Peer reviewed articles on effectiveness of concealed carry?

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miller.lyte

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Topic states what I am searching for. Hopefully some folks can provide good links as I don't know where to begin. I am searching google for similar terms right now but it is not yielding many good results. I am sure some of you must know some reliable websites out there.
 
Sounds like where you want to begin is John Lott's More Guns, Less Crime. Be aware that he carries some personal baggage.
 
I tried a quick google search and found a reference to 29 articles - by economists. No thanks.

The effectiveness of concealed carry. That poses numerous problems when it comes to sample size and establishing a control group. Then you have to wait years and years for some of them to be mugged or shot at or something. And then you have to draw conclusions somehow based on people living in different places, moving about the community at different times and just plain looking different - some people make better targets/victims.

John
 
Here is a book you need More Guns Less Crime. "Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws" by John R Lott Jr. Check him out on the web and wade through his book. Not always easy to understand, but a wealth of information.
 
Go to Google and then hit more to Google scholar. Entering concealed carry there will bring up lots of things.

Recall that this area is overlayed with pretheoretical beliefs about gun rights and most finds may be controversial.

Also, if you are hooked to a university data base you can search the criminology and economic areas.

Most articles are in sociology, economics, criminology and law journals.

Regular google will bring up lots of irrelevant stuff.
 
miller.lyte said:
Topic states what I am searching for. Hopefully some folks can provide good links as I don't know where to begin. I am searching google for similar terms right now but it is not yielding many good results. I am sure some of you must know some reliable websites out there.
Click to expand...
What is purpose that you need this information?
 
Newsflash to everyone:

No one but gun owners takes anything John Lott says seriously.

I've gotten into debates with antis and they've actually said things to the effect of "oh, and you can't quote anything by John Lott. He's just a gun lobbyist shill"

I'm not saying Lott is wrong. I'm saying that gun owners are the only ones who care what he says. You bring him up with an anti, and they'll just ignore you. It's like an anti quoting Michael Moore to us. Yes, I know Moore is wrong and Lott is right. But that's not the point. The point is that bringing up Lott to an anti is a quick way to turn their ears off.

And I gotta say, Lott is brought up almost exclusively any time there is a thread about gun control statistics. Surely we have more academics and statisticians on our side than just that one guy? I know the facts back up gun control being worthless. Why is Lott the only "smart guy" we fall back on?
 
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Not to be a Debbie Downer, but there's just not much out there on this topic. Especially not articles on the same academic, peer-reviewed level as, say, medical journals.

It might be worth looking into criminal justice sources to dig for data...
 
Lott has had troubles. However, the major journals such as Criminology has done special issues on guns. That's not a trivial journal.

BTW - the articles in public health and medical journals are uniformly antifirearm with shakey methodology.
 
Here's a listing of articles I derived from Moody & Marvell 2008

Carlisle E. Moody and Thomas B. Marvell,
"The Debate on Shall-Issue Laws,"
Econ Journal Watch, Volume 5, Number 3, September 2008, pp 269-293.
Code: 
  from Moody & Marvell 2008 Table 2
   Academic Evidence on the Relationship between Shall-Issue Laws and Crime
   
   Abbreviations used by moi (classifications from Moody and Marvell):
      Pro Shall-issue Reduces crime
      Con Shall-issue Increases crime
      Non Shall-issue has No significant effect on crime
      RefB peer reviewed, Refereed Book
      RefJ peer reviewed, Refereed Journal  
      UnrB Non Peer reviewed, unrefereed book (non-academic press)
      UnrJ Non Peer reviewed, unrefereed journal (eg, student edited review)
      Work Working paper, unpublished article
   
