More people die from gun suicides than homicides in the U.S., but gun crime accounts for most of the $100 billion in social costs that Phil Cook and I estimate gun violence imposes each year. Most murders are committed with guns (around 75 percent in 2005 in Chicago). We also know that young people—particularly young males—are vastly overrepresented among offenders; most murders happen outdoors; and a large share of all homicides stem from arguments or something related to gangs. A big part of America’s problem with gun violence stems from young guys walking or driving around with guns and then doing stupid things with them.
Young guys carry guns in part because this helps them get some street cred. For a project that Phil Cook, Anthony Braga, and I conducted with the sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh (published in Economic Journal), Venkatesh asked people on the South Side of Chicago why they carry guns. As one gang member said, in the absence of having a gun:
“Who [is] going to fear me? Who [is] going to take me seriously? Nobody. I’m a pussy unless I got my gun.”
Guns are something that a lot of guys seem to have mostly to take to football and basketball games or parties and to show off to their friends or girlfriends. At the same time, the costs of carrying guns might be low. A previous Freakonomics post by Venkatesh notes that cops are less likely to be lenient for other offenses if someone is caught with a gun. But the chances of being arrested with a gun are probably modest, since the probability that even a serious violent crime or property crime results in arrest is surprisingly low.
Giving out serious money for anonymous tips about illegal guns would increase the costs of carrying a gun and reduce the benefits; flashing a gun at a party might still score points, but it would now massively increase your legal risk.
These rewards might help undercut trust among gang members and could be particularly helpful in keeping guns out of schools. A bunch of logistical issues would need to be worked out, including how large the rewards would be (I think $1,000 or more wouldn’t be crazy) and how police should respond to tips and confiscate guns while respecting civil liberties.
But this idea does have the big advantage of getting us out of the stale public debate about gun control, and it gives us a way to make progress on this major social problem right away.
Jesus “Manny” Castro Jr. became an active gang member at the age of twelve. After a brief incarceration, he joined Cornerstone Church of San Diego and now runs the GAME (Gang Awareness Through Mentoring and Education) program at the Turning the Hearts Center in Chula Vista, California.
Growing up in gangs and living the gang lifestyle, I have firsthand knowledge after seeing so many people die from gangs and guns! One great idea that can help to cut gun deaths in the U.S. is having the perpetrator’s family be financially responsible for all emotional, mental, and physical damages that result from the victim’s family’s loss.
This should include (but not be limited to) garnishing their wages for their entire lives and having them pay all funeral arrangements and all outstanding debts. If the perpetrator is under eighteen, then not only will he have to do time in prison but his parents should also be required to serve at least half of the time on behalf of his crime. Everything starts and stops in the home!
The greatest way to make this happen is to make it law and set up organizations that educate parents on how to stop gun violence and clearly teach [their children] the consequences that result from gun violence. At Turning the Hearts Center, through our GAME program, we found that the young people we are working with care about their parents and what they think.
I get parents’ input on what goes on at home so that I can implement and address their issues into our GAME curriculum. Kids have respect for their parents—and if parents knew that they would/could do time for their children’s behavior, perhaps they would stay more involved in their lives.
If the people in communities around the U.S. can model what we do at Turning the Hearts Center, we can make a difference in the world. Hard-core issues like gun deaths need hard-core consequences.
David Hemenway is a professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health, and author of Private Guns, Public Health.
Create the National Firearm Safety Administration.
A milestone in the history of motor vehicle safety in the United States, and the world, was the establishment (forty years ago) of what is now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The NHTSA created a series of data systems on motor vehicle crashes and deaths and provided funding for data analysis. This enabled us to know which policies work to reduce traffic injuries and which don’t.
The NHTSA mandated many safety standards for cars, including those leading to collapsible steering columns, seat belts, and airbags. It became an advocate for improving roads—helping to change the highway design philosophy from the “nut behind the wheel” to the “forgiving roadside.” Improvements in motor vehicle safety were cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a twentieth-century success story.
A similar national agency is needed to help reduce the public health problems due to firearms. Firearms deaths are currently the second leading cause of injury deaths in the United States; more than 270 U.S. civilians were shot per day in 2005, and 84 of those died. In response, Congress should create a national agency (as it did for motor vehicles) with a mission to reduce the harm caused by firearms.
The agency should create and maintain comprehensive and detailed national data systems for firearms injuries and deaths and provide funding for research. (Currently the National Violent Death Reporting System provides funding for only seventeen state data systems and no money for research.)
The agency should require safety and crime-fighting characteristics on all firearms manufactured and sold in the U.S. It should ban from regular civilian use products which are not needed for hunting or protection and which only endanger the public. It should have the power to ensure that there are background checks for all firearm transfers to help prevent guns from being sold to criminals and terrorists.
The agency needs the resources and the power (including standard setting, recall, and research capability) for making reasonable decisions about firearms. The power to determine the side-impact performance standards for automobiles resides with a regulatory agency, as does the power to decide whether to ban three-wheeled all-terrain vehicles (while allowing the safer four-wheeled vehicles).
