Need: Research on Concealed Carry

[ken792]

Hey guys. So I'm writing a paper on concealed carry as a law & society issue for a class. Does anyone have any SCHOLARLY research on the benefits of shall issue concealed carry and how it is not a public safety threat? I already have a few, like the classic Lott study as well as the recent Guis study.

Thanks

 

[dogbone]

Check the Gun Facts web site's section on concealed carry... plenty of well cited info there:

http://www.gunfacts.info/gun-control-myths/concealed-carry/

 

[Overboost44]

You have the Lott study as in MGLC, or is there another?

 

[Mickey the Dragon]

Another option would be to use FBI crime statistics and compare violent crime rates in states that have shall issue versus those that do not, making sure that you adjust for populations. A comparison of the 50 states with that as the basis should allow you to show pretty compelling evidence that being a shall-issue state does not cause any increase in crime. Additionally, you could research some states that have recently become shall-issue and compare their crime rates before and after the passage of shall-issue. That would allow you to further bolster your argument with concrete examples that control for additional outside influences.

 

[ken792]

You have the Lott study as in MGLC, or is there another?

The Lott study I have is the Lott & Mustard.
http://www.law.uchicago.edu/files/files/41.lott_.final_.pdf

The problem with the Lott study is that its methodology was questionable. I have found the anti studies that have attacked the Lott study, and am currently looking for the pro studies which attack those anti studies.

I'm not quite arguing that concealed carry reduces crime, because the rate of concealed carrying in the US is rather low. Also, the average concealed carry license holder is a middle aged, Republican, white male living in a non-urban area. That demographic is the least likely to be a victim of a crime in the first place. The people who need concealed carry the most are not the ones with permits or even those supporting it. What I am arguing is that concealed carry does not increase crime, and why concealed carry is compatible with the legal and cultural traditions of the US (the "society" part of law and society).

 

[Ghostrider1]

Texas publishes crime stats that show ccw holders commit far, far fewer crimes than the general population save domestic violence, I believe.
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/rsd/chl/reports/convrates.htm

 

[abean4187]

Try to stay away from Lott studies. They tend to be lacking in statistical integrity and he massages his numbers quite frequently to get what he wants. Not saying the antis don’t do this as well, just that both sides put out fake numbers quite often.

 

[501st]

Try to stay away from Lott studies. They tend to be lacking in statistical integrity and he massages his numbers quite frequently to get what he wants. Not saying the antis don’t do this as well, just that both sides put out fake numbers quite often.

I've heard this before, but then I read reviews like this:

First, some background about me: I am a Ph.D.-holder and tenured professor whose immersion in the insular politics of academia had led me to harbor many negative perceptions about firearms. Though I was never staunchly "anti-gun," I was not a gun owner, did not understand the appeal of firearms, and generally believed that gun control legislation was only common sense. That changed four years ago when I (finally) decided to look into the data on guns, crime, and public safety for myself. I am a trained researcher, but I conducted my research for personal not professional reasons. My wife was pregnant and I wanted hard facts--not talking point from the political parties--so I could make an informed decision about what to teach my children about firearms, and whether it would be prudent or dangerous to have one in our house.

I was drawn into that research almost immediately by the sheer force of my own disbelief. I discovered fact after fact that starkly disproved the claims and "facts" so many teachers and colleagues had expressed about firearms and their relationship to violence, and which, during my long trip through academia, had led me to believe stricter gun control was just plain common sense. For two years, I read thousands of pages of information, starting with raw data from the FBI and CDC so that I would be better able to assess the claims I subsequently read in books, peer-reviewed journals, news publications, blogs, and so forth. In the course of that research, I came across numerous references to John Lott's studies, but so many of them suggested there were "fatal flaws" in his methodology (and questions about his motives) that I never bothered to read him. I simply assumed based on the sheer number of such comments that his work was indeed more propaganda than serious study. Nonetheless, I turned up enough information over the course of two years to completely change my view about guns. I now believe wholeheartedly in the right to carry, the wisdom of the 2nd Amendment, the particularly important benefits of concealed carry for women, and the notion that more firearms in law-abiding hands does make society demonstrably safer.

Now that I have finally read John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime" (3rd edition, 2010), I am ashamed that I did not consult it earlier instead of accepting at face value the facile criticisms of his work. Lott's research and claims are astonishingly thorough--meticulously explained and documented. At every turn, he (accurately and clearly) explains the challenges, assumptions, and variables that inform his findings. Often, just to cover his bases, he runs the data with, and then without, certain questionable variables (arrest rates, county sizes, etc.). Again and again, he shows that with only slight variations in the magnitude of the results, more concealed carry permits equals less violent crime (murder, rape, aggravated assault, and robberies involving direct contact with the victim, such as muggings). He also observes that those permits may contribute to a smaller "substitution effect" that displaces criminal activity into less-confrontational forms, such as property theft. On all counts, this constitutes powerful evidence that the likely presence of a defensive firearm has a statistically significant deterrence effect on criminal behavior. More concealed carry permits lead to a net decline in assaults and deaths, and a net decline in the financial costs to society. Moreover, these benefits apply to all citizens--not just those who are armed--and they increase over time, as the number of carry permits rises. They also have the greatest positive impact on African Americans and women.

