67 The first serious cross-sectional tests using census data were in Isaac Ehrlich, “Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Additional Evidence,” Journal of Political Economy, August 1977. The first time-series estimates were in Isaac Ehrlich, “The Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment,” American Economic Review, August 1975.
68 Isaac Ehrlich, “Capital Punishment and Deterrence: Some Further Thoughts and Additional Evidence,” Journal of Political Economy (August 1977): 779.
69 Committee on Research on Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice, Understanding Crime—An Evaluation of the National Institute of Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice (National Academy of Science, Susan White and Samuel Krislow editors, 1977). See also Alfred Blumstein, Jacqueline Cohen and Daniel Nagin, Deterrence and Incapacitation: Estimating the Effects of Criminal Sanctions on Crime Rates (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Science, 1978). Ehrlich co-authored another study responding to the National Academic of Sciences report. See Isaac Ehrlich and Mark Randall, “Fear of Deterrence,” Journal of Legal Studies (1977): 293-316.
70 The few studies that fail to find any deterrence from the death penalty either don’t use all the data or measure the execution rate in strange ways. For example, ignoring data from individual states, Narayan and Smyth look only at national statistics through a data set that has only thirty-seven observations. Richard Berk, for his part, achieved his result by discarding data for entire states such as Texas. See Paresh Kumar Narayan and Russell Smyth, “Dead Man Walking: An Empirical Reassessment of the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment Using the Bounds Testing Approach to Cointegration,” Applied Economics, 2006, and Richard Berk, “New Claims about Executions and General Deterrence,” Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2005. Rather than analyzing the percent of murders that result in execution, some researchers measure the number of executions per prisoner. It is not clear why anyone would believe that if jails are filled up with additional prisoners convicted of crimes like drug possession or car theft, the risk murderers face from execution would decline. Comparing two unrelated statistics, it is hardly surprising that this research cannot identify any benefit from the death penalty. See Lawrence Katz, Steven Levitt, Ellen Shustorovish, “Prison Conditions, Capital Punishment, and Deterrence,” American Law and Economics Review, 2003, 318-343. Another paper by Donohue and Wolfers has used this approach uncritically. See John Donohue and Wolfers, “Uses and abuses of empirical evidence in the death penalty debate,” Stanford Law Review, 2006, 791-845.
71 My work with Bill Landes finds a much larger benefit—implying that each execution saves hundreds of lives. We found that each one percentage point in execution rates lowered the murder rate by at least four percent. Lott, The Bias Against Guns (2003), Chapter. 6.
72 Lott and Landes in Lott, The Bias Against Guns (Regnery 2003), Chapter 6.
73 Lott, More Guns, Less Crime (University of Chicago Press, 2000), Chapter 9.
74 Prison wardens face a similar problem. If a prisoner is sentenced to death, it’s hard to find an additional penalty that you can impose on him in order to control his behavior. You can take away some privileges, but without some additional penalty it is difficult for the warden to control the prisoner.
75 ABC News/Washington Post Poll. June 22-25, 2006 (http://www.pollingreport.com/crime.htm). A 2006 Gallup poll further found that 51 percent of respondents believed the death penalty is not used enough, compared to 25 percent who think it is used “about right” and 21 percent believing it is used “too often.” Gallup Poll. May 8-11, 2006 (http://www.pollingreport.com/crime.htm.
76 Polls have found support for the death penalty at 60 percent among Eastern Europeans, 72 percent of South Africans, and 51 percent among Brazilians. See Craig Smith, “ In Europe, It’s East vs. West on the Death Penalty,” New York Times, November 19, 2006, p. 4; David W. Moore, “Death Penalty Gets Less Support From Britons, Canadians Than Americans,” Gallup Poll News Service, February 20, 2006; Datafolha / Folha de Sao Paulo, http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/12893. See also http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11872, http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/9970 , http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/11639.
77 49 percent of Britons support the death penalty (David W. Moore, “Death Penalty Gets Less Support From Britons, Canadians Than Americans,” Gallup Poll News Service, February 20, 2006), For somewhat lower percentages, see http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/10758.
78 In a recent debate over the death penalty, Scalia declared:What nations are you talking about? You know, public opinion polls in both England and France, at least until very recently, showed that if they had as responsive a democracy as we do, they would still have the death penalty.
