At 12:43 PM -0500 1/21/01, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>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.
Lott didn't have data on whether people carried weapons. He had data
on whether there was a "shall issue" law in effect in a county--a law
requiring the relevant authorities to issue permits for concealed
carry unless there was a good reason not to. In some cases he had
data on how many such permits had been issued. That, at least, is my
memory of the article and book.
--
David Friedman
Professor of Law
Santa Clara University
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/
