More Guns, Less Crime? Well, Not Exactly....

In the wake of so many recent mass shootings, the TSAP has gradually shifted our position on guns towards favoring more gun control than in the past.  But what about the old standby argument that "more guns = less crime", as John Lott's famous 1997 study argued and the gun lobby just luurrrves to parrot to this day?

Well, it turns out that more recent research has thoroughly debunked that zombie idea that just doesn't seem to want to die already.  To wit, the best studies on the matter show either no significant effect either way or even an increase in violent crime correlated with right-to-carry laws.  And tighter gun laws in general--surprise, surprise--are in fact also correlated with fewer gun deaths in general as well.   As for the old chestnut about self-defense, it turns out that having a gun in the house actually makes its occupants statistically LESS safe on balance.  While it is true that correlation does not prove causation, such correlations still robustly hold up after numerous variables are controlled for and in a variety of statistical models, and clearly lean in the opposite direction as Lott's discredited, outdated, and now-a-radical-outlier study does.  These facts dovetail nicely with well-known international evidence as well.

Ok, you ask, but then why did violent crime, including firearm homicides, drop in states that passed right-to-carry laws?  Well, it dropped in all states for a variety of unrelated reasons, but it did not drop evenly:  states that did not loosen their gun laws in fact saw much larger decreases in violent crime compared with the states that did loosen theirs.  And gun ownership rates actually dropped during the period of decreasing gun violence, which means a positive correlation between gun ownership and violence.   Thus, we see that Lott's whole thesis was based on nothing more than a statistical mirage all along.

So, in other words, the overwhelming weight of the evidence strongly suggests that "more guns = more crime" is true, all else being equal.  We at the TSAP do apologize for also mindlessly parroting the now-debunked opposite theory for so long.  While we were never in league with the NRA or took even one penny from the gun lobby, we were nonetheless unwittingly acting as fellow-travelers for them on purely libertarian and individualistic grounds.  And we now realize what a grave error that has been, all because of--dare we say--JUNK SCIENCE.  I mean, what else would you call a specious "study" that looks good at first, yet is later revealed to be not only inaccurate, but in fact virtually 100% wrong?

While we still support the Second Amendment, of course, it would seem that now our favorite part is where it says "well-regulated".  Yes, really.  Too bad the NRA and their bought-and-paid-for politicians can't seem to read the first half of the freaking sentence!   But the gun lobby and their lackeys aren't really well known for nuance, to put it mildly.