MicroBalrog
June 27, 2003, 11:45 AM
"Analyzing county-level data for the entire United States from 1977 to 2000, we find annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5% and 2.3% for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. For the first five years that such a law is in effect, the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 and $3 billion per year. The results are very similar to earlier
estimates using county-level data from 1977 to 1996.
We appreciate the continuing effort that Ayres and Donohue have made in discussing the impact of right-to-carry laws on crime rates. Yet we believe that
both the new evidence provided by them as well as our new results show consistently that right-to-carry laws reduce crime and save lives. Unfortunately, a few simple mistakes lead Ayres and Donohue to incorrectly claim that crime rates significantly increase after right-to-carry laws are initially adopted and to misinterpret the significance of their own estimates that examined the year-to-year impact of the law.
Their claims about significant ?positive main effects? from right-to-carry laws are not supported by their own results. There is also no evidence that the state-level year-to-year estimates imply that crime rates were significantly higher than what would have been predicted prior to the passage of the laws. Our own evidence from the 1977 to 2000 period rejects these claims even more strongly.
Perhaps the most surprising conclusion is that applying their very own method of evaluating the costs and benefits implies large benefits from right-to-
carry laws. This holds true not only when one studies the many different specifications in their paper, but also when one applies this method to their other contemporaneous work. "
Florenz Plassmann* & John Whitley**
*Department of Economics, State University of New York at Binghamton.
** School of Economics, University of Adelaide.
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~fplass/gun.pdf (http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~fplass/gun.pdf)
estimates using county-level data from 1977 to 1996.
We appreciate the continuing effort that Ayres and Donohue have made in discussing the impact of right-to-carry laws on crime rates. Yet we believe that
both the new evidence provided by them as well as our new results show consistently that right-to-carry laws reduce crime and save lives. Unfortunately, a few simple mistakes lead Ayres and Donohue to incorrectly claim that crime rates significantly increase after right-to-carry laws are initially adopted and to misinterpret the significance of their own estimates that examined the year-to-year impact of the law.
Their claims about significant ?positive main effects? from right-to-carry laws are not supported by their own results. There is also no evidence that the state-level year-to-year estimates imply that crime rates were significantly higher than what would have been predicted prior to the passage of the laws. Our own evidence from the 1977 to 2000 period rejects these claims even more strongly.
Perhaps the most surprising conclusion is that applying their very own method of evaluating the costs and benefits implies large benefits from right-to-
carry laws. This holds true not only when one studies the many different specifications in their paper, but also when one applies this method to their other contemporaneous work. "
Florenz Plassmann* & John Whitley**
*Department of Economics, State University of New York at Binghamton.
** School of Economics, University of Adelaide.
http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~fplass/gun.pdf (http://bingweb.binghamton.edu/~fplass/gun.pdf)