More Guns, Less Crime Fails Again: The Latest Evidence from 1977 – 2006
Abstract
In their reply to our comment on their initial paper, Moody and Marvell continue their analysis of right-to-carry (RTC) laws using panel data for the period 1977-2000. But with six additional years of data now available for analysis, we think the need for further parsing of older data is of limited value in assessing the more guns, less crime hypothesis. In this comment, we add six years of data to what Moody and Marvell previously analyzed. We show that, whether one looks at the original Lott and Mustard specification, the latest Moody and Marvell specification, or a plausible alternative specification, there is consistent evidence for the unsurprising proposition that RTC laws increase aggravated assault. We address some anomalies in these models and their resulting estimates. The Lott and Mustard model, for example, suffers from omitted-variable bias in failing to control for the impact of incarceration. In addition, the Moody and Marvell model generates odd predictions of the impact of incarceration on crime for most crime categories, and it appears to suggest (anomalously) that crack had no impact on murder. These and other problems raise questions about how well these regressions work to reveal the true effect on crime of RTC laws. For instance, would better data and models reveal that the estimated increases in murder and robbery are also statistically significant, as they are for the related violent crime of aggravated assault? Or might the estimated effect of aggravated assault be altered if we knew the full impact of changing police responses to domestic violence?Download Info
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.Bibliographic Info
Article provided by Econ Journal Watch in its journal Econ Journal Watch.
Volume (Year): 6 (2009)
Issue (Month): 2 (May)
Pages: 218-238
Contact details of provider:
Postal: MSN 3G4, Fairfax, VA 22030
Phone: (703) 993-1151
Fax: 703.993.1133
Web page: http://econjwatch.org/
More information through EDIRC
Related research
Keywords: Law and economics; Criminal Justice Policy; guns and crime;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- K14 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Criminal Law
- K12 - Law and Economics - - Basic Areas of Law - - - Contract Law
References
No references listed on IDEASYou can help add them by filling out this form.
Citations
Lists
This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.Statistics
Access and download statisticsCorrections
When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ejw:journl:v:6:y:2009:i:2:p:218-238For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Jason Briggeman) The email address of this maintainer does not seem to be valid anymore. Please ask Jason Briggeman to update the entry or send us the correct address.
If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.
If references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.
If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link to it, you can help with this form.
If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.
Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.