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Lott/Mustard Study

By tlambert on August 14, 1996.

[Originally posted to firearmreg on Aug 15 1996]

Daniel Polsby writes:

Lott's results are highly plausible and internally consistent.

Highly plausible? Lets look at Dade county:

Lott reckons that the carry law caused a reduction of 8% in murders,
5% in rapes, 7% in aggravated assaults and 2% in robberies. For Dade
county that translates to 1,500 fewer aggravated assaults, 450 fewer
robberies, 65 fewer rapes and 30 fewer murders each year. From Cramer
and Kopel's paper on CCW (TN Law Review v 62p733) one learns that "the
police kept track of every known incident involving [Dade] county's
more than 21,000 handgun permitees over a six-year period." and there
were 12 defensive gun uses by CCW holders against persons known to the
police over the six year period. That's two per year.

It does not seem highly plausible that those two uses prevented 2,000
crimes.

Tags
More Guns Less Crime

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