NCJ Number
162686
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 86 Issue: 1 Dated: (Fall 1995) Pages: 1-9
Date Published
1995
Length
9 pages
Annotation
The increasing attention to firearms in the literature on criminal law is examined, with emphasis on the minimal interest in issues such as gun control in traditional academic criminal law, the reasons why students of criminal policy and criminal law are giving more attention to firearms issues now than they did in the 1970's and 1980's, the type of empirical research now being produced, and the implications of the research for policy analysis.
Abstract
Criminal law theorists did not take a serious interest in firearms for most of the 20th century because scholars and students of criminal law focus most of their attention on the individual offenses believed the most serious, on the mental states associated with criminal actions, and the emphasis on individual actions. The growing interest in firearms and violence relates to the apparent sources of interest in other academic fields such as public health and criminology. Life-threatening violence is now a clear priority in public concern about crime and its control. The 1995 literature focuses on a variety of significant questions that connect to the relationship between firearms and violence. However, for many reasons, existing data do not point unambiguously to particular firearms control policies. Nevertheless, ample data support the conclusion that gun use is an important contributing cause to the high lethality produced by violence in the United States and that real problems do not mean easy solutions. Footnotes