John J. Donohue , Samuel V. Cai , Matthew V. Bondy , Philip J. Cook
{"title":"Why do right to carry laws increase violence? Effects on gun theft and clearance rates","authors":"John J. Donohue , Samuel V. Cai , Matthew V. Bondy , Philip J. Cook","doi":"10.1016/j.jue.2025.103761","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Since the 1970s most state restrictions on carrying handguns in public have been eased or eliminated. Several of the early impact evaluations of these changes tended to support the belief that laws that facilitated gun carrying by private citizens deterred violent crime (while possibly increasing property crime). But more recent studies of the impacts of right to carry (RTC) laws conclude that the net effect is to increase state-level violent-crime rates relative to more restrictive regimes. This finding implies that the deterrence mechanism is swamped by other mechanisms, but there has been little evidence on which ones are important in practice. Using a novel data set of 217 large cities over 41 years, we confirm that violent crime increases following RTC adoption. We then document two mechanisms that may account for this result, finding a 50 percent increase in gun theft and a 9-18 percent reduction in violent crime clearance rates. Further analysis of city-level heterogeneity in RTC-induced effects is consistent with the hypothesis that gun theft is a likely cause of the RTC-induced increase in violent crime and more tentative evidence points to clearance as a potential driver.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48340,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Urban Economics","volume":"147 ","pages":"Article 103761"},"PeriodicalIF":5.7000,"publicationDate":"2025-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Urban Economics","FirstCategoryId":"96","ListUrlMain":"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0094119025000269","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ECONOMICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Since the 1970s most state restrictions on carrying handguns in public have been eased or eliminated. Several of the early impact evaluations of these changes tended to support the belief that laws that facilitated gun carrying by private citizens deterred violent crime (while possibly increasing property crime). But more recent studies of the impacts of right to carry (RTC) laws conclude that the net effect is to increase state-level violent-crime rates relative to more restrictive regimes. This finding implies that the deterrence mechanism is swamped by other mechanisms, but there has been little evidence on which ones are important in practice. Using a novel data set of 217 large cities over 41 years, we confirm that violent crime increases following RTC adoption. We then document two mechanisms that may account for this result, finding a 50 percent increase in gun theft and a 9-18 percent reduction in violent crime clearance rates. Further analysis of city-level heterogeneity in RTC-induced effects is consistent with the hypothesis that gun theft is a likely cause of the RTC-induced increase in violent crime and more tentative evidence points to clearance as a potential driver.
期刊介绍:
The Journal of Urban Economics provides a focal point for the publication of research papers in the rapidly expanding field of urban economics. It publishes papers of great scholarly merit on a wide range of topics and employing a wide range of approaches to urban economics. The Journal welcomes papers that are theoretical or empirical, positive or normative. Although the Journal is not intended to be multidisciplinary, papers by noneconomists are welcome if they are of interest to economists. Brief Notes are also published if they lie within the purview of the Journal and if they contain new information, comment on published work, or new theoretical suggestions.