Question: Does the control of concealed carrying (of handguns) have an impact on violent crime?
Hypothesis: Increased control of concealed carrying will cause an increase in violent crime.
Method: Values were assigned to the level of control in a State as follows: 0 for no control, 1 for shall-issue control; 2 for may-issue control; 3 for no-issue control. Data was plotted on two axes: one for all violent crime, one for homicide. Sources: control, homicide, violent crime. Control level was coded by statute, to avoid bias in subjective interpretation of practice. Linear regressions were run for both data series to determine the coefficient of correlation. LibreOffice 3.5.7 was used for charting and calculations.
Results: Both data sets show a weak correlation between increased control and increased rates. R2 for violent crime is .17, for homicide it’s .14. In no case did the least violent State in a group have a lower crime rate in either series than the lowest State in the less restrictive groups.
Conclusion: Restrictions on concealed carry may cause an increase in crime, but other cultural factors are probably more significant in determining the overall difference in crime between States. In no State has increased control lowered crime rates below that of all States with less control – adding control on concealed carry cannot be justified as a valid approach for improving crime rates.
Bad method, no biscuit. 1) You did not consider the null hypothesis to your hypothesis. 2) Your hypothesis is flawed in the first place. To determine if increasing restrictions on gun control has an effect on crime rate AND control for those cultural issues you mentioned, you need to find states that either loosened or tightened their restrictions and run a pre/post analysis–preferably one that spans several years on either side of the change in restrictions.
I’m not saying I know the answer, I’m just saying that this analysis doesn’t provide it.
Yes, I looked at those states that increased control (moved columns here) and they did not see a reduction. Adding those to the chart would be a good next step. As I said above, it’s a correlation, which never proves anything. Correlations are a good place to start doing more intensive research, of course.
Sir,
I found a quote online that said, “The nation’s murder rate is near a 40 year low and the number of privately owned guns in the U.S. is at an all-time high and rising by about 4.5 million annually. Right-to-Carry states had lower violent crime rates on the average than the rest of the country. Total violent crime in Right-to-Carry States was 24% lower; murder 28% lower; robbery 50% lower and aggravated assault 11% lower. The cities with the highest murder rates were cities with severe gun control.”
The quotation cited the FBI Crime Report, 2007 as it’s source, but I am having trouble confirming this. DO you have any intel to support this? I am in a current war of words with a bunch of “Gun Grabbers” out here in Colorado and I want to trump them.
Regards Will
Check out John Lott’s work – he has the best long term statistics and he will send you his data set if you agree to not further redistribute it.