NCJ Number
177169
Journal
Journal of Legal Studies Volume: 27 Issue: 1 Dated: January 1998 Pages: 209-219
Date Published
1998
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This article reanalyzes data from an earlier study which concluded that right-to-carry laws deter violent crime.
Abstract
John R. Lott and David B. Mustard concluded that right-to-carry laws deter violent crime. They argued that rational criminals move away from violent crimes and engage instead in property crimes such as burglary and larceny, in which there is less chance of confrontation with an armed victim. This article finds no basis for drawing confident conclusions about the impact of right-to-carry laws on violent crime, and documents that Lott and Mustard's results are highly sensitive to small changes in their model and sample. Without Florida in the sample, there is no detectable impact of right-to-carry laws on the rate of murder and rape, the two crimes that by Lott and Mustard's calculations account for 80 percent of the social benefit of right-to-carry laws. A more general model based on year-to-year differences yields no evidence of significant impact for any type of violent crime. As a result, inference based on the earlier model is inappropriate, and the results cannot be used responsibly to formulate public policy. Notes, tables, figure