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Favorable Op-Ed on requiring gun ownership -- in the NY Times?
Glenn Reynolds has an Op-Ed, in the NY Times, favoring municipal statutes requiring gun ownership!
"While pro-gun laws like the one in Greenleaf are mostly symbolic, to the extent that they actually make a difference, it is likely to be a positive one.
Greenleaf is following in the footsteps of Kennesaw, Ga., which in 1982 passed a mandatory gun ownership law in response to a handgun ban passed in Morton Grove, Ill. Kennesaw’s crime dropped sharply, while Morton Grove’s did not.
To some degree, this is rational. Criminals, unsurprisingly, would rather break into a house where they aren’t at risk of being shot. As David Kopel noted in a 2001 article in The Arizona Law Review, burglars report that they try to avoid homes where armed residents are likely to be present. We see this phenomenon internationally, too, with the United States having a lower proportion of “hot” burglaries — break-ins where the burglars know the home to be occupied — than countries with restrictive gun laws."
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4 Comments | Leave a comment
Tim, your numbers show only burglaries. Do you have additional information about other crimes?
After all these years, Tim is still making good use of his copy of How to Lie With Statistics. I felt a wave of nostalgia reading your post, Tim. How have you been?
Of course, our Founders knew this to be true, given that they passed the Militia Act of 1792 requiring every able bodied male to possess a musket and its accompanying kit.
Reynolds gets his facts wrong: crime in Morton Grove went down, while crime in Kennesaw didn't change.