More Guns Less Crime by John Jr (ebook reader macos .txt) 📗

years, they are currently 60 percent higher than in 1965. 9 Driven by sub-

Table 3.1 Gun-ownership rates by state

CBS General Election Exit Poll (November 8, 1988) surveyed 34,245 people

Voter News Service General Election

Exit Poll (November 5, 1996) surveyed

3,818 people

Change in states over time

Table 3.1 Continued

CBS General Election Exit Poll (November 8, 1988) surveyed 34,245 people

Voter News Service General Election

Exit Poll (November 5, 1996) surveyed

3,818 people

Change in states over time

Source: The polls used are the General Election Exit Polls from CBS (1988) and Voter News Service (1996). The estimated percent of the voting population owning a gun is obtained by using the weighting of responses supplied by the polling organizations. The estimated percent of the general population owning a gun uses a weight that I constructed from the census to account for the difference between the percentage of males and females; whites, blacks, Hispanics and others; and these groups by age categories that are in the voting population relative to the actual state-level populations recorded by the census. 'State poll numbers based upon at least 770 respondents per state.

2 State poll numbers based upon at least one hundred respondents per state. Other states were surveyed, but the number of respondents in each state was too small to provide an accurate measure of gun ownership. These responses were still useful in determining the national ownership rate, even if they were not sufficient to help determine the rate in an individual state.

GUNOWNERSHIP, GUNLAWS, DATA ONCRIME/43

stantial increases in rapes, robberies, and aggravated assaults, violent crime was 46 percent higher in 1995 than in 1976 and 240 percent higher than in 1965. As shown in figure 3.5, violent-crime rates peaked in 1991, but they are still substantially above the rates in previous decades.

Such high violent-crime rates make people quite concerned about crime, and even the recent declines have not allayed their fears. Stories of people who have used guns to defend themselves have helped motivate thirty-one states to adopt nondiscretionary (also referred to as "shall-issue" or "do-issue") concealed-handgun laws, which require law-enforcement officials or a licensing agency to issue, without subjective discretion, concealed-weapons permits to all qualified applicants (see figure 3.6). This constitutes a dramatic increase from the eight states that had enacted nondiscretionary concealed-weapons laws prior to 1985. The requirements that must be met vary by state, and generally include the following: lack of a significant criminal record, an age restriction of either 18 or 21, various fees, training, and a lack of significant mental illness. The first three requirements, regarding criminal record, age, and payment of a fee, are the most common. Two states, Vermont and Idaho (with the exception of Boise), do not require permits, though the laws against convicted felons carrying guns still apply. In contrast, discretionary laws allow local law-enforcement officials or judges to make case-by-case decisions about whether to grant permits, based on the applicant's ability to prove a "compelling need."

When the data set used in this book was originally put together, county-level crime data was available for the period between 1977 and 1992. During that time, ten states—Florida (1987), Georgia (1989), Idaho (1990), Maine (1985), 10 Mississippi (1990), Montana (1991), Oregon (1990), Pennsylvania (1989), Virginia (1988), 11 and West Virginia (1989)—adopted nondiscretionary right-to-carry firearm laws. Pennsylvania is a special case because Philadelphia was exempted from the state law during the sample period, though people with permits from the surrounding Pennsylvania counties were allowed to carry concealed handguns into the city. Eight other states (Alabama, Connecticut, Indiana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Washington) have had right-to-carry laws on the books for decades. 12

Keeping in mind all the endogeneity problems discussed earlier, I have provided in table 3.2 a first and very superficial look at the data for the most recent available year (1992) by showing how crime rates varied with the type of concealed-handgun law. According to the data presented in the table, violent-crime rates were highest in states with the most restrictive rules, next highest in the states that allowed local authorities discretion in granting permits, and lowest in states with nondiscretionary rules.

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Figure 3.5. Continued

I I States with nondiscretionary rules or no permit requirements || States