Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

Surprise: Study Finds No Rise in Violent Crime Attributable to Adopting Right-to-Carry Laws

Thursday, December 6, 2018

Surprise: Study Finds No Rise in Violent Crime Attributable to Adopting Right-to-Carry Laws

As we’ve noted recently, much research purporting to demonstrate connections between access to guns or right-to-carry laws and increases in crime is seriously flawed.  Often it's an attempt to curtail or eliminate Americans’ rights under the Second Amendment rather than unbiased scientific research.

One recent study bucked that trend, however, finding no evidence of a link between access to firearms and increases in crime. “State Level Firearm Concealed-Carry Legislation and Rates of Homicide and Other Violent Crime,” (Hamill, Hernandez, Bailey, Zielinski, Matos, & Schiller, 2018), examined an expansive dataset, encompassing all 50 states and the District of Columbia – from 1986 to 2015 – to determine whether a relationship existed between liberalization of access to legal concealed carry of firearms and rates of both violent and nonviolent crime.

The 30 years’ worth of crime data comprised state-level crime rates for homicides, violent crime, rape, robbery, aggravated assault, and burglary from the Department of Justice Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) system. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided partially redundant figures, including state-based rates of homicide overall and firearm-specific homicide. State-specific rates of unemployment were provided by the U.S. Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, and poverty rates were obtained from the U.S. Census Bureau.

Hamill et al. (2018) defined the ease with which state residents could obtain a carry permit in two ways:

  • On a four-point scale: (1) no carry; (2) may-issue; (3) shall-issue; or, (4) unrestricted (i.e., constitutional carry)
  • With a simpler, bipolar system which grouped the no-carry and may-issue schemes, versus the shall-issue and unrestricted arrangements

Using a form of linear regression modeling which allowed for multiple predictor and control variables as well as correlations among error terms (due to the time-based nature of the data), the authors estimated the various UCR and CDC crime statistics as a function of ease of obtaining carry permits, after controlling for state and year. No significant relationships were noted between ease of carry – whether measured on the four-point or bipolar scales – and rates of crime in any of the UCR or CDC categories. Repeating the analyses, but additionally controlling for level of poverty and unemployment, the Hamill team again found no statistical relationships between the ease with which carry permits could be obtained – regardless of measurement scheme – and crime rates in any category.

The authors concluded:

After adjusting for several population and demographic factors, we demonstrated that the rates of homicide and violent crime were not significantly increased after state laws were passed making access to concealed-carry permits less restricted. These important findings should inform further public policy research to help determine root causes and solutions to firearm-related homicide and violent crime in the future. (Hamill et al., 2018, p. 5)

As the authors noted, the study was correlational in nature and did not demonstrate causation (or lack thereof). Additionally, there were variables with potential explanatory power that were not included in the models, because the authors plan to do so “as a topic of future research” (Hamill et al., 2018, p. 7). Yet, however unlikely it may be that research such as this will convince many in the anti-gun crowd – whose minds seem closed to objective data which conflict with the “bad gun” narrative – it is refreshing to see objective minds investigate the association between guns and crime with the intent of letting the data write the story, rather than seeking evidence to buttress already-worn arguments.

TRENDING NOW
California Sides with Mexico Against U.S. Gun Industry and Second Amendment Rights

News  

Monday, January 27, 2025

California Sides with Mexico Against U.S. Gun Industry and Second Amendment Rights

The willingness of some in the U.S. to aid a foreign power in an assault on American industry and Americans’ Constitutional rights is sad and disturbing. 

The Gunless Invictus Games

News  

Monday, January 27, 2025

The Gunless Invictus Games

The first Winter Invictus Games are due to take place at the Whistler ski resort in British Columbia, Canada early next month. In addition to snowboarding, curling, and alpine and Nordic skiing, the games will feature a ...

Faced With Litigation (and the Election), ATF Quietly Backed Off Zero Tolerance

News  

Monday, January 27, 2025

Faced With Litigation (and the Election), ATF Quietly Backed Off Zero Tolerance

Last week, the end of a lawsuit over ATF’s infamous “zero tolerance” policy revealed that the agency had already begun walking back its persecutory approach to federal firearm licensee (FFL) inspections in the waning days ...

Ministry of Silly Responses

News  

Monday, January 27, 2025

Ministry of Silly Responses

The United Kingdom gave the world arguably the greatest comedy troupe of all time: Monty Python. And Monty Python gave us one of the great satirical takes on inefficient government bureaucracy with its 1970 sketch “The Ministry ...

Washington: Financial Discrimination and Insurance Mandate Introduced

Monday, January 27, 2025

Washington: Financial Discrimination and Insurance Mandate Introduced

Washington anti-gun legislators continue their attack on law-abiding gun owners by introducing legislation to move the goal posts on lawful gun ownership. Last Friday, House Bill 1504 was introduced, requiring gun owners prove they are "financially ...

Michigan: Governor Whitmer Signs Anti-Gun Bill Packages

Friday, January 24, 2025

Michigan: Governor Whitmer Signs Anti-Gun Bill Packages

Earlier this month, we reported that Governor Whitmer had two anti-gun packages awaiting her signature from the 2024 legislative session. On January 22, Governor Whitmer signed both bill packages, and they will now become Michigan ...

Colorado: Semi-Auto Ban Scheduled for Public Committee Hearing

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Colorado: Semi-Auto Ban Scheduled for Public Committee Hearing

On Tuesday, January 28th, the Senate State, Veterans, & Military Affairs Committee will have a public hearing for Senate Bill 25-003, the all-encompassing ban on semi-automatic firearms.

Urge Congress to Protect Your Right to Carry – Contact Your Member of Congress Today!

News  

Wednesday, January 8, 2025

Urge Congress to Protect Your Right to Carry – Contact Your Member of Congress Today!

Dear NRA Member: U.S. Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC) has reintroduced the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act (H.R. 38). Representative Hudson, the longstanding champion of this legislation, along with more than 120 of his colleagues have ...

Bye-Bye, Biden! Trump Inauguration Signals Sea Change on the Second Amendment

News  

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Bye-Bye, Biden! Trump Inauguration Signals Sea Change on the Second Amendment

Some elections are won and lost on narrow grounds. But on many of the most important issues of the day, Donald Trump’s policies promise not just to be different from, but the opposite of, Joe ...

Will the DNC go Hogg Wild?

News  

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Will the DNC go Hogg Wild?

We haven’t written much about one of America’s most irksome or notorious or galling  gun-ban extremists, David Hogg, in quite some time.  

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.