Introduction
The issue of the right to bear firearms in the United States is relevant. It is the subject of controversy among many American jurists and political scientists. The main disputes are between supporters of tightening the rules for issuing licenses for carrying firearms and those who consider carrying a weapon as a natural right of every American. Extreme ideologization not only explores the political debate on arms control but also affects scientific research on possible changes in the rules for issuing weapons licenses for crimes and their consequences. The purpose of this paper is to analyze how empirical research in the USA evaluates the effectiveness of county legislation on the licensing of arms through its influence on the level of violent crime.
Methods
A principal place in assessing the effectiveness of laws belongs to empirical and legal research. A feature of empirical jurisprudence is that it allows people to look at the work of the law, not only from a legal but also from a theoretical and methodological point of view. Empirical and legal studies enable the analysis of rules from the economic theory of law, as well as using tools of a whole range of disciplines, such as sociology, statistics, mathematics, etc. Using these tools, the empirical sociology of law can predict the possible consequences of taking another bill. It can also give an opinion on the effectiveness of already adopted legal norms.
The problem
In the USA at the state level, several models of the legal regulation of the issuance of licenses for carrying weapons have developed. Thus, until the end of the 1980s, in many states, the issue model existed when local authorities made decisions for granting a license at the county level. As a rule, it was received by district sheriffs who had full discretion in issuing permits to carry weapons in the territories entrusted to them (Goodman & Perry, 2018). However, in 1987 the court of Florida ruled that district sheriffs could no longer restrict the right to carry weapons of those citizens who seemed unreliable to them.
From now on, local authorities were obliged to make their decisions on the issuance of licenses, guided by a set of formally defined rules. In other words, local authorities were required to issue a license if a person has no outstanding criminal record or mental disabilities. There were also some more formal criteria based on which the citizen’s right to bear arms could be limited. (Miller, 2019). The Florida model, which greatly simplified the process of obtaining permission to carry weapons for citizens, was called shall-issue and was subsequently adopted by more than half of the states.
Statistical studies of the gun-control in American criminology do not give an unambiguous answer to the question of how the availability of weapons for the population affects the criminal situation in a particular state. Among American scientists and politicians, there are supporters of different points of view. Some of them concluded that liberalization of the rules for issuing licenses (and, as a result, an increase in the turnover of weapons) helps to reduce crime. Others believe that the result, on the contrary, is an increase in the total number of delinquencies.
Thus, the specificity of gun control studies is that this research area reproduces the political debate between supporters and opponents of the right to bear arms. Ideological clichés and eloquent rhetoric are used in political discussions on this issue. In the scientific community, researchers argue about the reliability of data and the correct use of statistical analysis procedures. The focus is not only on a review of the available scientific literature on this topic. The impact of the gun control studies on American policy and legislation regarding the rules for issuing firearms licenses is also investigated.
Studies
In American criminology, there is a whole research tradition of studying the relationship between the level of crime and the number of firearms possessed by citizens. The first studies of this kind date back to the 1930s. However, until the end of the 1980s, such studies did not address the issue of how changes in legislation on the control of firearms affect crime rates.
The first publications of this kind appeared almost immediately after the introduction of the shall-issue model in some states. McDowell and colleagues concluded that the transition to a new system does not lead to a decrease in crime, according to representatives of the national rifle association (McDowall, Loftin, & Wiersema, 1995). In the research, they used data from Florida, Minnesota, and Oregon.
In response to this study, Lott and Mustard wrote the article “Crime, Intimidation, and Legal Firearms,” and later the book “More Weapons, fewer Crimes.” In their research, Lott, and Mustard use criminal statistics collected at the county level from 10 states that adopted a new weapon licensing system in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Using panel data for the period from 1977 to 1992, they tried to assess how the transition to the shall-issue model affected the crime rate. As dependent variables, they considered the number of crimes committed in various categories (murder, rape, theft, car theft, etc.). Based on them, Lott and Mustard conducted two types of regression analysis (Lott & Mustard, 1997). In one of them, they construct a dummy variable that takes a positive value in the first full year after the state transitions to the shall-issue model and saves it in the future. In another, they take into account the number of full years that have passed since the transition to the new system.
