Small Arms and Light Weapons - Harry Frank Guggenheim ...

The Accessibility ThesisNorth American criminologists and publichealthexperts have produced a large literature onthe linkages between firearm accessibility andcrime. There seems to be little relationshipbetween gun availability and the rates of mostcrimes, such as assault, rape, or burglary, few ofwhich involve guns. However, studies usually finda strong association between gun availability andlethal violence (homicide), but there is a need formore detailed research in the area (Hepburn andHemenway 2004).International cross-sectional studies of highincomecountries find that gun ownership levelsare correlated with overall rates of homicide(Hemenway and Miller 2000), although a recentinternational study found no relationship (Killiaset al. 2001). However, if only high-income countries(as defined by the World Bank) are includedin the analysis, a strong, significant relationshipagain emerges (Hepburn and Hemenway 2004).Across US regions and states, where there are moreguns there are more homicides because there aremore firearm homicides. The association holdsafter accounting for poverty, urbanization, alcoholconsumption, unemployment, and violent crimeother than homicide (Miller et al. 2002a). Resultsare similar for youth and adults, for men andwomen.Studies at the household, cross-state, and crossnationallevels find that the more guns there are,the more women become victims of homicide(Bailey et al. 1997, Hemenway et al. 2002; Miller etal. 2002b). Gun availability is also linked to levelsof gun crime. Cook (1979; 1987), for instance,finds that higher levels of gun ownership are associatedwith higher rates of gun robberies, and gunrobberies are more likely than other types of robberiesto result in death.Pro-gun academics argue that guns are oftenused in self-defense (Kleck 1997) and that permissivegun-carrying laws actually reduce crime (Lott1998). There are, however, a series of methodologicalproblems and data limitations surroundingthese two claims (Hemenway 1997; Black andNagin 1998; Hemenway et al. 2000; Maltz andTargonski 2002, 2003). Many recent studies ongun-carrying laws suggest that, if anything, theselaws probably have had little effect on crime ormay actually have increased homicides (Ludwig1998; Duggan 2001; Ayres and Donohue 2003;Donohue 2003; Kovandzic and Marvell 2003;Hepburn et al. 2004).The effect of restrictive gun laws on crime andlethal violence has been more difficult to determine.For example, a recent Centers for DiseaseControl report found insufficient evidence toassess the effectiveness of eight different types ofgun control measures in reducing overall levels ofviolence (CDC 2003). The problem with the evidencestems from the difficulty of disentanglingthe effects of relatively modest gun laws from theeffects of various other factors that are changingover time.The accessibility thesis is being continually studiedin the United States. New data-collection systemshave been put in place recently and shouldgenerate richer and more comparable data, allowingfor even better studies in the years to come(Hemenway 2004).A limited number of studies have also emergedfrom Australia, the United Kingdom (see SmallArms Survey 2004), Brazil, and South Africa. Littlehas been done to explore the relationship betweensmall arms availability and crime in other areas.Our knowledge would be enhanced with theimprovement of data-collection systems in manycountries, which would allow for the examinationof the accessibility thesis in different contexts.The Tangible Costs of Gun ViolenceThe economics literature has sought to quantifythe costs gun violence imposes on societies. Withrespect to costs imposed on the medical care sys-22