Gun Violence: The Real Costs (Studies in Crime and Public Policy) [Paperback]

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

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0195153847 | ISBN-13: 978-0195153842 | Publication Date: February 14, 2002

100 billion dollars. That is the annual cost of gun violence in America according to the authors of this landmark study, a book destined to change the way Americans view the problem of gun-related violence.

Until now researchers have assessed the burden imposed by gunshot injuries and deaths in terms of medical costs and lost productivity. Here, economists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig widen the lens, developing a framework to calculate the full costs borne by Americans in a society where both gun violence and its ever-present threat mandate responses that touch every aspect of our lives.

All of us, no matter where we reside or how we live, share the costs of gun violence. Whether waiting in line to pass through airport security or paying taxes for the protection of public officials; whether buying a transparent book bag for our children to meet their school's post-Columbine regulations or subsidizing an urban trauma center, the steps we take are many and the expenditures enormous.

Cook and Ludwig reveal that investments in prevention, avoidance, and harm reduction, both public and private, constitute a far greater share of the gun-violence burden than previously recognized. They also employ extensive survey data to measure the subjective costs of living in a society where there is risk of being shot or losing a loved one or neighbor to gunfire.

At the same time, they demonstrate that the problem of gun violence is not intractable. Their review of the available evidence suggests that there are both additional gun regulations and targeted law enforcement measures that will help.

This urgently needed book documents for the first time how gun violence diminishes the quality of life for everyone in America. In doing so, it will move the debate over gun violence past symbolic politics to a direct engagement with the costs and benefits of policies that hold promise for reducing gun violence and may even pay for themselves.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The effects of gun violence in the United States go far beyond the costs borne by the legal system, according to the authors (both experts on pubic policy and gun violence) of this convincing, if technical, study. Calculating the costs of the roughly 110,000 annual gun-related deaths and serious injuries, the authors argue that gun violence is a public health problem that costs Americans about $100 billion a year. These costs include more than those immediately resulting from a gun injury (e.g., emergency room costs) ; it also includes related costs such as increased security at airports and schools. But most original and enlightening in this study is that in their cost-benefit outlook, the authors measure not only the financial but the emotional costs of a gun-filled society, which encompasses "not just victims but potential victims and those who are linked to those potential victims .In short, most all of us bear some part of the cost of gun violence." The authors go even further, arguing that "many of the interventions designed to separate guns from violence essentially pay for themselves." With all the evidence Cook, a professor at Duke, and Ludwig, a professor at Georgetown, marshal about the effects of gun violence, one might expect them to propose strict gun control measures. But instead they propose a series of limited reformsAmandatory registration of handguns, more police patrols against illegal gun carrying, increased sentencing for gun crimes. This study is bound to garner national attention (it has already been reported on in the New York Times), but the technical methodology and abundance of charts, graphs and tables will reduce this book's appeal to general readersAand that's unfortunate, because this volume is an innovative contribution to the growing literature on one of America's most intractable problems. (Nov. 1)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From The New England Journal of Medicine

In 1997, guns claimed the lives of more than 32,000 Americans, and another 81,000 suffered serious nonfatal injuries. Yet these figures fail to reveal the full toll of firearm violence. Not included, for example, are the costs of personal efforts to manage risk, expenditures for prevention by public agencies, and a general reduction in our quality of life. In Gun Violence, Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig attempt to quantify the total annual expense of firearm misuse. They settle at an estimate of $100 billion. While developing their accounting scheme, they concisely but thoroughly discuss the major issues in gun-policy research. The scope of the book is therefore broader than its title suggests, and it should appeal to a wide audience.

Monetary estimates of the value of human lives or the costs of fear and worry will always contain a subjective element. The methods used by the authors also require many assumptions, and the available data are often spotty. Some readers are certain to object to the conclusions. Still, Cook and Ludwig's approach is ambitious and pathbreaking. Theirs is the first attempt to document the many ways in which gun violence affects the United States, and they consider outcomes that are overlooked in most discussions. Their estimate -- however imprecise -- permits comparisons with other social problems, and it provides a basis for further refinements. Their analysis also guides preventive measures toward strategies with the largest net payoffs. This important book will be a model for other research, and it should influence discussions of public policy.

Cook and Ludwig conclude that the costs of medical care and of lost productivity contribute only a small fraction to the costs of gun violence. They estimate an annual gross expenditure of about $2 billion for the treatment of firearm injuries. After allowing for worker replacement and injuries that victims would have suffered anyway, the net figure becomes smaller. Productivity losses are lower still: if gunshot victims consume as much as they produce, the net effect on the community is essentially zero.

Beyond its effects on medical care and productivity, firearm violence causes harm in other ways. Victimization is among these, and in an interesting chapter the effects on work patterns, choice of residence, and the criminal justice system are discussed. Worries about personal and collective welfare impose additional burdens on many Americans. According to the book, the costs of prevention and victimization are enormously higher than the costs of lost productivity or medical treatment.

Cook and Ludwig contend that the best way to measure these costs is to find the amount that the public would willingly spend to eliminate victimization and the need for prevention. Of several possible methods to estimate the costs, they prefer "contingent valuation" surveys. With this approach, people are simply asked how much they think a given level of risk reduction is worth. To estimate the cost of firearm assaults, Cook and Ludwig presented the following scenario to a national sample:

Suppose that you were asked to vote for or against a new program in your state to reduce gun thefts and illegal gun dealers. This program would make it more difficult for criminals and delinquents to obtain guns. It would reduce gun injuries by about 30% but taxes would have to be increased to pay for it.

