David Friedman wrote:
>
>At 3:39 PM -0500 1/19/01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>>One thing that strikes me in this debate is that the argument seems to be
>>focusing on the total number of guns in existence in a region as being the
>>deterrent to crime. Or maybe it is the percentage of individuals
>>who own guns.
>
>Actually, Lott's work, which is what started this thread, was on the
>effect of concealed carry laws. As best I recall, he used either the
>presence of such a law or the number of permits that had been issued,
>depending on which regression (and what data he had).
>
I'm relieved to hear you point this out because the Economist article that
inspired me to start this thread seemed to be making a different argument. I
thought that they may have missed the point of Lott's study, but I was not
familiar enough with the study to be confident. The Duggan study uses Guns &
Ammo circulation data, and I didn't think this could be seen as a direct
refutation of Lott & Mustard. I always thought that Lott's argument was that
people had to actually carry concealed weapons for a deterrent to exist. (Is
that a fair characterization?) Magazine circulation has no obvious relation to
that.
Thanks for the clarification,
James