   YEAR Position 
            Type  Citation
   
   1997 Pro RefJ  J.R. Lott and D.B. Mustard, "Crime, deterrence, and right-to-carry 
                  concealed handguns," Journal of Legal Studies 26: 1-68.   
   1998 Non RefJ  D.A. Black and D.S. Nagin, "Do right-to-carry laws deter violent crime?" 
                  Journal of Legal Studies 27: 209-219.   
   1998 Non RefJ  H. Dezhbakhsh and P.H. Rubin, "Lives saved or lives lost--the effects of 
                  concealed-handgun laws on crime," American Economic Review 88: 468-474.
   1998 Non RefJ  J. Ludwig, "Concealed-gun-carrying laws and violent crime: Evidence from 
                  state panel data," International Review of Law and Economics 18: 239-254.
   1998 Pro RefB  J.R. Lott, "More guns, less crime : understanding crime and gun-control
                  laws," Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1998 1st Ed (revised 2000, 2002).
   1998 Pro RefJ  J.R. Lott and D.B. Mustard, "The concealed handgun debate," 
                  Journal of Legal Studies 27: 221-243.
   1998 Pro RefJ  S.G. Bronars and J.R. Lott, "Criminal deterrence, geographic spillovers, and
                  the right to carry concealed handguns," American Economic Review 88: 475-479.
   1998 Pro RefJ  W.A. Bartley and M.A. Cohen, "The effect of concealed weapons laws--
                  an extreme bound analysis," Economic Inquiry 36: 258-265.   
   1999 Pro UnrB  J.R. Lott and W.M. Landis, "Multiple victim public shootings, bombings and 
                  right-to-carry concealed handgun laws: contrasting private and public law 
                  enforcement," Published as Chapter 6 of J. R. Lott, "The bias against guns,"
                  Washington, DC, Regnery (1999, 2001, 2003).   
   2000 Non RefJ  M.V. Hood and G.W. Neeley, "Packin' in the hood?: examining assumptions of 
                  concealed-handgun research," Social Science Quarterly 81: 523-537.   
   2001 Pro RefJ  B.L. Benson and B.D. Mast, "Privately produced general deterrence," 
                  Journal of Law and Economics 44: 725-746.   
   2001 Pro RefJ  C.E. Moody, "Testing for the effects of concealed weapons laws: 
                  Specification errors and robustness," Journal of Law and Economics 44:799-813.
   2001 Pro RefJ  D.B. Mustard, "The impact of gun laws on police deaths," 
                  Journal of Law and Economics 44:635-657.   
   2001 Pro RefJ  D.E. Olsen and M.D. Maltz, "Right-to-carry concealed weapons laws and 
                  homicide in large U.S. counties: the effect on weapons types, victim 
                  characteristics, and victim-offender relationships," Journal of Law and 
                  Economics 44:747-770.   
   2001 Pro RefJ  F. Plassmann and T. N. Tideman, "Does the right to carry concealed handguns 
                  deter countable crimes? only a count analysis can say," Journal of Law and 
                  Economics, 44, pp. 771-798.   
   2002 Non RefJ  G. Duwe, T. Kovandzic, and C.E. Moody, "The impact of right-to-carry 
                  concealed firearm laws on mass public shootings," Homicide Studies 6: 271-296.
   2003 Con UnrB  J.J. Donohue, "The impact of concealed carry laws," In J. Ludwig and P.J. 
                  Cook (eds.) "Evaluating Gun Policy," Washington, DC: The Brookings 
                  Institution, 287-325.   
   2003 Con UnrJ  I. Ayres and J.J. Donohue, "Shooting down the more guns, less crime 
                  hypothesis," Stanford Law Review 54: 1193-1312.    
   2003 Pro UnrJ  J.R. Lott, F. Plassmann and J. Whitley, "Confirming `more guns, less crime'," 
                  Stanford Law Review 54: 1313-1369.   
   2003 Con UnrJ  I. Ayres and J.J. Donohue, "The latest misfires in support of the `more guns,
                  less crime' hypothesis," Stanford Law Review 54: 1371-1398.
   2003 Non RefJ  T. Kovandzic and T.B. Marvell, "Right-to-carry concealed handguns and violent 
                  crime: crime control through gun decontrol?" Criminology and Public Policy 2: 363-396.   
   2004 Pro RefJ  E. Helland and A. Tabarrok, "Using Placebo Laws to Test `More Guns, Less 
                  Crime'," Advances in Economic Analysis & Policy 4: Issue. 1, Article 1.   
   2004 Pro Work  J. R. Lott, "Right-to-carry laws and violent crime revisited: clustering, 
                  measurement error and state-by-state breakdowns," Working paper, American 
                  Enterprise Institute.   
   2005 Non RefB  National Research Council (National Academy of Sciences), "Firearms and 
                  Violence: A Critical Review," Committee to Improve Research Information and 
                  Data on Firearms. Charles F. Wellford, John V. Pepper, and Carol V. Petrie, 
                  editors, Washington, DC: The National Academies Press.   
   2005 Non RefJ  Kovandzic, T. V., T.B. Marvell, and L.E, Vieraitis, "The Impact of `Shall-Issue'
                  Concealed Handgun Laws on Violent Crime Rates," Homicide Studies, 10: 292-323.
 
Purpose is for a research paper. I tried my school's library and it really hasn't come up with much.

I've heard about Lott, and I'm only going to use his stuff sparingly to fill in for any other sources I can't use first. Will try google scholar and I'll just keep looking. Didn't realize this was such a difficult topic, especially since concealed carry isn't all that new anymore. Thanks for the help.
 