The respondents were then asked whether they would vote for the program, with the specified size of the tax increase varied. Aggregating the results, Cook and Ludwig found that citizens would be willing to spend about $1 million dollars to avert a single gun assault. Given the volume of firearm crime in 1997, eliminating crime-related gunshot injuries would thus be worth $80 billion annually. Using other methods, the authors conclude that eliminating suicides and accidents would be worth an additional $20 billion.

A large literature in economics considers the validity of contingent-valuation studies, and this book presents a persuasive argument in favor of the approach. Still, skeptical readers might wonder whether a different question would yield different results. The lower bound on the tax increase was zero, for example, but a fervent opponent of firearm regulations might wish to specify a negative value. More generally, the question did not address inconveniences to legitimate gun owners. Even small barriers to access to guns might dramatically erode the support found by the survey.

In the final section of the book, Cook and Ludwig discuss possible interventions to reduce the frequency of firearm injuries. This short chapter can largely stand on its own, and it gives a reasoned assessment of many current policy proposals. Overall, this interesting and well-written book is not likely to produce a consensus about how much the misuse of firearms costs the nation. Given the care and detail of their work, however, Cook and Ludwig's analysis sets a very high standard for alternative estimates. Perhaps more important, the book offers a valuable framework for thinking about how gun violence affects American life. Anyone with even a casual interest in the topic will profit from reading it.

David McDowall, Ph.D.
Copyright © 2001 Massachusetts Medical Society. All rights reserved. The New England Journal of Medicine is a registered trademark of the MMS. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (February 14, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195153847
• ISBN-13: 978-0195153842
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,048,611 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #74 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Current Events > Gun Control

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't take the word of a crackpot, read the book yourself, July 28, 2005

By 

David McDowall (Albany, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gun Violence: The Real Costs (Studies in Crime and Public Policy) (Paperback)

I am the author of the New England Journal of Medicine review to which Dr. van der Linden so strongly objects. I doubt that Dr. van der Linden ever read the book, and he certainly did not carefully read my review. The review was not effusively praiseful of Gun Violence, and it noted some reasons for skepticism about the book's major conclusions. However, I believe that it introduces a worthwhile framework for thinking about firearm violence, and it is worth reading even if you disagree with it.

13 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Based on Impractical Assumptions, December 23, 2006

By 

Confederate (Bethesda, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gun Violence : The Real Costs (Hardcover)

The benefits of an armed society can never be adequately weighed against the detriments for a variety of reasons, the chief one being a dearth of records on both national and local levels. Firearms, like alcoholic beverages, can be both used and misused; however, unlike firearms, alcoholic beverages have no socially redeeming purposes. There are significant numbers in our society who are alive and well because they had a firearm they could depend on when police weren't available.

Courts have consistently held that governments don't have an obligation to protect individuals, but the population at large. Indeed, most murders are committed when there are no police present. When one considers that police functions depend more on deterrent and solving crimes rather than protection, the benefits of an armed society becomes even more apparent.

Over the past several years, the media has reported that police presence has been sparse to almost non-existent following hurricanes like Katrina and Andrew and other natural disasters. Police have their own families to tend to and in extreme conditions it's conceivable that many thousands of people can be caught alone in extremely hostile environs, unprotected.

When gun deaths are posted, no one has any idea how many are criminals are shot by police, how many criminals are killed and captured by citizens, and how many criminals are killed by criminals. We do know that nearly 50 percent of all handgun deaths are due to suicide, and there is no evidence that restricting handguns would result in fewer suicides. In fact, a 5-year Department of Justice study conducted a number of years ago found that Japanese-Americans had about the same rate on violent crimes as Japanese-Japanese. The same was true for white Europeans and white Americans. And, not surpisingly, it was true in both cases with suicide. The bottom line was that cultural disposition had more to do with violent crime and suicide rates than gun laws or the lack thereof.

Speaking about gun laws, there is no documented case in which more restrictive gun laws ever resulted in less violent crime. In fact, the opposite has almost always been the case.

So who can measure the cost of the human lives saved because a handgun was present when the local rift raft came by to cave someone's head in with a 2x4 or to rape or pillage? In well over 95 percent of the time an armed citizen doesn't even have to shoot a criminal (much less kill) to prevent a violent crime. Thus, how do we calculate those benefits? The same is true for hikers and campers who use firearms against bear, snakes, cougars, or use them to signal others when they are injured or are lost?

I would be far more impressed had the authors tried to calculate, or even concede, that guns might actually be beneficial. For those who complain about the criminal use of guns, perhaps getting criminals off the streets would have a far more conclusive result on the "real" costs.

18 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Very disappointing research, September 21, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Gun Violence : The Real Costs (Hardcover)

This book is obviously strongly on our side, but unfortunately it is not going to provide us with serious evidence. Suppose someone challenges me on how they got their $100 billion estimate of the costs of guns. Will I be taken seriously if I tell them that the book relies on one public survey question in one survey? If I do use this number, where does that leave me in arguing with gun nuts that cite these wacky surveys showing that guns are used defensively 2.5 million times a year? So they have 16 surveys. I don't believe any of them, but what do I say when they say I only use a survey to measure the costs, why not also the benefits? What if the gun nut morons point out that the estimates of benefits from the surveys are greater than our estimated costs? The one paragraph that Cook and Ludwig have on defensive gun uses being silly could just as well be used against their reliance on a survey. I want to use the figures here, but could one of the people on our side write a review saying how I could respond to these concerns. Absent that this book risks making us look rather silly and hypocritical.