The intention of this final section of the project is to review some studies of the efficacy of gun policies. To the extent possible, I have tried to include at least one study of each of the policies mentioned in the preceding implementation section.


BRADY LAW

Handgun Control has an obvious stake in the success of the Brady Law, given its leadership by Sarah Brady. But they take it too far. Three graphs on their web site purport to show the effects of Brady. They show that in the period since passage of the Brady Act murder rates, firearm murder rates, armed robbery rates and aggravated assault rates all have fallen significantly. This is true. What is unknown is whether Brady had anything to do with these trends. Two facts suggest any impact of Brady was secondary. First, these trends began prior to passage of Brady. Second, the 7.8 million presale handgun checks since passage have resulted in 173,000 rejections. (Manson and Gilliard) This is a significant number, but it pales by comparison to the reduction in crime, which has amounted to millions of fewer crimes committed annually nationwide. There clearly are many more sizeable variables at play than Brady.

A study by the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence concludes that the Brady Law's uniform standards for background checks and waiting periods have cut down on interstate gun trafficking. The study examines the share of guns in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania traced back to Ohio both pre- and post-Brady passage. It found a three-quarters decrease in Ohio's share of out-of-state guns recovered in New York and Illinois and a one-third reduction in the other two states. This is a strange finding, because it doesn't necessarily mean that those other states are finding fewer out-of-state guns, but only that a smaller share are coming from Ohio.


BALTIMORE ASSAULT PISTOL BAN

A Center to Prevent Handgun Violence study examined the recovery by police of assault pistols before and after the City of Baltimore enacted a ban, and found that 55 percent fewer assault pistols were recovered during the first six months of 1995 than would have been recovered had the ban not gone into effect. This classic interrupted time series study may be confounded by history. For example, it occurred at a time when the nationwide decline in crime was starting to pick up speed; the experimental design will account for some of it, but most of the prior trend upon which the future trend projection was based would have been a time of increasing crime, rather than decreasing. Second, the Baltimore ban was implemented at the same time as the national assault weapons ban; the CPHV discounts this by pointing out that the federal law bans manufacture, but allows sales of existing weapons to continue, while Baltimore's law bans the sale of any assault pistol, regardless of when it was manufactured.


CONCEALED WEAPONS LAWS

Violence Policy Center, Concealing the Risk: Real-World Effects of Lax Concealed Weapons Laws.


FIREARM LICENSING

Handgun Control performed a study comparing New Jersey (which has a handgun licensing requirement) with Maryland (which did not at the time of the study). The study found that the mean percentage of incidents involving a firearm during 1970-1994 was higher in Maryland than in New Jersey, as follows: 38 percent higher for homicide; 53 percent for aggravated assault; 59 percent for robbery; and, 69 percent for suicide. The organization admits that this is not proof of causation, and acknowledges that a better study, if the data were available prior to the enactment of New Jersey's law in the 1960s, would have been an interrupted time series.


FLORIDA'S CONCEALED CARRY LAW

A 1995 VPC study scored on three points what it points out is considered by the gun lobby to be a model law: Criminals are not deterred from applying for concealed carry licenses; criminals receive such licenses; license carriers commit crimes.


OPERATION CEASE FIRE

Officials in Boston have not been hesitant to attribute reduction in crime and violence to this program, but there is little evidence to substantiate a direct causative relationship. For instance, Police Commissioner Paul Evans has cited statistics showing a drop in murders from 107 in 1990 to 34 in 1997 (through October), and the fact that "no juvenile has been killed in Boston in 29 months." (Crime Prevention News, 1997a) (It should be noted that the streak ended at 31 monts in December 1997.) These are impressive facts, and while they may actually be a result of Operation Cease Fire, they could also be the result of the declining crack epidemic, or the aging of the crime-prone population, or improving economic conditions, all of which have contributed to a nationwide decline in major felony crimes. During the same period in New York City murders dropped from nearly 2,200 to under 700, without benefit of that program.


OTHER

• A collection of NRA research on a variety of gun laws


• James Q. Wilson, "A Note on Gun Control," in Wilson, Thinking About Crime, Revised Edition (NY: Vintage Books, 1985).


• Philip J. Cook and Mark H. Moore, "Gun Control," in James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia, eds., Crime (San Francisco: ICS Press, 1995).


• Gary Kleck, Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America (NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 1991).


• Richard D. Alba and Steven F. Messner, "Point Blank Against Itself: Evidence and Inference About Guns, Crime, and Gun Control," Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1995, pp. 391-410.


• Gary Kleck, "Using Speculation to Meet Evidence: Reply to Alba and Messner," Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1995, pp. 411-424.


• Richard D. Alba and Steven F. Messner, "Point Blank and the Evidence: A Rejoinder to Gary Kleck," Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Vol. 11, No. 4, 1995, pp. 425-428.


• Robert L. Ohsfeldt and Michael A. Morrisey, "Firearms, Firearms Injury, and Gun Control: A Critical Survey of the Literature," Advances in Health Economics and Health Services Research, Vol. 13, pp. 65-82.


• Samuel Walker, "Control Handguns," in Walker, Sense and Nonsense about Crime and Drugs: A Policy Guide, Third Edition (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1994).


• Thomas B. Marvell and Carlisle E. Moody, "The Impact of Enhanced Prison Terms for Felonies Committed with Guns," Criminology, June 1995, pp. 247-281.

• Introduction to the topic


• The emergence of the problem


• The assessment of the problem


• Decision-making and policy formulation


• Policy Implementation


• Policy Evaluation


• References