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Key Excerpts from:
Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws
Pg. 5
[Working Paper Note 10: "While the recent rash of public school shootings during the 1997-98 school <[year]?> took place after the period of our study, these incidents raise questions about the unintentional consequences of laws. The five public school shootings took place after a 1995 federal law banned guns (including permitted concealed handguns) within a thousand feet of a school. The possibility exists that attempts to outlaw guns from schools, no matter how well meaning, may have produced perverse effects. It is interesting to note that during the 1977 to 1995 period, 15 shootings took place in schools in states without right-to-carry laws and only one took place in a state with this type of law. There were 19 deaths and 97 injuries in states without the law, while there was one death and two injuries in states with the law."]
"…multiple shootings allow us to test the applicability of economics to an area believed to be far outside the domain of economics. Perpetrators of these acts are often thought to be psychotic or irrational and hence not responsive to costs and benefits. …"
Pg. 6
"The claim is then made that a law permitting individuals to carry concealed weapons couldn’t possibly deter shooting sprees in public places (though it might reduce the number of people killed or wounded)…."
"In contrast, the economic model of crime predicts that a shall issue law will raise the potential perpetrator’s cost of acting (e.g., he might be wounded or killed if he acts) and lower his expected benefit (e.g., he will do less damage if he encounters armed resistance). Although not all..., some individuals will be deterred from carrying out a shooting spree... How large the deterrent effect is depends on how many potential offenders are close enough to the margin so that the passage of a shall issue law changes the net benefit from positive to negative…."
"A study of multiple shootings also allows us to compare whether a shall issue law will produce a bigger deterrent effect on multiple shootings than on ordinary murders and other crimes. This may appear surprising in light of the claimed irrationality of individuals who go on shooting sprees. But another consideration points in the opposite direction. Suppose a shall issue law deters crime primarily by raising the probability that a perpetrator will encounter a potential victim who is armed. In a single victim crime, this probability is likely to be very low. Hence the deterrent effect of the law though negative might be relatively small. Now consider a shooting spree in a public place. The likelihood that one or more potential victims or bystanders are armed would be very large even though the probability that any particular individual is armed is very low. 11"
[Note 11: "To illustrate, let the probability (p) that a single individual is carrying a concealed handgun equal .10. Assume further that there are 10 individuals in a public place. Then the probability that at least one of them is armed is about .65 (= 1 - (.9)^10). "]
Pg. 7
"In principle, this suggests a testable hypothesis: a shall issue law will have a bigger deterrent effect on shooting sprees in public places than on more conventional crimes. Finally, because the presence of citizens with concealed handguns may be able to stop attacks before the police are able to arrive, our data also allows us to provide the first evidence that we know of concerning whether the severity of those crimes that still take place can be mitigated."
"We define a multiple shooting as one in which two or more people are killed or wounded in a public place. “Public place” refers to a shooting that occurred in a church, business, bar, street, government building, public transit, place of employment, park, health care facility, mall or restaurant….Our sample does not include all multiple shootings... We exclude...: those that were the byproduct of another crime (e.g., a robbery or drug deal); shootings that involved gang activity (e.g., drive by shootings); professional hits or shootings related to organized crime; and serial killings or killings that took place over the span of more than one day. Although there is no bright line between different types of multiple shootings, there are several reasons for limiting our sample as we do…"
Pg. 9
"...states without shall issue laws had more deaths and injuries from multiple shootings per year (both in absolute numbers and on a per capita basis) during the 1977 to 1995 period."
"...the number of states without shall issue laws declined from 43 to 29 and the percentage of the U.S. population in these states fell from 91.5 to 68 percent in this period. Yet states without shall issue laws still account for the overwhelming majority (often over 90 percent) of deaths and injuries. The different rates of shootings, murders, or injuries are very consistent over time and do not arise from a few unusual years."
"Tables 3 and 4 look more closely at the 14 states that adopted shall issue laws between 1977 and 1995. (No state has ever repealed this law.) "
"Table 3 shows a sharp drop in multiple murders and injuries per 100,000 persons after the passage of a shall issue law. Murders fell by 89 percent and injuries by 82 percent."
"...this drop occurred largely during the first full year after a state enacted its law... Overall, the decline is so large that we observe zero multiple killings in three of the eight years after the passage of a law, an event that did not occur during any year before passage of the law."
Pg. 10
"Table 3 also presents data on...multiple shootings that appeared in the first section of the New York Times at the time the shootings took place...as an estimate of more serious or, at least, more notorious multiple shootings. Similar to the data on all multiple shootings, the New York Times data show a decline of 91 percent in the rate of multiple shootings after a state adopted a shall issue law."
"Finally, we consider the possibility that shall issue laws lead criminals to substitute bombings for shootings. Data...suggest no systematic impact on the number of bombings."
Pg. 11 <Regressions>
"This approach may actually understate the impact of shall issue laws..."
"The results of Table 6 indicate that concealed handguns laws significantly reduce multiple shootings in public places (but have no systematic effects on bombings).
"... Indeed these estimated effects are so large that they often exceed the annual average number of murders and injuries from public shootings in a state (either absolutely or per 100,000 persons)."
"To be sure, we expect large deterrent effects from these laws because of the high probability that one or more potential victim or bystander will be harmed." <should read "armed" instead of harmed?>.
"Still the drop in murders and injuries is surprisingly large. And as we shall see, alternative measures of shootings and adding other control variables do not seem to reduce the magnitude of the law’s effect."
Pg. 14
"Table 8 adds other law variables that may influence the number of mass shootings. ...a waiting period...;...the probability of execution...; and...additional penalties for using a gun in...a crime."
"Three conclusions emerge...First, the statistically significant negative impact of shall issue laws on mass public shootings continues to hold. Second, the regression coefficients on the shall issues variables are of the same magnitude as in Table 7. Third, the other gun related law variables and the capital punishment variable have no significant impact on mass shootings."
Pg. 15
"The impact of the death penalty on public shootings stands in sharp contrast to evidence that we have put together on murder rates using county level data from 1977 to 1995. We find that a one percentage point increase in the execution rate is associated with a seven percent decline in the overall murder rate and the effect is statistically significant at better than .01 percent level."
"The question is why does the presence of concealed handgun laws deter multiple victim shootings when other penalties fail to have an effect. One possibility is that the execution rate does not deter mass public killers because they already die at such high rates from their crime, but concealed handgun laws deter attacks because the killers are committing the crime to kill or injure a large number of people and that their return from these attacks is reduced when citizens with concealed handguns can limit the carnage."
Pg. 18
Note 26: "While individuals with permits produce a large social benefit, they risk being shot by the attacker. We have no instances where people with permits have indeed been shot, but this risk surely raises the prospects of whether citizens with permits should be compensated or at least not have to pay large fees for obtaining a permit."
Pg. 20 VIII. Conclusion
"The results of this paper support the hypothesis that concealed handgun or shall issue laws reduce the number of multiple victim public shootings. Attackers are deterred and the number of people injured or killed per attack is also reduced, thus for the first time providing evidence that the harm from crimes that still occur can be mitigated. The results are robust.... Not only does the passage of a shall issue law have a significant impact on multiple shootings but it is the only law related variable that appears to have a significant impact. Other law enforcement efforts from the arrest rate for murder to the death penalty to waiting periods and background checks are not systematically related to multiple shootings. We also find that shall issue laws deter both the number of multiple shootings and the amount of harm per shooting. Finally, because the presence of citizens with concealed handguns may be able to stop attacks before the police are able to arrive, our data also allows us to provide the first evidence on the reduction in severity of those crimes that still take place."
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