Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence [Paperback]

Jens Ludwig (Editor), Philip J. Cook (Editor)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 081575311X | ISBN-13: 978-0815753117 | Publication Date: February 1, 2003

During the past 50 years the US has reduced the death rate from automobile accidents by one-third, yet the rate at which Americans are killed by gunfire has actually increased. Policymakers have tried to combat gun-related violence and crime in various ways, including imposing more severe sentences, restricting access and banning certain models and designs of guns. This book examines what works by presenting empirical evaluations of a variety of contemporary policies. Among the issues examined are: the relationship between the number of guns in circulation and the suicide rate; the deterrent and "inducement" effects of gun ownership on residential burglary; the impact on domestic homicides of restricting gun possession; and the consequences of more permissive gun-carrying laws. In the overview, Ludwig and Cook conclude that the problem of gun violence in America is not hopeless - indeed, violence rates have declined dramatically during the last decade. Continued success may require a pragmatic mix of new regulations and enhanced law enforcement efforts, guided by ongoing evaluation supported by new and better data systems.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This collection of essays ...ought to be the starting point for any future debate over gun policy. . ." -- Washington Post Book World

About the Author

Jens Ludwig is associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University and formerly the Andrew W. Mellon Fellow in Economic Studies at the Brookings Institution and a visiting scholar at the Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.

Philip J. Cook is the ITT/Sanford Professor of Public Policy at Duke University.

Product Details

• Paperback: 469 pages
• Publisher: Brookings Inst Pr (February 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081575311X
• ISBN-13: 978-0815753117
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,369,526 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #91 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > Gun Control

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Sadly, a biased political work to support a platform, April 30, 2011

By 

Security_Geek - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence (Paperback)

I was hoping for an even-handed treatise on gun policy when I picked this up, and it was bad by page 3, already petulantly casting rocks at other researchers and making broad statements that didn't ring true, and I had to go research some of the statements that sounded like BS. I found many deep flaws, and since these can effect gun policy, flaws of this nature are written in blood, so I'll point them out, so you know how bad this book is. The most glaring is that they repeatedly state that there is no correlation between gun ownership and crime (when gun ownership has nearly doubled over the last 2 decades, and violent crime is at a 16 year low), and citing the drop in violent crime in the UK following massive firearms confiscation (crime has instead risen).

It quickly became clear that the authors hold two views that cannot both be true - they state that there is no correlation between gun ownership and prevention of crime (false), then also state that gun laws that reduce gun ownership would save lives - ignoring the fact that criminals, by definition, don't follow laws. It became quickly obvious that they treated any use of a gun as bad, even if it was by a potential victim to avoid a crime. Confused by their bald inconsistency, I went and cranked the numbers myself, comparing the annual FBI violent crime stats to the annual Brady Campaign "report cards" for aggressive gun control. Those states with the most restrictive gun laws have the highest crime per capita, and vice-versa, by quartile. Bzzzt! Sorry guys, wrong again.

After contending emphatically that there is NO correlation between gun ownership and crime rates, the authors again contradicted themselves 10 pages later by lauding the banning of handguns in Washington D.C. and Australia as measures that they predict will reduce crime (when the opposite came to be), reversing their statement (recinded again a few pages later), indicating that there IS a correlation between gun ownership and reducing crime. I had to go back and re-read that chapter, WTF?

Another confusing thing was that stats on gun deaths used by the authors ignored the fact that more than 50% were suicide or lawful use of firearms in self-defense (per CDC), and treated all firearms deaths equally, even after providing evidence that gun ownership is very likely to have little effect on suicide rates (i.e. - that firearm suicides without guns would turn into other suicides, saving few if any lives). By page 19, it was obvious the authors consider any death by gunshot to be bad, even if it saves the life of an innocent (but never call for disarming the police?).

On the whole, this book had a platform, and did careful picking and choosing to arrive at the answers it wanted to put forward as an agenda. The words used make this agenda clear: Semi-automatic rifles are referred to as "assault weapons", private sales of firearms are described as "loopholes" or the "gun show loophole", and Illinois restrictions now struck down as unconstitutional are praised as models. School shootings were tossed in ominously, without statistical analysis, in dire terms, even though a quick Internet search would have shown that school shootings are in fact substantially down, it's media coverage that is up. (See Bath School disaster, 44 dead 58 wounded, in 1927, as one example). In this book, it's used as a scare tactic presented without research.

I'm really sorry I wasted the money on this book, but it did teach me a valuable lesson, just not the ones the authors intended. I learned a LOT about gun control because the glaring issues and confusion of the book encouraged me to seek out and research more.

6 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Putting the cart before the horse, January 1, 2008

By 

J "J" (Arlington, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence (Paperback)

This book is simply another pseudo-scientific "study" in which the author has already come to his conclusion long before even finishing the book.

15 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Busting the Real Myths of Guns, April 7, 2003

By 

Michael V. Rosenberg (Glastonbury, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Evaluating Gun Policy: Effects on Crime and Violence (Paperback)

This collection of studies is, unfortunately, not light reading (especially for those lacking a solid grounding in statistical methods). Nor, like many of the pro-gun tracts, do the studies included set out clear and definitive conclusions.

What it does is present a number of studies and articles by those scholars who the NRA would label as "gun grabbers" offering evidence that challenges many of the more widely disseminated pro-gun arguments and pseudo-scientific works of authors like John Lott.

For example, while John Donohue's article presents a rather compelling case that Lott's conclusion (summed up as "More Guns, Less Crime") is deeply flawed he notes:

"If one had previously been inclined to believe the Lott and Mustard results, one might now conclude that the statistical evidence that crime will rise when a shall-issue law is passed is at least as compelling as the prior evidence that was amassed to show it would fall. However, there are still enough anomoliesin the data that warrent caution."

That's quite different from Lott's certitude in "More Guns, Less Crime" and, given the evidence, it is Lott's certitude that should be called into question, even before the conclusions about which he is so certain.

One other example merits particular note. That study, by Steven Raphael and Jens Ludwig, challanges the effectiveness of one program that is the "darling" of both the NRA *and* the Brady Campaign -- Richmond's Project Exile. The study concludes that the drop is actually something more akin to "regression to the mean" -- where the implementation followed a particurly steep risee in homicides and the subsequent drop is more attributable to the return to the "normal" rates than the increased focus itself. What the study doesn't mention is that, in 1997 (the base year used in hyping the program's success), homicide rates in Richmond had risen so steeply (contrary to other Virginia metropolitan areas) that Richmond's homicide rate exceeded Washington, DC's.

It many ways, it's a shame that the book isn't written for a wider audience, because the gun debate is one where the loudest and most self-certain voices carry more weight among the public than the most reasoned ones.