do gun laws affect crime rates?
states that dont allow open carry:
“He compares crime rates in American states that allow citizens to carry concealed firearms with those in states that do not, and argues that certain categories of crime - rape, violent burglary, mugging - are lower in the former. What he does not do is compare crime in the US, where a gun culture exists, with crime in other developed countries, where it does not.” “He takes for granted that police will be armed and that they will occasionally kill bystanders; he takes for granted that there will be some gun-related accidents or other incidents involving children.”John R. Lotts looked at states that allow citizens to carry guns to states that don’t allow citizens to carry guns. He found that states that allow citizen to carry guns have lower crime rates because people are afraid if they attack someone whom happens to have a gun they have a better chance of being shot. When he looked at states that don’t allow citizens to carry guns he found that they have higher crime rates because people shouldn’t have a gun on them to fight back or protect them and shoot someone who is attacking them, so if they don’t have guns then they won’t be able to fight back to whoever is giving them trouble(Kaveney, Roz).
states that dont allow open carry:
“New Stanford research confirms that right-to-carry gun laws are linked to an increase in violent crime.
Right-to-carry or concealed-carry laws have generated much debate in the past two decades – do they make society safer or more dangerous?
While there is no federal law on concealed-carry permits, all 50 states have passed laws allowing citizens to carry certain concealed firearms in public, either without a permit or after obtaining a permit from local government or law enforcement.
Recently published scholarship updates the empirical evidence on this issue. Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue III, Stanford law student Abhay Aneja and doctoral student Alexandria Zhang from Johns Hopkins University were the co-authors of the study"
“He explained that prior research based on data through 1992 indicated that the laws decreased violent crime.”
With states that don’t allow open carry of handguns the crime rates have decreased as said in 1992("Right-to-carry Gun Laws Linked to Increase in Violent Crime, Stanford Research Shows.").
cites
Kaveney, Roz. "More Guns, Less Crime." New Statesman [1996] 7 Aug. 1998: 45. General OneFile. Web. 3 June 2015.
"Right-to-carry Gun Laws Linked to Increase in Violent Crime, Stanford Research Shows." Stanford University. N.p., n.d. Web. 03 June 2015.