Friday, August 9, 1996

Allowing concealed guns deters violent crime, study says

By Associated Press

(AP) - Letting law-abiding people carry concealed handguns deters violent crime and appears to produce no increase in accidental deaths, according to the authors of a new study.

"By the very nature of these guns being concealed, criminals are unable to tell whether the victim is armed before they strike, thus raising criminals' expected costs for committing many types of crimes," a professor and a graduate student at the University of Chicago say in the draft study.

The study, relying on crime data for U.S. counties from 1977 through 1992, said concealed handguns "have their greatest deterrent effect" in areas with the highest crime rates.

It contends that if states with concealed handgun bans had instead allowed them in 1992, some 1,570 murders, 4,177 rapes and more than 60,000 aggravated assaults would have been avoided. The authors said criminals tend to turn more frequently to property crimes involving stealth, rather than violent crime, in states with such laws.

Co-author John R. Lott, Jr., a visiting fellow at the university's law school, discussed the study Thursday at a seminar organized by the conservative Cato Institute. Copies of the draft, which is dated July 13, were distributed at the seminar.

Laws allowing people without criminal records to apply for licenses to carry concealed weapons now exist in some form in about two dozen states.

Spokesmen for Handgun Control Inc. and the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, two groups which oppose such laws, didn't return telephone calls Thursday evening seeking comment.

But gun control advocates have said in the past that declining crime rates in states that allow concealed handguns are due more to the waiting period now imposed on handgun purchases by federal law.

Lott's academic position is funded by a grant from the Olin Foundation, which is associated with the Olin Corp. Olin's Winchester division manufactures rifles and bullets.

Lott said Thursday he has had no contact with people at the foundation and he believes they were unaware of his study, which was done mostly at home and at his own expense.

"I've never had contact (with) the people I'm sure are giving money to the university and the research that is involved," Lott said. "We're not the ones who go out and raise the money."

His co-author was David B. Mustard, a graduate student and lecturer in the university's economics department.