Yeah, I see that, but the outcome will be opposite in my experience. Since there is no positive correlation, then why allow something useless?

It might turn negative and all.

Clear research indicates that indeed, more guns,less crime. They pretty much reject that peer reviewed effort for decades now.

[logi_cal869]

This might be the study you reference:

https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-us-2016-2017.pdf/view

Sourced here:

https://www.shootingillustrated.com/articles/2018/5/21/fbi-report-highlights-effectiveness-of-concealed-carry/

and the recent FR posting (I believe) is here:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3708768/posts

[Pecos]

Thank you for digging up the references.

[PapaBear3625]

John Lott says the greatest decreases in violent crime from increases in concealed carry permits happen in urban minority a

Not everyone in the "inner city" is a predator. Many are prey.

When store owners and other typical targets become armed, they become less attractive as targets.