2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
- 111,952
- 52,208
- 2,290
This is a look at why recent studies, done by anti-gun extremists, claim to show Right to Carry laws increase gun crime.....
The reason, as exposed in this paper, is the anti-gun extremists lie......this is not unusual....
The anti-gun extremists compare newly adopting states to states that have had Right to Carry for a long time...which skews the results in their favor.....
Table 4 reveals that early adopting states have experienced significantly lower murder rates than those states, primarily the eight may-issue states, that did not adopt RTC laws. Late adopting states with serious restrictions on permit issuance have apparently also experienced some reduction in murder rates, but the estimated coefficient is not significantly different from zero. Constitutional carry states, allowing the concealed carrying of handguns with no permit requirements, have experienced even larger declines in murder rates.
----------
We suggest that these recent studies, which do not use all the available data, are seriously compromised because they compare states that only recently have adopted right-to-carry laws with states that have had these laws for many years, instead of comparing against states with more restrictive laws. Early adopting states experienced relatively large reductions in crime corresponding to large increases in the number of right-to-carry permits. Late adopting states passed rules making it difficult to obtain permits and exercise the right to carry concealed weapons. Ignoring the fact that these late adopting states with stricter rules on obtaining permits issue relatively few permits can produce perverse results where coefficients imply an increase in crime even though the opposite is true. We demonstrate this effect with a simple statistical test.
-----
Consider two neighboring states: Illinois and Indiana. Given that the total costs of obtaining a permit is $400 to $450 in Illinois and is $12.95 in Indiana, it is not surprising that in 2000 Illinois had 3.4% of the population holding permits while Indiana had 20% (Crime Prevention Research Center, 2020), with a correspondingly lower overall violent crime rate and lower murder rate.1 Illinois has other restrictions that make it difficult for the poor to get a permit, such as not allowing any training facilities in Chicago and banning permitted concealed handguns on public transportation. The costs of obtaining a permit affect the number of people who get permits as well as the mix. Lower costs imply that poor people who live in high-crime urban neighborhoods are more likely to get a permit. In that case, one might expect a greater reduction in crime because criminals would be more likely to encounter potential victims who are able to defend
themselves. This is another factor that tends to raise crime rates in the late-adopting states relative to all the other states.
The reason, as exposed in this paper, is the anti-gun extremists lie......this is not unusual....
The anti-gun extremists compare newly adopting states to states that have had Right to Carry for a long time...which skews the results in their favor.....
Table 4 reveals that early adopting states have experienced significantly lower murder rates than those states, primarily the eight may-issue states, that did not adopt RTC laws. Late adopting states with serious restrictions on permit issuance have apparently also experienced some reduction in murder rates, but the estimated coefficient is not significantly different from zero. Constitutional carry states, allowing the concealed carrying of handguns with no permit requirements, have experienced even larger declines in murder rates.
----------
We suggest that these recent studies, which do not use all the available data, are seriously compromised because they compare states that only recently have adopted right-to-carry laws with states that have had these laws for many years, instead of comparing against states with more restrictive laws. Early adopting states experienced relatively large reductions in crime corresponding to large increases in the number of right-to-carry permits. Late adopting states passed rules making it difficult to obtain permits and exercise the right to carry concealed weapons. Ignoring the fact that these late adopting states with stricter rules on obtaining permits issue relatively few permits can produce perverse results where coefficients imply an increase in crime even though the opposite is true. We demonstrate this effect with a simple statistical test.
-----
Consider two neighboring states: Illinois and Indiana. Given that the total costs of obtaining a permit is $400 to $450 in Illinois and is $12.95 in Indiana, it is not surprising that in 2000 Illinois had 3.4% of the population holding permits while Indiana had 20% (Crime Prevention Research Center, 2020), with a correspondingly lower overall violent crime rate and lower murder rate.1 Illinois has other restrictions that make it difficult for the poor to get a permit, such as not allowing any training facilities in Chicago and banning permitted concealed handguns on public transportation. The costs of obtaining a permit affect the number of people who get permits as well as the mix. Lower costs imply that poor people who live in high-crime urban neighborhoods are more likely to get a permit. In that case, one might expect a greater reduction in crime because criminals would be more likely to encounter potential victims who are able to defend
themselves. This is another factor that tends to raise crime rates in the late-adopting states relative to all the other states.
Do Right-to-Carry Concealed Weapons Laws Still Reduce Crime?
A review of the literature studying the effect of right-to-carry laws shows that the weight of evidence indicates that such laws reduced violent crime. However,
papers.ssrn.com
