More on Guns

I enjoyed this Freakonomics Radio podcast.  For some reason I tend to trust these guys more than I probably should.  One point Levitt makes:

"I would just say that anyone with any sense looks at the current political climate, thinks about the kinds of proposals that are being made and accepts the fact that none of these proposals are going to have any real impact at all."

He also talks about how he doesn't think that widespread gun ownership is a necessary part of American society, but that gun culture is a historical vestige like having alcohol and tobacco legal while marijuana is not.

After Newtown I was at the point where I would've entertained banning all semi-automatic weapons if it was certain to significantly decrease gun violence in America.  Currently I'm pretty skeptical that gun control measures would help anything.

Comments

Ryan said…
I listened to that podcast a month or two ago. I liked it.

I generally trust economist to, at least, think about the relevant factors, and consider the unseen effects of policy.

I generally like Steve Levitt. Levitt did get in a big fight with John Lott, where he accused Lott of buying an issue of a public policy journal and publishing a bunch of papers that were not properly peer reviewed. Then he wrote a retraction letter where he admitted they were reviewed and he was one of the reviewers!

Of course, then Lott got semi-busted writing something in his book but he couldn't back up with an independent study. Then Lott claimed he'd done his own study to back up the number, but couldn't produce any evidence that he had actually done the work.

I mostly agreed with the podcast. The one piece I didn't know that I agreed with was where he said that guns made conflict more likely.

I guess that's probably true about violent conflict if both parties have a gun, but probably not generally true. like, I'm sure if you know you're going to get beaten up, you're just going to hand over your lunch money, and not fight. But the same phenomenon would apply even more clearly when one party has a gun. So, in that respect, guns may reduce violence.

But then on the other hand, increased ability to defend yourself might decrease certain kind of crimes like rape, theft, or robbery where victim would typically be unable to adequately defend him or herself. So there could be more violent confrontations preluding these acts, but fewer of the acts as a result of the increased cost.

Anyway, maybe we're okay with more violent encounters provided it reduces criminal encounters generally. Like, lets say
April 29, 2013 at 2:27 PM
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