I find it so hypocritical, not that the Europeans don’t have the death penalty—fine; although its abolition was imposed by the Court of Human Rights, which said, “You cannot have the death penalty.” So it’s not as though all the Europeans voted to abolish it. It was judicially imposed, and that doesn’t impress me very much.
Source: “ACLU Membership Conference Debate,” Federal News Service, October 15, 2006.
79 “Study Finds 2.6% Increase In U.S. Prison Population,” New York Times, July 28, 2003.
80 The Washington Post makes a similar argument: “It is one of the least-told stories in American crime-fighting. New York, the safest big city in the nation, achieved its now-legendary 70-percent drop in homicides even as it locked up fewer and fewer of its citizens during the past decade. The number of prisoners in the city has dropped from 21,449 in 1993 to 14,129 this past week. That runs counter to the national trend, in which prison admissions have jumped 72 percent during that time” (Michael Powell, “Despite Fewer Lockups, NYC Has Seen Big Drop in Crime,” Washington Post, November 24, 2006; There is a simple explanation for why both prison population and crime can fall in New York. When murders fall by 70 percent, can you really keep on expanding the prison population? Note that the prison population has fallen by a third, but violent crime in the city has fallen by much more than that. The number of prisoners per crime has still gone up dramatically. Or take their example for Idaho. “Perhaps as intriguing is the experience in states where officials spent billions of dollars to build prisons. From 1992 to 2002, Idaho’s prison population grew by 174 percent. the largest percentage increase in the nation. Yet violent crime in that state rose by 14 percent.” It would have been helpful if they had put the numbers in per capita rates, rather than comparing numbers 10 years apart. Idaho’s population grew by more than 14 percent, though less than 174 percent. Thus their crime rate did fall as the prison population grew. Among the academic papers that find an increase in imprisonment leads to less crime, see Thomas Marvell and Carlisle Moody, “Prison Population Growth and Crime Reduction,” Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 1994, 109-140.
81 Gordon Tullock, “Does Punishment Deter Crime?” The Public Interest 36 (Summer 1974), 103-11. James Q. Wilson, Thinking About Crime, (New York: Random House, 1985). See a more recent summary in my book, More Guns, Less Crime (2000).
82 David B. Mustard, “Re-examining Criminal Behavior: The Importance of Omitted Variable Bias,” Review of Economics and Statistics, vol. 84, no. 1, 2002.
83 John R. Lott, Jr. and John Whitley, “Abortion and Crime: Unwanted Children and Out-of-Wedlock Births,” Economic Inquiry, April 2001.
84 There is a broad range of private law enforcement. Other papers look at everything from private security guards (see Bruce Benson and Brent D. Mast, “Privately Produced General Deterrence,” Journal of Law and Economics , October 2001) to private enforcement catching those who jump bail (see Eric Helland and Alexander Tabarrok, “The Fugitive: Evidence on public verses private law enforcement form bail jumping,” Journal of Law and Economics, April 2004, 93-122.)
85 While it is difficult to compile precise nati
onal statistics for the number of outstanding concealed weapons permits, the following list relates the figures in some states: Florida (549,000) (http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/licensetypecount.html); Pennsylvania (600,000) (http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061217/NEWS/612170334/-1/DATABASE01); Washington (239,000) (http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003298710_shootingside11m.html); Ohio (82,144) (http://www.ag.state.oh.us/le/prevention/concealcarry/statistics.asp); Utah (80,000) (http://bci.utah.gov/CFP/Firearm%20Statistical%20Review/firearmrev_200603.pdf); Texas (247,000) (http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/demographics.htm); Virginia (125,020) (Let’s hunt for answers on gun use, Richmond Times-Dispatch, February 15, 2006); Indiana (300,000) (http://www2.indystar.com/articles/1/161649-4651-092.html), Michigan (133,000) (http://www.michigan.gov/documents/msp/ccw_county_report_approved_177644_7.pdf); North Carolina (59,597) (http://sbi2.jus.state.nc.us/crp/public/other/conceal/Sept302004stats.pdf); and South Dakota (41,000) (http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061217/NEWS/612170334/-1/DATABASE01).