Similarly, each specific rule regulating the manufacture and sale of firearms should go through a more scientific administrative process rather than the more political legislative process. It’s time to take some of the politics out of firearm safety.
I Almost Got Sent to Guantanamo
(SDL)
I arrived at the West Palm Beach Airport yesterday, trying to make my way back to Chicago, only to see my flight time listed on the departure board as simply DELAYED. They weren’t even pretending it was leaving in the foreseeable future.
With a little detective work, I found another flight that could get me home on a different airline. I bought a one-way ticket and headed for airport security.
Of course, the last-minute purchase of a one-way ticket sets off the lights and buzzers for the TSA. So I’m pulled out of the line and searched. First the full-body search. Then the luggage.
It didn’t occur to me that my latest research was going to get me into trouble. I’ve been thinking a lot about terrorism lately. Among the things I had in my carry-on was a detailed description of the 9/11 terrorists’ activities, replete with pictures of each of the terrorists and information about their background. Also, pages of my scribblings on terrorist incentives, potential targets, etc. It also was the first thing the screener pulled out of my bag. The previously cheery mood turned dark. Four TSA employees suddenly surrounded me. They didn’t seem very impressed with my explanation. When the boss arrived, one of the screeners said, “He claims to be an economics professor who s
tudies terrorism.”
They proceed to take every last item out of both my bags. It has been a very long time since I cleaned out my book bag. This is a bag with twelve separate pockets, all of which are filled with junk.
“What is this?” the screener asks.
“It’s a Monsters, Inc. lip gloss and key chain,” I respond.
And so it went for thirty minutes. Other than the lip gloss, he was particularly interested in my passport (luckily it was really mine), my PowerPoint presentation, the random pills floating among the crevices of my bag (covered with lint and pencil lead from years in purgatory), and a beat-up book (When Bad Things Happen to Good People).
Finally satisfied that I was playing for the home team, he allowed me to board a plane to Chicago. Thank God I left at home my copy of the terrorist handbook that I recently blogged about, or I would have instead been flying straight to Cuba.
Weird But True: Freakonomics-Flavored Cop Show Bought by NBC
(SJD)
A few months back, Levitt and I were asked help put together a TV cop show based on the concepts of Freakonomics. The gist: a big-city police force, in crisis, hires a rogue academic to help get crime under control.
It struck us as a totally crazy but also strangely appealing idea. The concept had been hatched by Brian Taylor, a young exec at Kelsey Grammer’s production company, Grammnet, which then partnered with Lionsgate; and the acclaimed writer Kevin Fox was brought on board. The show would be called Pariah.
A couple weeks ago, Levitt and I went to Los Angeles to help these guys pitch the show to the TV networks. Since we know nothing about TV, we tried to not talk too much and let Kevin, Brian, and Kelsey do their thing. And they did! Here’s the news, from Deadline.com:
NBC has bought Pariah . . . [T]he police procedural features characters inspired by the economic theory “Freakonomics” made popular by authors/economists Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. In Pariah, the Mayor of San Diego appoints a rogue academic with no law enforcement background to run a task force using Freakonomics-inspired alternative methods of policing.
Who knows how far this will go, but the ride has been fun so far. It was particularly enlightening to talk to Grammer about acting (he’s currently starring in the high-end drama Boss, playing a Daley-ish mayor of Chicago). At one point, I asked him what it is about certain people that make their faces so appealing on the screen while other people, who might be better-looking or more attractive in some other way, just don’t have that appeal.
He answered immediately: “Head size. Most successful actors have really big heads.”
Physiologically, he meant. At least I think so.
Update: the collapse of this deal was fast even by Hollywood standards. After just a few conference calls, NBC informed the producers that they were changing direction, or that they had changed their minds, or they were changing their oil, or something. We are still waiting for our moment in the sun.
CHAPTER 10
More Sex Please, We’re Economists
©iStock.com/megamix
Of course we’ve blogged about sex but, weirdly, only other people’s sex: not one of our eight thousand blog posts ever mentions our own sexual experiences. That said, we have had a few things to say about prostitution, STDs, and online dating.
Breaking News: Soccer Fans Not as Horny as Previously Thought
(SJD)
A few years ago, Germany legalized prostitution. It wasn’t hard to surmise that this was meant to make Germany a bit more hospitable for World Cup fans. Brothels across the country staffed up and prepared for the World Cup boom—which, apparently, hasn’t happened at all. It may well be that enough soccer fans already feel they’re being screwed by the refs to bother going out at night and paying for it.
An Immodest Proposal: Time for a Sex Tax?
