Gun Control and Violent Crime Relationship

Introduction

Gun control is a controversial issue in many countries as different opinions about its effects to accident death resulting from violent crime and murder. Compare to Canada and Britain, America has loose restriction about gun control laws, because of this, American focus more on armed victims. Many researches analyses the impact of firearm control and contrary opinions are claimed in this process.  

Shall-law advocates believe that allowing ordinary people carrying guns contribute to reduce criminal rates. Theoretically, criminals will carry guns even if it is forbidden, thus shall-law enable people arm themselves legally and they can protect themselves when encounter offenders (Ayres & Donohue, 2002). Lott and Mustard (1997) further support the benefits of shall-law by analysing the state and county based data in America and other countries in a long period, which shows shall-law play an significant role in reducing criminal rate. While conventional opinions care more on danger for increasing guns, Lott and Mustard (1997) point out that shall-law has a protective function for citizens because it is not easy for criminals to know who hold firearms and they should undertake more risks when they commit a crime.

In spite of the protective roll for shall-law, opponents point out several potential threats for carrying guns. Ayres and Donohue (2002), as the representative of opponents, claim that shall-issue law may escalate simple dispute to murder because people have weapons for killing people. Furthermore, assumption exists that allowing more guns may increase the number of stolen for guns, which will make it easier for criminals and terrorists acquire weapons. On the other hand, shall law place heavier burdens to police because they need to confirm whether the guns are legally carried (Ayres & Donohue, 2002).

To interpret the effect of shall-issue law, this essay examine whether allowing people to carrying firearms will influence violent crime and accident death based on regression analysis. Linear and non-linear regression analysis are conducted between variables reflect incarceration, race and other characteristics in 51 states in America. Conclusion according to regression analysis and limitations of this research will be illustrated in the end.

Data Analysis

This research is based on data about criminal records, race and population in 51 states in America obtained from Professor John Donohue, description of variables show in the table 1. The variable “Statid “is not considered in the research because the id number for states is random, which cannot be a control variable which influence the result of accident deaths.

Table 1: Description for Variables

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To find whether shall-law could have significant effect on reducing accident death, this essay conduct regression analysis for violence crime rate (“vio”) and murder rate (“mur”) with other variables including shall-carry law.

Violent Crime Rate

Linear regression analysis for violence crime rate is conducted primarily and each variables are added one by one, the regression result as below table 2 shows.

Table 2: Linear Regression Result for Vio

Standard errors in parentheses