Firearms key to crime control
WND talks to 'More Guns, Less Crime' author, Prof. John Lott Jr.
Editor's note: September's edition of WND's popular Whistleblower magazine focuses on "Guns in America." Subtitled, "Myth-busting research says firearms in more hands result in less crime," it asks this question: Which vision for America – that of Second Amendment supporters (unfettered access to firearms for law-abiding citizens) or that of gun-control proponents (severely limited access to firearms, or an outright ban) – actually results in a safer and more civilized nation?Yale law professor John R. Lott, Jr., Ph.D., author of “More Guns, Less Crime,” which examined FBI crime statistics from 1977 through 1994, answers the question conclusively: Less restrictive gun laws definitely lower crime. Lott was interviewed recently by WorldNetDaily reporter Jon Dougherty.
By Jon Dougherty
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.comWND: A recent report by the Center for Defense Studies by King’s College in London, England, found that since 1997 – the year the British parliament passed a near-total ban on handgun ownership – gun crime in the UK has risen 40 percent. Did that surprise you?
Lott: No. When you pass such laws, you basically have law-abiding citizens who obey these laws – not those who the law is actually being passed for. In fact, such laws actually produce an increase in crime. I’m not sure one can blame the increase just because of the law there, but it is surely not surprising that they did not see a drop in violent crime as a result of it.
WND: You’ve done the most exhaustive study ever, looking at the correlation between restrictive gun-control laws and crime. Are you still finding similar results as you initially found – that areas of the country with fewer gun-control laws also seem to have less crime?
Lott: That’s exactly right. What you have happening is that a lot of these [gun control] laws either have no effect on crime or are actually responsible for an increase in crime. If you can disarm law-abiding citizens relative to criminals, then you actually increase the return for criminals. You've increased crime rather than reduced it. You see that not only in terms of waiting periods like the Brady Act, but also you find increases with other gun-control laws.
WND: One of the most frequently used reasons given by gun-control advocates about why a state should not pass laws allowing citizens to carry a concealed weapon is that after passing them, there will be an increase in gun-related crimes, killings in the streets, shootings because somebody cut you off in traffic and so forth. In your research, have you found any evidence that such claims are true?
Lott: First of all, you look at what the behavior is of the person who has a permit, and what you find is that the type of person who is willing to go through the process of getting a permit tends to be extremely law-abiding. These people who lose their permits for any reason are just hundredths or thousandths of one percentage point. Even when they do lose it, it is usually for crimes that have no connection with using the permit incorrectly. Also, overall, while there is a large drop in murder rates in such states, there is a particular drop in gun crimes as well. What seems to be happening is that criminals are much less likely to carry guns after the passage of these right-to-carry laws. There are other advantages, too, such as drops in police deaths. That’s a spill-over benefit.
WND: Would you say that people who don’t even like guns and don’t carry them also get a residual benefit from the law in right-to-carry states?
Lott: Sure. You do see drops in violent crime rates across the board. For each year that these laws are in place, you’ll see a 1.5 percent drop in murder rates and almost 2 percent drops in rates – robberies, aggravated assaults and so forth – over and above any national or regional declines in crime rates.
WND: You’ve found that out since your original study, which led to your book, “More Guns, Less Crime"?
Lott: Yes. You do see some crime rates increasing, though. Property crime rates, for example, have increased somewhat, but crimes where criminals have to come into direct contact with victims, those crimes drop the most in right-to-carry states.
WND: Crimes like auto theft?
Lott: Yes, and grand larceny, and others when criminals don’t have to worry about the potential of facing an armed victim.
WND: Do you see any patterns emerging from right-to-carry laws?
Lott: Yes. Basically, there are three. One, some criminals stop committing crimes. Some switch to crimes where there is no contact between victims and criminals. And the third thing that happens is that you actually see some criminals moving. In some of my recent work, I’ve looked at counties in separate states that were adjacent to each other, to see what happened when counties in states that adopted concealed-carry laws – their own violent crime rates and those rates of counties adjacent to those in other states. What I found was that while crime rates were dropping in counties in states that adopted these laws, adjacent counties in neighboring states that did not have concealed-carry laws experienced slight increases in violent crime. It wasn’t anywhere near as large as the drop in crime in the gun-carrying county – about 20 percent – but there was a spillover, indicating that some criminals were moving.
WND: Tell me more about the residual effects of right-to-carry laws.
Lott: There’s another aspect of this spillover, and that’s the fact that within the areas where these right-to-carry laws were being passed, it benefits more than just a drop in violent crime against those people who are carrying concealed handguns – it’s much too large to be explained solely by that. What seems to be happening is, not only do people who carry guns benefit by the fact that a person might be able to defend himself, but since the criminals don’t know until they actually attack which persons can defend themselves, that also protects other people who may never think of owning a gun. Also, other studies – including a recent one by Rand – show that in high-gun-ownership areas, criminals take more time casing a home before they break in, to make sure nobody is home. The reason they give is because they don’t want to be shot.
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