Why should you take Lott's study seriously? Because it is the most comprehensive study of crime--let alone firearms--ever conducted. In retrospect, I am stunned that any commentator has dared to fault the quality of his data. If anything can be said for Lott, it is that he is meticulous in recognizing and accounting for the variables at stake. Indeed, like a responsible analyst testing a hypothesis with appropriate rigor, he tends to control in ways that actually minimize (i.e., underestimate, and perhaps even artificially suppress) the benefits of non-discretionary ("shall issue") concealed carry laws. His is the only gun control study I've seen that takes all counties into consideration (not some selective sample) and then meticulously controls for population density, arrest rates, rising/falling trends in crime prior to the passing of the carry laws, demographic factors, the number of permits issued, and so forth. Although his expansive, county-level approach is clearly the most precise way to analyze the impact of carry laws, he also consistently re-runs the regressions using state-level (aggregate) data to show that, while the precise results vary, the trends remain the same: more guns, less crime. Indeed, the scope and depth of his study is so far beyond any other peer-reviewed study of guns I've ever encountered that any blanket dismissal either of his findings or his methodology is manifestly disingenuous.

Of course, given the amount of criticism his work has received, Lott is (rightly) concerned to defend his integrity as a scholar. His seventh chapter thus quotes a series of 23 direct criticisms by other academics--each of which he capably rebuts. Whenever possible, Lott first politely plays devil's advocate: re-running his regressions in the alternative manner some critics have suggested, only to show that the results consistently yield the same conclusion: more guns, less crime. He also exposes some critics' blatant ignorance of certain statistical categories (such as what it means for victims to "know" their shooters) and then lays bare salient points or critical factors those critics ignore. One devastating effect of these clear, well-reasoned rebuttals is to expose the patently un-scientific anti-gun bias that drives most critical "concerns" about Lott's study. Yet Lott never dispenses with civility or stoops to base political jabs. A few times, he briefly speculates on the kinds of credible concerns that could be raised about his work--politely leaving it for the reader to note, in unflattering contrast, that the criticisms that have actually been leveled at him fall very short of that standard. Ever the responsible scholar, he chiefly defends his integrity by clarifying his robust methodology and letting the data speak for itself.

I can't say enough about the importance of this book. Do not trust the claim that Lott's work has been "discredited", "fatally flawed," or "funded by the gun lobby." Lott explicitly refutes those attacks in this book, and I have verified to my own satisfaction that those are indeed false claims designed to deflect attention away from his compelling pro-gun findings. Read this book for yourself. It matches the findings of my own personal two-year study into these issues, though I might have saved myself a lot of time and work by consulting Lott's book sooner. He explains the variables and various analytical concepts very clearly (the substitution effect, the endogeneity problem, the perils of looking only at raw measures instead of slopes/trends over time, etc.). This diligent effort to empower (non-expert) readers by allowing them to understand what is at stake in the measures before delving into the data is one clear sign that his intention is to inform readers truthfully, not manipulate their political views. His habit of checking, re-checking, and checking his regressions again--verifying how the results change as certain variables are included or excluded--is another good sign. And yet another is the modest and precise way he reports his results: never engaging in bombastic or exaggerated claims, but always frankly acknowledging the limits of what can be reasonably concluded from the data. By the end of the book, you will understand many of the flawed assumptions and misunderstandings which underlie the oft-cited "evidence" that stricter gun control enhances public safety.

If you're anti-gun and Lott's book does not give you pause and force you to reconsider the potential benefits of an armed society, you either did not read the book with an open mind, or you do not know how to distinguish a precisely-reasoned argument from a merely political one.

Well done Mr. Lott. I cannot fathom the amount of energy and intellectual rigor you must have invested in this massive project, but I am grateful to you for this impressive and substantial contribution to knowledge.

 

[y.pestis]

Google Glenn Beck Control

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Xparent BlueTapatalk 2

 

[Tyeraxus]

I'm not quite arguing that concealed carry reduces crime, because the rate of concealed carrying in the US is rather low. Also, the average concealed carry license holder is a middle aged, Republican, white male living in a non-urban area. That demographic is the least likely to be a victim of a crime in the first place. The people who need concealed carry the most are not the ones with permits or even those supporting it. What I am arguing is that concealed carry does not increase crime, and why concealed carry is compatible with the legal and cultural traditions of the US (the "society" part of law and society).

There you go. If concealed carry increased crime, then those that concealed carry would have HIGHER crime rates than the general population, not lower. The problem, as it is with all social sciences, is in finding/crafting an appropriate control group, but if you can show a statistically significant difference in crime rate among populations, then you have a solid start.

Or are you looking for peer-reviewed existing studies, not crunching the numbers yourself?

 

[ken792]

Or are you looking for peer-reviewed existing studies, not crunching the numbers yourself?

Yeah, I'm looking for peer reviewed, scholarly studies. This is for a law & society class, so I'm not doing any number crunching.