More Guns, Crime, and Research on it (Score 1)

A large fundamental problem with attempting to capture the effect of an increase in gun ownership to crime rates is the data available on guns. I read through the posts quickly, since it's finals week so I may have missed similar responses, but I saw a few mentions of Lott's More Guns, Less Crime, which I recall generating lots of fanfare when it came out a few years ago. I am not entirely sure how Lott got his measurements on actual gun ownership, since it is not readily available or accurate, and whether or not he attempted to separate handguns (involved in more crimes) from other types of firearms. An economist, Mark Duggan, has a working paper called "More Guns, More Crime" where he uses a proxy variable of subscriptions to Guns N Ammo magazine to represent increases in gun ownership, and since Guns N Ammo mainly showcases handguns, it seems like a good proxy. He spends some time showing results from FBI reports and General Health Statistics reports to show that increases in the magazine subscription have a direct relationship in increases in gun accidents that usually stem from increases in gun sales. I know it's a bold assumption to make, but if you can get ahold of the paper (sorry I only have a hard copy), you can see that he makes a strong argument that an increase in guns leads to an increase in crime. Unlike a lot of pay for results studies, and since he's an economist, he includes several potential limiting factors and insight into why this may not be 100 percent correct, such as when measuring increases in gun ownership, it is very hard to capture the exact timing of purchase as to did the crime occur and then the purchase for defensive reasons, or did the purchase precede the crime. The paper is definitely worth a read.