NCJ Number
162697
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 86 Issue: 1 Dated: (Fall 1995) Pages: 227-230
Date Published
1995
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article critically examines the hypothesis of McDowall, Loftin, and Wiersema that illegal carrying of guns by criminals may be a response to legal carrying by civilians and police and that this might be a mechanism by which Florida's law allowing permits to carry guns increases the rate of lethal violence.
Abstract
McDowall and colleagues claim to have determined that firearms homicides increased in some parts of Florida after the concealed carry gun law was relaxed. However, the State's overall rate of homicide decreased. Although it is impossible to determine whether the relaxing of Florida's law has led to appreciable increases in civilians carrying concealed handguns in public, no one seems to doubt that this behavior has increased considerably. The Florida experience has not followed the Zimring-Cook prediction that increased gun carrying will increase the murder rate. Although McDowall and colleagues point out that Florida adopted a background-check law for handguns in 1991, this law applied prospectively to retail purchasers of handguns and thus had little impact on the State's handgun stock. McDowall and others have overlooked the common law's intuition that accord rather than antagonism generally exists between self-defense and the collective good of common security. The relaxing of Florida's gun carry law has almost certainly had at least some marginal general deterrent effect on the commission of deadly predatory crimes in public places. Footnotes