another way to see if there is a correlation between gun ownership and
crimes would be to see if there is any between estimated number (or
percentage) of guns owned "illegally" and crime rates.
Is that true? Assume that the proportion of illegally owned guns belonging to criminals is higher that the proportion of legally owned guns belonging to criminals -- which seems to be a safe assumption. Now, since guns reduce the cost of commiting crimes (the criminal is not obliged to have, or carry, one if he does not want to), the more guns in the hands of criminals, the more crime indeed; but this is "other things being equal", including the number of non-criminals having, or carrying, guns. Consequently, you may have a different correlation between guns owned illegally and crime rates and between general ownership of guns and crime rates. At the limit, if all guns are owned by criminals, obviously you have a strong correlation between guns and crime.
Visiting Professor , Universit� du Qu�bec � Hull
Director of the Groupe de Recherche �conomie et Libert� (GREL)
Research Fellow, Independent Institute
http://www.pierrelemieux.org
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Backup: [EMAIL PROTECTED])
Montr�al address:
C.P. 725, Tour de la Bourse, Montr�al, Canada H4Z 1J9
Fax: 1(819)585-4423
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"L'homme vivant sous la servitude des lois prend
sans s'en douter une �me d'esclave."
The man who lives under the servitude of laws takes,
without suspecting it, the soul of a slave.
(Georges Ripert, Le D�clin du Droit, Paris, Librairie
G�n�rale de Droit et de Jurisprudence, 1949, p. 94)
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