More Guns Less Crime (23 page)

If such an objection were valid, it should also apply to my finding that in areas where personal incomes are high, auto-theft rates are also high. Should we infer from this that high-income individuals are more likely to steal cars? Presumably not. What is most likely is that wealthy individuals own cars that are attractive targets for auto thieves.

It is also important to note that the different demographic variables are very highly correlated with each other. The percentage of the population that is male and within a particular race and age grouping is very similar to the percentage that is female within that race and age group. Similar high correlations exist within racial groups across age groups. With thirty-six different demographic categories, determining whether an effect is specifically related to an individual category or simply arises because that category is correlated (whether negatively or positively) with another demographic group is difficult and not the object of this book. What I have tried to do is "overcontrol" for all possible demographic factors to make sure that any effects attributed to the right-to-carry law are not arising because I have accidentally left out some other factor.

12 Can we compare counties with discretionary and nondiscretionary concealed-handgun laws?

Many counties with very permissive permit systems can be found in states with no shall-issue laws, such as Louisiana and California. For example, in

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El Dorado county in California, 1,289 concealed-carry permits were issued in 1995. With a population of 148,600, this implies that 0.87 percent of this county's population received concealed-carry permits in one year alone. In contrast, a total of 186,000 people in Florida had concealed-carry permits in 1996 out of a total state population of 13,958,000; that is, 1.33 percent of the population was licensed to carry concealed [guns]. Yet under [the] classification scheme used in most of their results, El Dorado county would not be classified as shall-issue, while every county in Florida would be so classified. (Jens Ludwig, "Permissive Concealed-Carry Laws," pp. 20-21.)

The simplest question that we are asking is, What happens to the crime rate when nondiscretionary laws are passed allowing law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns? The key here is the change in the leniency of the laws. The regressions have individual variables for each county that allow us to account for differences in the mean crime rate. The purpose of all the other variables is to explain why crime rates differ from this average. Under discretionary laws some counties are extremely liberal in granting permits—essentially behaving as if they had nondiscretionary laws. In the regressions, differences between counties with discretionary laws (including differences in how liberally they issued concealed-handgun permits) are already being partly "picked up" by these individual county variables. For my test to work, it is only necessary for nondiscretionary laws on average to increase the number of concealed-handgun permits.

True, the amount of change in the number of permits does vary across counties. As this book has documented, law officials in discretionary states across the country have said that the more rural counties with relatively low populations were much more liberal in granting permits under discretionary laws. Since no usable statistics are available regarding how easily permits are granted, I tested whether nondiscretionary laws changed the crime rates the most in counties with the largest or densest populations. The results confirmed that this was the case (see figure 4.1).

We also tried another approach to deal with this question. A few states did keep good records on the number of concealed-handgun permits issued at either the county or the state level. We reported earlier the results for Pennsylvania and Oregon (see tables 5.4 and 5.5 in chapter 5). Despite the small samples, we accounted for all the variables controlled for in the larger regressions, and the results confirmed that murder rates decline as the number of a permits issued in a county rises.

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13 Should changes in the arrest rate be accounted for when explaining changes in the crime rate?

The use of arrest rates as an explanatory variable is itself quite problematic. ... Since the arrest rate is calculated as the number of arrests for a particular crime divided by the number of crimes committed, unobserved determinants of the crime rate will by construction also influence the arrest rate. When the arrest rate is included as an explanatory variable in a regression equation, this leads to the statistical problem known as "endogeneity," or "simultaneity bias." (Jens Ludwig, "Permissive Concealed-Carry Laws," pp. 7—8)

True, there is an endogeneity "problem." However, on theoretical grounds, the inclusion of the arrest rate is highly desirable. There is strong reason to believe that crime rates depend on the probability of punishment. In addition, to exclude variables that obviously should be included in the analysis would create even more important potential bias problems. Furthermore, the endogeneity problem was dealt with in the original paper: it was precisely our awareness of that problem that led us to use two-stage least squares to estimate the set of regressions, which is the recognized method of dealing with such a problem. As reported in chapter 6, the two-stage least-squares estimate provided even stronger evidence that concealed handguns deter crime.

The simplest point to make, however, is that excluding the arrest rate does not alter the findings regarding concealed handguns. Reestimating the regressions in tables 4.1 and 4.3 for the same samples and control variables produces virtually identical results. Ironically, two of my strongest critics, Dan Black and Dan Nagin, also tried excluding the arrest rates, and they admitted in early drafts of their paper that their results agreed with ours: "The inclusion of the arrest-rate variable has very little impact on the coefficient estimates of the right-to-carry laws." 29

14 Are the graphs in this book misleading?

Lott rebuts many of the criticisms of his study by pointing to his simple but misleading graphs. The graphs are visually compelling yet very deceptive. What is not obvious to the casual observer of the graphs is that each data point represents an aggregate average for states that liberalized their gun-carrying laws, but the states that make up the average are not the same each year. Lott examined 10 states he claims adopted "shall-issue" concealed-gun-carrying laws during his sample period. For many of the states studied, data were available for only one to three years after the laws were implemented. (Webster, "Flawed")

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The graphs presented in the paper do indeed represent the average changes in crime rates before and after the implementation of these laws. The graphs consistently show that violent-crime rates are rising before these laws go into effect and falling afterward. Since some states only adopted nondiscretionary, "shall-issue" laws toward the end of the sample period, it was not possible to examine all the states for the same number of years after the laws were implemented. I disagree that this is "misleading" or "deceptive." The results were by no means generated by the aggregation itself, and anybody doubting the meaning of the graph can examine the regression results. Since the regressions already control for each county's average crime rate, any changes refer to deviations from that county's average crime rate. 30

Ian Ayres and Steven Levitt use similar graphs and find similar results when they look at the deterrent effect of Lojack antitheft devices on cars (these are radio tracking devices that can be activated by police when a car is stolen). 31 In many ways, the theoretical deterrent effect of these devices is the same as that of concealed handguns: because the device is small and easy to hide, a criminal cannot easily know whether a car has the tracking device until the police arrive.

