California is a good example of how more gun laws and fewer guns do not automatically equal less crime.
“John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime revives the wisdom of the past by using the latest tools of social science. By constructing careful statistical models and deploying a wealth of crime data he shows that laws permitting the carrying of concealed weapons actually lead to a drop in crime in the jurisdictions that enact them. . . . By providing strong empirical evidence that yet another liberal policy is a cause of the very evil it purports to cure, he has permanently changed the terms of debate on gun control. . . . Lott’s work is a model of the meticulous application of economics and statistics to law and policy.”
(John O. McGinnis National Review)
http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/0226493660