Lott and Mustard concluded that the introduction of new gun regulations had reduced crime rates in 10 states. However, this influence was not the same for different types of crimes. According to them, the transition to the shall-issue system helped to reduce the number of violent crimes (murder and rape) by 4%. Still, at the same time, this decrease was accompanied by an increase in the name of property crimes (burglary or car theft) by 2%.
Lott argues that the simpler the rules for obtaining a license to carry weapons become, the less violent crimes are committed, as the potential costs of their commission for potential criminal increase. The increasing availability of firearms for the population increases the likelihood that, when committing a violent crime (murder or rape), the offender will face armed resistance from the victim (Lott, 2013). This, in turn, means that the transition to a shall-issue system increases the potential costs of violators of the law from their commission of violent crimes.
A comprehensive test of Lott’s thesis was conducted by a team of researchers led by J. Donohue. In the article, they analyze data from 1979 to 2010 both at the county and state levels. As control variables, they use the number of police officers and the number of prisoners (incarceration) (Aneja, Donohue, & Zhang, 2014). Also, for the period from 1999 to 2010, they take into account the dynamics of the “cocaine epidemic,” as a result of which their analysis results are more reliable than Lott’s. In the developed model with a dummy variable, the number of crimes in such categories as rape, murder, assault, car theft, theft, robbery and burglary increased.
According to the proposed assessment, the transition to the new rules for issuing weapons licenses is accompanied by an increase in all seven categories of crimes by an average of 8%, except murders, the number of which is growing by 3%, but this figure is statistically insignificant (Aneja et al, 2014). Regression models recorded that the number of homicides increased by 1.5% per year for the period from 1999 to 2010.
Results
Firstly, in the minimal number of control variables used (mainly only the number of arrests) and ignoring other important factors influencing the change in the crime rate (number of police officers and prisoners). Secondly, interior trends at the state and county levels are not taken into account. Thirdly, the inclusion in the analysis of only ten states that switched to the shall-issue system and ignoring all the others made Lott’s study a victim of the selection bias effect (systematic selection error of cases). As a result of which his conclusions are susceptible to any manipulations with the number of cases (as, for example, to the exclusion of Florida from the data considered).
In discussions about carrying weapons in the United States, research findings are often sacrificed for political expediency; research and academic debate can become part of political discussion on sensitive issues. At the same time, the principle of the effectiveness of legislative measures is a crucial point both for those who conduct empirical research and for those who are involved in socio-political debates. Efficiency, as a rule, refers to the positive socio-economic consequences of the adoption of legislative norms.
The American policy in the field of firearms control shows that the principle of effectiveness is the main argument even when decisions are made in the legal sphere that is most likely to lead to negative social consequences. At the same time, scientific disputes of a seemingly academic nature can draw public attention to the negative implications of legislative decisions taken under the influence of ideological factors.
Conclusion
To sum up, gun control studies are an example of how political debate has led to academic discussion. However, in the conditions when scientific assessments regarding the effectiveness and efficiency of legal measures can give legislative acts additional validity, some empirical and juridical studies almost inevitably become part of political speculation. In this regard, far from always, rigorous scientific research receives sufficient attention from the general public, as well as decision-makers. In disputes about the right to bear arms, this resulted in the fact that unscientific studies influenced decision-making. The empirical and legal researches in the context of gun control studies were, to some extent, influenced by political interest.
References
Aneja, A., Donohue, J. J., & Zhang, A. (2014). The impact of right to carry laws and the NRC report: the latest lessons for the empirical evaluation of law and policy. Stanford Law and Economics Olin Working Paper, 461(1), 1-108. Web.
Goodman, S., & Perry, B. (2018). The American Gun Control Debate: A Discursive Analysis. In Discourse, Peace, and Conflict, 67-82. Springer, Cham. Web.
McDowall, D., Loftin, C., & Wiersema, B. (1995). Easing concealed firearms laws: Effects on homicide in three states. J. Crim. L. & Criminology, 86, 193.
Miller, S. V. (2019). What Americans think about gun control: evidence from the general social survey, 1972–2016. Social Science Quarterly, 100(1), 272-288.
Lott, J. R. (2013). More guns, less crime: Understanding crime and gun control laws. University of Chicago Press.
Lott, Jr, J. R., & Mustard, D. B. (1997). Crime, deterrence, and right-to-carry concealed handguns. The Journal of Legal Studies, 26(1), 1-68.