Future studies will be able to track these changes in crime over longer periods of time because more states will have had right-to-carry laws for longer periods of time. Such studies will ultimately help to test my findings. I have used all the data that was available at the time that David Mustard and I put this data set together. With 54,000 observations and hundreds of variables available over the 1977 to 1994 period, it is also by far the largest data set that has ever been put together for any study of crime, let alone for the study of gun control. 32 1 find it ironic that my study is attacked for not having enough data when these same researchers have praised previous studies that relied on much shorter time periods for a single state or a few counties. For example, Mr. Webster expresses no such criticism when referring to a study conducted by the University of Maryland. Yet that study analyzed merely five counties and covered a shorter period of time after the law was enacted. 33

15 Should concealed-handgun laws have differential effects on the murder rates of youths and adults. ?

Ludwig points out that in many states only adults may carry concealed weapons. So, according to Lott's deterrence theory, adults should be safer than young people. But this hasn't happened, Ludwig says. (Kathleen Schalch describing Jens Ludwig's arguments on Morning Edition, National Public Radio, 10:00 a.m. ET Tuesday, December 10, 1996.)

As noted in chapter 4,1 tested the hypothesis that murder rates would be lower for adults than for adolescents under nondiscretionary concealed-handgun laws, and reported the results in the original paper. However, the results did not bear out this possibility. Concealed-handgun laws reduce murder rates for both adults and for adolescents. One explanation may simply be that young people also benefited from the carrying of concealed handguns by adults. Several plausible scenarios may explain this. First, criminals may well tend to leave an area where law-abiding adults carry concealed handguns, and since all age groups live in the same neighborhood, this lowers crime rates for all population groups. Second, when gun-carrying adults are physically present, they may able to protect some youngsters in threatening situations.

Could some other factor be lowering the juvenile murder rate— something that is unrelated to concealed handguns? Perhaps, despite all the factors accounted for, the results of any research may be affected by unknown factors. But it is wrong to conclude, as Ludwig does, that "these findings are not consistent with the hypothesis that shall-issue laws decrease crime through a deterrence effect." 34

16 Are changes in the characteristics of victims consistent with the theory?

Lott and Mustard offer data on the character of victims in homicide cases. They report (astonishingly) that the proportion of stranger killings increases following the enactment of right-to-carry laws, while the proportion of intrafamily killings declines. That right-to-carry laws deter in-trafamily homicides more than they deter stranger homicides is inconceivable. (Albert W. Alschuler, "Two Guns, Four Guns, Six Guns, More: Does Arming the Public Reduce Crime?" Valparaiso University Law Review 31 (1997): 369)

Josh Sugarmann of the Violence Prevention Center noted that most murders are committed by people who know each other. "Concealed-weapons laws are not passed to protect people from people they know," Sugarmann said. (Doug Finke, "Sides Stick to Their Guns, Concealed-Carry Bill Set for Showdown in General Assembly," Springfield State Journal-Register, March 31, 1997, p. 1)

As noted in the first chapter, the category of acquaintance murder is extremely broad (encompassing shootings of cab drivers, gang members, drug dealers or buyers, and prostitutes or their clients). For the Chicago data that we discussed, the number of acquaintance murders involving friends was actually only a small percentage of the total number of acquaintance murders. If the breakdown found for Chicago provides even

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the remotest proxy for the national data, it is not particularly surprising that the relative share of acquaintance murders involving friends should rise, because we expect that many of the murders in this category are unlikely to be affected by law-abiding citizens carrying concealed handguns. Family members may also find that concealed handguns protect them from other estranged family members. A wife seeking a divorce may find that a concealed handgun provides her protection against a husband who is unwilling to let go of the relationship, and attacks by such people do not always take place in a home. Surely there are many cases of spousal abuse where women fear for their lives and find that a handgun provides them with a significant degree of protection.

A recent case involving a woman who used a handgun to protect herself from an abusive husband created an important new legal precedent in California: for the first time, women are now allowed to use self-defense before they suffer serious blows. The San Francisco Examiner reported as follows:

[Fay] Johnson, a 47-year-old mother of four, said that on July 2, 1995, she feared her 62-year-old husband, Clarence, would beat her as he always did after a weekend of drinking and hanging out with his motorcycle buddies.

She had overspent her budget on supplies for a Fourth of July barbecue and didn't have dinner ready, and the house was not clean—so when she heard her husband's motorcycle pull into the driveway, she decided to take matters into her own hands.

Johnson said she grabbed a loaded gun ... [and fired, ] hitting her husband five times. He survived and testified against her. She was arrested and spent 21 months in prison until her acquittal.

"I regret being in jail, but I just wouldn't tolerate it anymore," said Johnson, a friendly, articulate woman who is celebrating her freedom with her children and six grandchildren. "It would have been suicide."

Johnson said she had endured nearly 25 years of mental and physical abuse at the hands of her husband, whose usual form of punishment was slamming her head into a wall. The beatings got so bad, she said, that she had to be hospitalized twice and tried getting counseling until he found out and forced her to stop. She said the pressure of the abuse had culminated that fateful day. 33