86 Permits are particularly popular among celebrities who face a variety of potential security threats: in 2006, Donald Trump, Robert De Niro, Harvey Keitel, Howard Stern, and Don Imus were among those holding right-to-carry permits just in New York City. A high rate of permits is also held by professional athletes, including NBA stars Shaquille O’Neal, Paul Pierce, and Vince Carter, and NFL players like Edgerrin James, Marvin Harrison, Santana Moss, Jason Taylor, Bob Sanders, Cato June, Jeff Saturday, and Daunte Culpepper. Even famous coaches such as Barry Switzer and Bobby Knight have carried concealed handguns. See Bob Hohler, “Many players regard firearm as a necessity: Concealed weapon licenses common,” Boston Globe, November 10, 2006; Kenneth Lovett, “Mike to Gun-Permit Holders: ‘Pack’ It in,” New York Post, November 1, 2006; and John R. Lott Jr., “Athletes and Guns,” Foxnews.com, January 28, 2004 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,109670,00.html).
87 Some gun control advocates, however, continue to deny this. For example, Douglas Weil, while he was with Handgun Control (now called the Brady Campaign), claimed: “In states with lax CCW [Concealed Carry Weapons] laws, hundreds of licensees have committed crimes both before and after their licensure. For example, in Texas, which weakened its CCW law in 1996, the Department of Public Safety reported that felony and misdemeanor cases involving CCW permit holders rose 54.4% between 1996 and 1997.” (Douglas Weil, “Carrying Concealed Guns is Not the Solution,” Intellectualcapital.com, March 26, 1998). This is indeed true, but Weil fails to mention that the number of permits also increased by 50 percent between those two years, thus keeping the rate at which permit holders were arrested virtually unchanged. Texas permit holders actually tend to be quite law-abiding compared to the rest of the population, with just 180 out of 225,000 convicted of a misdemeanor or felony in 2001 (http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/administration/crime_records/chl/convrates.htm). For a more extensive debunking of these and other faulty claims of gun control advocates, see Chapter 9 of my book, More Guns, Less Crime (2000).
88 Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services, Concealed Weapon / Firearm Summary Report, October 1, 1987 - November 30, 2006 (http://licgweb.doacs.state.fl.us/stats/cw_monthly.html). See also More Guns, Less Crime (2000), 221.
89 Telephone interview with Ms. Mary Kennedy of the Florida Department of Agricultural and Consumer Services, Concealed Weapon / Firearm Division during February 2007.
90 Jonathan Rauch, “And Don’t Forget Your Gun,” National Journal, March 20, 1999.
91 Http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm.
92 Brian Blasé, “The National Crime Victimization Survey,” November 27, 2005, http://johnrlott.tripod.com/other/NCVS.html.
93 Stephen Bronars and John R. Lott, Jr., “Deterrence, Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws, and the Geographic Displacement of Crime,” American Economic Review, May 1998, 475-479.
94 Lott, More Guns, Less Crime, Ch. 9.
95 See Lott, More Guns, Less Crime, 110-113.
96 Mark Duggan, “More Guns, More Crime,” Journal of Political Economy, 2001, 1110.
97 Carlisle E. Moody and Thomas B. Marvel, “Guns and Crime,” Southern Economic Journal, 2005, 720-736. Duggan uses some creative methods to reach his conclusion that lawful gun ownership increases crime. For example, he estimates gun ownership by measuring sales of Guns&Ammo, the fourth biggest-selling gun magazine. Unfortunately, his result only holds true for a single magazine whose unusual sales practices skew the resultes. Skip Johnson, a vice president for Guns&Ammo’s and Handguns Magazine’s parent company, Primedia, told me that between 5 and 20 percent of Guns&Ammo’s national sales in a particular year were purchases by his own company to meet its guaranteed sales to advertisers. These copies were given away for free in places like dentists’ and doctors’ offices. Because the purchases were meant to offset any unexpected national declines in sales, Johnson said that his own purchases were very selective and produced very large swings in a relatively small number of counties. More importantly, while a precise breakdown of how these free samples are counted toward the sales in different counties is not available, these self-purchases were apparently related to factors that helped explain why people might purchase guns, and these factors included changing crime rates. Johnson indicated that the issue of self-purchases is particularly important for Guns&Ammo because the magazine had declining sales over part of this period. See also Peter Kennedy’s example 20. Peter E. Kennedy, “Oh No! I Got the Wrong Sign: What Should I Do?” Journal of Economic Education, 36(1) (Winter 2005): 77-92.