(SJD)
Whereby:
• It has been observed that Democrats are generally in favor of taxation and Republicans are generally opposed to unnecessary sexual activity; and whereby:
• The unintended costs of sexual activity are unacceptably high, particularly in the political arena (c.f. Messrs. Clinton, Foley, Craig, and Edwards, to name just a fraction of the available examples); and whereby:
• The pursuit of sex is also extremely costly beyond the political realm, in terms of lost productivity, unwanted pregnancies, sexually transmitted diseases, and ruined marriages (and other committed relationships); and whereby:
• The federal government is now, as always, in need of more money;
It is hereby proposed that a new “sex tax” shall be levied upon the citizens of these United States.
Let it be clear that the aim of said tax is not to deter sexual activity itself, but rather to capture some of the costs imposed by certain extraneous sexual activity that, especially once made public, tends to divert precious resources from more worthy subjects; to this end:
• Married couples will receive a substantial credit for sanctioned, in-home sexual activity; and, conversely:
• The highest rates shall be paid for premarital, extramarital, and otherwise unusual or undesirable sexual activity; and:
• Sexual activity between members of the same gender; or activity between more than two participants; or in an airplane, on a beach, or in other “nontraditional” settings shall surely be taxed at a higher, though heretofore undetermined, rate.
Also to be determined is a scale for noncoital activity. The Internal Revenue Service shall be granted the full and complete authority to collect said tax. Furthermore:
• Payment of said tax, while voluntary, is no more voluntary than payments or credits on other tax-related activities such as: charitable contributions, business-related deductions, and cash received for goods and services, and is therefore expected to stimulate a very acceptable rate of compliance; additionally:
• Taxpayers will create a sexual paper trail that could prove advantageous in countless future scenarios, including but not limited to: employment, courtship, and participation in the political process; and:
• The typical IRS audit would become considerably more interesting for the auditor, and interesting work is a much-needed incentive to attract and retain qualified IRS employees.
It should be acknowledged that determining an acceptable name for said tax may be politically difficult, much like the “estate tax” and the “death tax” are in fact nomenclaturally diverse versions of the same tax used by opposing parties; candidates to consider include: the Family Creation Tax; the Extracurricular Intercourse and Lesser Sex Act Tax; and the Shtup Tax.
Furthermore:
• This is not the first time such a tax has been proposed in America; in 1971, a Democratic legislator from Providence, RI, named Bernard Gladstone proposed such a measure in his state; he called it “the one tax that would probably be overpaid,” but sadly, the measure was promptly rejected as being in “bad taste,” a position with which we summarily disagree; and whereby:
• A similar tax does have a historical (if fictional) precedence in the writings of one Jonathan Swift, who in Gulliver’s Travels noted that in a place called Laputa, “The highest tax was upon men who are the greatest favourites of the other sex, and the assessments according to the number and natures of the favors they have received; for which they are allowed to be their own vouchers.” And finally:
• It is unclear why both Swift and Gladstone proposed that the tax be levied solely upon males but, in light of recent and less-than-recent news events, they were probably 100 percent correct to have done so.
More Sex Please, We’re Economists
(SJD)
Steven Landsburg is not known for having temperate opinions. An economics professor at the University of Rochester and a prolific writer, Landsburg regularly raises provocative theories: women choke under pressure, e.g., or miserliness is a form of generosity. He is the author of the books The Armchair Economist and Fair Play, which are in some ways direct forebears of Freakonomics. His
latest is called More Sex Is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics. We asked him about the titular idea:
Q. Many of the stories in your book rest on the idea that people should alter their personal welfare for the greater good—for instance, STD-free men should become more sexually active to give healthy women disease-free partners. In our society, is it possible to put such ideas into practice?
A. Sure. We put such ideas into practice all the time. We think that the owners of polluting factories should give up some of their personal welfare (i.e., their profits) for the greater good, and we convince them to do that via tradable emissions permits (when we’re being smart) or via clumsy regulations (when we’re being dumb). We think that professional thieves should give up some aspects of their personal welfare (i.e., their thievery) for the greater good, and we convince them to do that with the prospect of prison terms.
Our personal welfare is almost always in conflict with the greater good. When something exciting happens at the ballpark, everyone stands up to see better, and therefore nobody succeeds. At parties, everyone speaks loudly to be heard over everyone else, and therefore everyone goes home with a sore throat. The one great exception is the interaction among buyers and sellers in a competitive marketplace, where—for fairly subtle reasons—the price system aligns private and public interests perfectly. That’s a miraculous exception, but it is an exception. In most other areas, there’s room to improve people’s incentives.
One theme of More Sex Is Safer Sex is that some of those disconnects between private and public interests are surprising and counterintuitive. Casual sex is one of those examples. If you are a recklessly promiscuous person with a high probability of HIV infection, you pollute the partner pool every time you jump into it—and you should be discouraged, just as any polluter should be discouraged. But the flip side of that is that if you are a very cautious person with a low probability of infection—and a low propensity to pass on any infection that you do have—then you improve the quality of the partner pool every time you jump into it. That’s the opposite of pollution, and it should be encouraged for exactly the same reasons that pollution should be discouraged.
When to Rob a Bank: ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants Page 18
