Showing papers on "Gun control published in 1981"

The Effect of Gun Availability on Violent Crime Patterns

Abstract: Social scientists have started to find answers to some of the questions raised in the ongoing debate over gun control. The basic factual issue in this debate concerns the effect of gun availability on the distribution, seriousness, and number of violent crimes. Some evidence is available on each of these dimensions of the violent crime problem. The distribution of violent crimes among different types of victims is governed in part by the "vulnerability pattern" in weapon choice. The seriousness of robbery and assault incidents is influenced by weapon type, as indicated by the objective dangerousness and instrumental violence pattern. A reduc tion in gun availability would cause some weapon substitution and probably little change in overall robbery and assault rates—but the homicide rate would be reduced.

The Attitude-Action Connection and the Issue of Gun Control

Abstract: This article examines the claim that opponents of gun permit laws feel much more intensely about the matter than do proponents and that this helps explain the political success of the opponents, despite their smaller number. Surprisingly, results from a national sample survey provide no support for the claim at the purely subjective level. In fact, when respondents were asked how strongly they felt about the issue of gun permits, supporters of a permit law responded with slightly more intensity. However, when asked whether they had ever acted on the issue—written letters, contributed money, or both—opponents were markedly more likely to respond in the affirmative. The apparent inconsistency between these findings seems to be due to the fact that strength of feeling and taking action are highly related for permit op ponents, but not for proponents. Thus among respondents who believe the issue to be most important, opponents are quite likely to act on their beliefs, whereas this is not so for proponents —a ...

Public Opinion and Gun Control: A Comparison of Results From Two Recent National Surveys:

Abstract: This article compares results from two recent national surveys of public opinion on gun control and related weapons-policy issues. One survey was commissioned by the National Rifle Association, the other by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Handgun Violence. Despite the vastly different outlooks of the two sponsoring organizations, the results from both surveys are nearly identical everywhere a direct comparison is possible. Together, the two surveys thus provide a very detailed empirical portrait of the state of popular thinking on the regulation of private arms in the United States.

Keeping Handguns From Criminal Offenders

Abstract: Gun control policies must strike a balance be tween conserving legitimate use of handguns and reducing criminal use. Current federal law seeks to accomplish this ob jective by discriminating between safe and unsafe gun owners —allowing the former and prohibiting the latter from owning guns. An important practical problem soon arises: containing guns within the entitled sector. Analysis of the current supply system suggests that gun offenders acquire guns from many different sources: purchases from licensed dealers, private transfers, thefts, and black markets. Among these, legitimate purchases seem most important in supplying assaulters, and thefts seem to be the most important in supplying armed robbers. The "black market" turns out to be difficult to dis tinguish from the other sectors. To the extent it is distinct, it seems to be populated primarily by small-scale, imper manent enterprises, rather than durable firms. Analysis of how existing institutions might be deployed against this system leads to t...

State Programs for Screening Handgun Buyers

Abstract: Three to five million handguns change hands each year. Almost half the states—including 64 percent of the population—require that buyers be screened by the police, with the objective of preventing certain groups of po tentially dangerous people—felons, fugitives, ex-mental pa tients, drug addicts, and so forth—from obtaining handguns. These state systems operate within the federal framework created by the Gun Control Act of 1968, which requires that most all interstate transactions in firearms be handled by federally licensed dealers or manufacturers. The states' main problems are (1) weak federal regulation of licensees, (2) incomplete state criminal history files, and (3) the difficulty of regulating hand-to-hand transactions in used handguns. States that wish to increase the effectiveness of their screen ing systems will probably have to assume responsibility for regulating retail dealers and will have to institute civil liability for dealers and individual gun owners, together with a more comprehensiv...

The "Saturday night special": an assessment of alternative definitions from a policy perspective

Abstract: A major issue in the gun control policy debate concerns the feasibility of reducing the harmful consequences of gun availability without serious infringement on legitimate uses. For example, most states have adopted much more stringent regulation for concealed weapons than for possession under other circumstances, because of legislators' belief that carrying concealed weapons contributes a great deal to the violent crime problem but very little to the average gun owners' utility. A second example of the balance between utility and harm are federal and state laws that prohibit young people and those with felony records from owning guns. These laws spring from the belief that such people constitute only a small fraction of the population but commit a disproportionately large fraction of the violent crimes.' Similarly, the campaign to ban the "Saturday Night Special" is based upon the belief2 that the small, cheap handguns which are frequently used in crime are of little value to noncriminals. Therefore, proponents contend, a ban on such guns would have considerable benefit with little cost. This article summarizes the policy debate regarding Saturday Night Specials, and evalu-

Handguns in the Twenty-First Century: Alternative Policy Futures

Abstract: This article speculates about public policy toward handguns in the United States a generation in the future. Two mutually exclusive national policies are described. The first policy, federal support for state and local varia tion in handgun control, represents a logical extension of historical trends in federal firearms control since the 1930s. The second policy, federal commitment to reduce substantially the availability of handguns nationwide, would represent a significant departure from previous federal regulatory ap proaches. This more stringent regulatory approach might evolve from increasing interdependence, continuing high rates of handgun violence, and public perception that hand gun control based on state and local variation is fundamentally unworkable. Public attitudes toward handguns as instruments of household self-defense are one key leading indicator of future federal policy directions. If the handgun in the house remains a respectable means of self-defense, restrictive proposals at the nati...

Guns and crime: the perils of long division

Abstract: Calculations of this sort are a familiar feature of the gun control literature. The numbers are meant to suggest the futility of regulating firearms commerce as a method of reducing gun-related crime, and also to demonstrate that the vast majority of firearms are put to wholesome (or at least legal) uses: stringent regulation Itthus" imposes costs on the many law-abiding gun owners in order to inhibit the violence-prone few. But such calculations are profoundly misleading. Bruce-Briggs is comparing a stock (140 million guns) with a flow (350,000 gun crimes in one year). This comparison is analogous to comparing the number of deaths due to heart disease in one year (0.6 million) with the size of the population (225 million) and concluding that there is a very small probability of dying from heart disease (on the order of one in 400). Some simple calculations, guided by an intertemporal model, give a more accurate picture. I limit my analysis to handguns, which are used in the vast majority of gun crimes, and begin by answering the following question: How many crimes will ultimately be committed utilizing one of the 1.8 million handguns sold new in 1977? Combining the homicide number (in Table 1) with the national victim survey results for rape, robbery, and assault yields a total of 565,000 handgun crimes. Thus, there was about one handgun crime committed for every three handguns sold in