98 Another skeptical study by Dan Black and Dan Nagin disregarded all counties with fewer than 100,000 people, as well as the entire state of Florida, but still found drops in robberies and aggravated assaults attributable to right-to-carry laws. See Dan A. Black and Daniel S. Nagin, “Do Right-to-Carry Laws Deter Violent Crime?” Journal of Legal Studies (January 1998): 212. The drop in robbery was statistically significant at 6 percent.Jens Ludwig dismissed as an anomaly his own findings of decreasing crime rates connected to the passage of right-to-carry laws because crime fell against both juveniles and adults, even though only adults are allowed to carry concealed handguns. An earlier study I co-authored with David Mustard explained this same result by noting that both age groups benefit when the passage of right-to-carry laws results in criminals leaving an area, or in the protection of juveniles by adults with right-to-carry permits.See David Mustard and I found the same result (Journal of Legal Studies, 1997, 51), but we also offered explanations for it that Ludwig never investigated. See Jens Ludwig, “Concealed Gun Carrying Laws and Violent Crime: Evidence from State Panel Data,” International Review of Law and Economics , November 1998, and John Lott and David Mustard, “Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-carry Concealed Handguns,” Journal of Legal Studies (1997): 51. Similar problems are found in the other major studies denying that right-to-carry laws reduce crime rates. Duwe, Kovandzic, and Moody claim to find no statistically significant impact of right-to-carry laws on multiple victim public shootings, though they only examine the very small set of cases where four or more people were killed in attacks. Indeed, while the original work that I did with Bill Landes found significant drops in crime when we examined two or more people killed or three or more people killed, we also did not find a statistically significant result for one type of specification when we looked at only four or more people killed (Lott, The Bias Against Guns, 307, fn. 61). See Grant Duwe, Tomislave Kovandzic, and Carlisle E. Moody, “The Impact of Right-to-Carry Concealed Firearm Laws on Mass Public Shootings,” Homicide Studies, (November 2002): 271-296. The work by Dezhbakhsh and Rubin is discussed in my book More Guns, Less Crime (302, and 304). See also Hashem Dezhbakhsh and Paul H. Rubin, “The Effect of Concealed Handgun Laws on Crime: Going Beyond the Dummy Variables,” International Review of Law and Economics , 23, 2003, 199-216, and Dezhbakhsh, Rubin, and Shepherd, American Law and Economics Review, 2003.
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bsp; Finally, there are several unrefereed papers by Ian Ayres and John Donohue. For a response to their 1999 paper, see my book More Guns, Less Crime, Chapter 9. For their 2003 Stanford Law Review paper, see Plassmann and Whitlely’s piece in the same law review. Plassmann and Whitley point to a number of misleading figures from Ayres and Donohue (there was no increase in crime for in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth years after the right-to-carry laws were in effect, and the only appearance of an increase was an artifact of them dropping states out of their sample). Also in the Ayres and Donohue paper state by state regression results are an artifact of them limiting the time period to five years and fitting a line and an intercept shift to nonlinear data. See Ian Ayres and John Donohue, “Nondiscretionary Concealed Weapons Laws,” American Law and Economics Review, Fall 1999, 436-470. Florenz Plassmann and John Whitley Confirming ‘More Guns, Less Crime,’” Stanford Law Review, 2003, 1313-1369, http://johnrlott.tripod.com/Plassmann_Whitley.pdf. Ian Ayres and John Donohue, “Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis,” Stanford Law Review, 2003. While their American Law and Economics Review piece simply argues that the evidence that right-to-carry laws reduce crime is weak, the final conclusion of their other paper is more ambiguous. I am relying on Donohue’s statement that “his own research shows that concealed carry laws have a negligible effect on crime either way. ‘We’re still not sure what the true impact is. It’s very easy to get it wrong.’” See Erin Grace, “Concealed-carry absolutes are a moving target,” Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska), July 16, 2006.
99 Another quarter of the drop in crime is explained by changing economic factors such as the male unemployment rate, non-college educated male wages, and family income. See Eric Gould, Bruce Weinberg, and David Mustard, “Crime Rates and Local Labor Market Opportunities in the United States: 1979-1997,” Review of Economics and Statistics, February 2002: 57, fn. 35.
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