Copyright 2005 American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research

The American Enterprise March 1, 2005

SECTION: No. 2, Vol. 16; Pg. 58; ISSN: 1047-3572

IAC-ACC-NO: 129368517

LENGTH: 378 words

HEADLINE: Guns Don't Kill People...; gun violence

BYLINE: Murray, Iain

BODY:

National Research Council, Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review, National Academies Press, 2004 (books.nap.edu)

A panel assembled by the National Research Council (which many assumed wouldbe predisposed to find a connection between gun ownership and violence) has been unable to find evidence to support such a contention. Nor can it find data that gun control policies reduce violence.

As University of Maryland professor Charles Wellford, the panel chairman, told the press, "There is no credible evidence that the more than 80 gun -violence prevention programs reviewed by the committee had any effect on children's or teen's attitudes, knowledge, or behavior regarding firearms."

While the panel found there was an association between gun availability and gun suicide, the research did not show a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.

The panel concluded that even if the data had showed a causal connection between firearms and lethal violence, violence reduction programs would be difficult to develop because many factors other than gun use influence violence levels. "The intent of the people involved, the nature of their interactions and relationships, their access to firearms, and the level of law enforcement are critical in explaining when and why firearm violence occurs," said Wellford.

On the question of how "right-to-carry" handgun laws affect crime rates,the panel reported it "found no credible evidence that such policies either decrease or increase violent crime. " A dissenting addendum from James Q. Wilson on this subject concludes that right-to-carry laws "impose no costs but may confer benefits." He points out that the panel's criticisms of the work of AEI scholar John Lott, who first provided data that suggest right-to-carry laws reduce crime and especially murder, are overblown.

The panel in fact confirmed Lott's findings in relation to murder, and admitted that the work of Lott's critics had not been subject to the same close analysis as his own.

Wilson suggests that the allegation that Lott's work produces weaker resultswhen the data are updated to recent years demonstrates that the effect of right-to-carry laws is greater when crime rates are rising than when they are falling.

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