Doesn't the universal crime statistics database have that type of information? A report is filed whenever someone is shot if it's a crime or not. I have no idea why the NRA or another gun advocacy group doesn't maintain a database for educational purposes.

I've read countless stories of people simply displaying a firearm to dissuade an assault or other crime. Even the sound of a 12 gauge being racked will send most home invaders running--no statistics for any of those.

I hope you find the statistics you're looking for and if you do, please share your results.
Good luck
 
jwh336 said:
I've read countless stories of people simply displaying a firearm to dissuade an assault or other crime. Even the sound of a 12 gauge being racked will send most home invaders running--no statistics for any of those.
Click to expand...
If you rack your shotgun when an armed home invader is in your house, you have given your position away, told the armed invader your weaponry, and I guarantee many will not run. He/they will then use that tactical advantage to kill you.

There is no reason not to keep a round in the chamber to maintain silence where you have retreated, preferably with plenty of cover. There, your element of surprise from silence will give you a tactical advantage.
 
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Batesian Mimicry

Not totally abour CCW, but well established, and free of fevered rhetoric. If you Google the title of this post you will find a description of the mimicing of harmful organisms by benign ones. The most famous is the monarch butterfly and its mimic the viceroy. As a caterpillar, the monarch feeds on milkweed, and stores up cardiac glycosides. These make birds who eat them, or the adults very sick, they don't eat any more. The viceroy does not, but looks a lot like the monarch and is protected by the monarch's toxicity.
Now, what you could do is regress the rates of gun violence, gun murder, violence per se on the rates of CCW, by state. If CCW reduces crime, you should get a nice negative correlation. Once you put some numbers to the problem (if they favor your argument) your position becomes very strong.
Also, you could approach it historically, compare before and after CCW crime rates in various states. Arizona might be interesting with respect to car jacking. They okd vehicular carry wo a permit a couple of years ago.
Good luck.
 
Lott is attacked personally by the anti-gun crowd, but to the best of my knowledge, his methodology is sound.
He approaches his stats by county whenever possible, not by state. As a result, he is able to state with statistical backup that 3% of the counties in The U.S. account for 70% of the violent crime. He states in the following interview, this: (quote) The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994. (close quote).
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

As I recall, in his third ed. More Gun Less Crime, he refutes the critics who tried to badmouth his methodology.
 
v65magnafan said:
Lott is attacked personally by the anti-gun crowd, but to the best of my knowledge, his methodology is sound.
He approaches his stats by county whenever possible, not by state. As a result, he is able to state with statistical backup that 3% of the counties in The U.S. account for 70% of the violent crime. He states in the following interview, this: (quote) The analysis is based on data for all 3,054 counties in the United States during 18 years from 1977 to 1994. (close quote).
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/493636.html

As I recall, in his third ed. More Gun Less Crime, he refutes the critics who tried to badmouth his methodology.
Click to expand...

He just released a new edition in Jan 2013
 
To switch gears to be a teacher - the school library doesn't have much? Well, unless it stocks the pro journals it won't.

You need to go to a librarian and ask how to use the professional data bases.
 
"effectiveness" in regards to what? How well it is concealed? Protecting your person? Preventing violence? Preventing crime? Stoking your ego? Slobber rate of basset hounds?
 
I'm actually a researcher, so I'll offer what I can. I am a developmental psychologist who does safety and injury prevention research with a human factors flavor. I am part of the core faculty for human factors graduate training here at my mid-sized university in a conservative state in the Pacific northwest (I'll let you figure out the details).

I mostly do research on visual and auditory perception as they relate to transportation safety. But in the past couple of years, I have been doing work on firearms storage practices and also on gun detection by police and novice participants.

I can tell you that there is very, very little peer reviewed research out there that is not politically biased. And the studies are biased in either direction; its not just the anti gun folks who publish skewed results.

But if you want some places to look, start with PsycInfo (ebsco) which may require university access privileges, Google Scholar which finds good stuff, but doesn't always allow full-text access, PubMed/Medline, etc. Find a seminal study or two and then work from there by determining who has been citing those seminal studies in recent years.
 
And I gotta say, Lott is brought up almost exclusively any time there is a thread about gun control statistics. Surely we have more academics and statisticians on our side than just that one guy? I know the facts back up gun control being worthless. Why is Lott the only "smart guy" we fall back on?
Click to expand...
Because he's the guy who has done the research.

You see how he is treated? Why would a new PhD or an established academic stick his/her head into that meat-grinder?

Even David Mustard seems to have found other things to do, less in the spotlight - http://www.terry.uga.edu/directory/profile/mustard/, http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q="db+mustard"&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=1,5
 
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