More Guns Less Crime by John Jr (best free e book reader .txt) 📕

sheriff. b The fee is reduced to $70 for those who are over 60 years of age.

Table 4.13 Earlier results reexamined using additional data for 1993 and 1994

Percent change in various crime rates for changes in explanatory variables

Change in explanatory Violent Aggravated

variable crime Murder Rape assault Robbery

Section A: -4.4%*-10.0%* -3.0%*-5.7%* 0.6%

Nondiscretionary law adopted

Section B: The difference-0.5%* -2.9%* -1.7%*-0.3%* -2.2%*

in the annual change in crime rates in the years before and after the change in the law (annual rate after the law minus annual rate before the law)

Section C: Brady law 3% -2.3% 3.9%** 3.7%** -3.9%

adopted

Note: This table uses county-level, violent-crime data from the Uniform Crime Report that were not available until the rest of the book was written. Here I was not able to control for all the variables used in table 4.1. All regressions use weighted least squares, where the weighting is each county's population. Section C also controls for the other variables that were included in Table 4.11 to account for changes in other gun laws. Section A corresponds to the regressions in table 4.1, section B to those in table 4.8, and section C to those in table 4.11, except that a dummy variable for the Brady law was added for those states that did not previously have at least a five-day waiting period.

*The result is statistically significant at the 1 percent level for a two-tailed t-test. **The result is statistically significant at the 10 percent level for a two-tailed t-test.

the declines in the rates for overall violent crime as well as rape and aggravated assault are smaller. Robbery is also no longer statistically significant, and the point estimate is even positive. As noted earlier, given the inverted V shape of crime-rate trends over time, comparing the average crime rates before and after the passage of these laws is not enough, since crime rates that are rising before the law and falling afterward can produce similar average crime rates in the two periods. To deal with this, section B of table 4.13 corresponds to the results reported earlier in table 4.8. The estimates are again quite similar to those reported earlier. The effect on rape is larger than those previously reported, while the effects for aggravated assault and robbery are somewhat smaller. All the results indicate that concealed-handgun laws reduce crime, and all the findings are statistically significant.

Finally, section C of table 4.13 provides some very interesting estimates

CONCEALED-HANDGUNLAWS ANDCRIME RATES/91

of the Brady law's impact by using a variable that equals 1 only for those states that did not previously have at least a five-day waiting period. The claims about the criminals who have been denied access to guns as a result of this law are not necessarily evidence that the Brady law lowers crime rates. Unfortunately, these claims tell us nothing about whether criminals are ultimately able to obtain guns illegally. In addition, to the extent that law-abiding citizens find it more difficult to obtain guns, they may be less able to defend themselves. For example, a woman who is being stalked may no longer be able to obtain a gun quickly to scare off an attacker. Numerous newspaper accounts tell of women who were attempting to buy guns because of threats by former lovers and were murdered or raped during the required waiting period. 42

The evidence from 1994 indicates that the Brady law has been associated with significant increases in rapes and aggravated assaults, and the declines in murder and robbery have been statistically insignificant. All the other gun-control laws examined in table 4.11 were also controlled for here, but because their estimated impacts were essentially unchanged, they are not reported.

What Happens to Neighboring Counties in Adjacent States When Nondiscretionary Handgun Laws are Adopted?

If you put more resources in one place, it will displace some of the crime.

Al LVEcuyer, West Boylston (Massachusetts) Police Chief 3

Up to this point we have asked what happens to crime rates in places that have adopted nondiscretionary laws. If these laws do discourage criminals, however, they may react in several ways. We already have discussed two: criminals could stop committing crimes, or they could commit other, less dangerous crimes like those involving property, where the probability of contact with armed victims is low. Yet as the epigraph for this section notes, a third possibility is that criminals may commit crimes in other areas where potential victims are not armed. A fourth outcome is also possible: eliminating crime in one area can help eliminate crime in other areas as well. This last outcome may occur if criminals had been using the county that adopted the law as a staging area. Crime-prone, poverty-stricken areas of cities may find that some of their crime spills over to adjacent areas.

This section seeks to test what effect concealed-handgun laws and

higher arrest rates have on crime rates in adjacent counties in neighboring states. Since concealed-handgun laws are almost always passed at the state level, comparing adjacent counties in neighboring states allows us to examine the differential effect of concealed-handgun laws. Evidence that changes in a state's laws coincide with changes in crime rates in neighboring states will support the claim that the laws affect criminals. If these laws do not affect criminals, neighboring states should experience no changes in their crime rates.

Although any findings that nondiscretionary concealed-handgun laws cause criminals to leave the jurisdictions that adopt these laws would provide additional evidence of deterrence, such findings would also imply that simply looking at the direct effect of concealed-handgun laws on crime overestimates the total gain to society from these laws. In the extreme, if the entire reduction in crime from concealed-handgun laws was simply transferred to other areas, society as