NCJ Number
177509
Journal
Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 27 Issue: 1 Dated: January-February 1999 Pages: 11-19
Date Published
1999
Length
9 pages
Annotation
Two economic models on the relationship between guns and crime are developed to include the demand for guns for recreation, self-protection, and criminal purposes and to examine how crime and gun control policies, including laws that permit citizens to carry concealed handguns for self-protection, affect gun demand and crime.
Abstract
In the first model, law-abiding citizens demand guns partly in response to crime; criminals demand guns partly in response to guns owned by potential victims. The second model adds the assumption that law-abiding citizens demanded guns partly in response to guns owned by criminals. The first model implies that increases in the usual crime control approaches may reduce crime less than might be expected due to the indirect negative effect on guns owned by the law-abiding public. It also suggests that gun control policies probably reduce the demand for guns, but the effect on premeditated crime is ambiguous due to the negative effect on guns owned for self-protection and recreation. The model also implies that less restrictive laws on ownership of concealed guns for self-protection will reduce crime. In the second model, the effect on crime of increases in the usual crime control approaches might be muted even more or reversed by the reduction in guns owned by the law-abiding public. However, the second model also includes the possibility that gun control measures will multiply; reductions in guns held by the criminals lead to further reductions in guns held by law-abiding citizens, and vice- versa. Further research is recommended. Table and 10 references