Right-to-Carry Gun Laws and Their Impact on Violent Crime - Prof. John J. Donohue (Stanford)

11/05/2022 21 min

Listen "Right-to-Carry Gun Laws and Their Impact on Violent Crime - Prof. John J. Donohue (Stanford)"

Episode Synopsis

In this podcast of the CLE's vlog & podcast series, Prof. John J. Donohue discusses the study "Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data and a State-Level Synthetic Control Analysis" with Prof. Alexander Stremitzer (ETH Zurich).   
In their study, John J. Donohue (Stanford), Abhay Aneja (Berkeley) and Kyle D. Weber (Columbia) use indepth state panel data and new statistical techniques to estimate the impact on violent crime when states adopt right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws. They find that RTC laws increase overall violent crime and that RTC laws are associated with 13–15 percent higher aggregate violent crime rates 10 years after adoption. Using a consensus estimate of the elasticity of crime with respect to incarceration of 0.15, the average RTC state would need to roughly double its prison population to offset the increase in violent crime caused by RTC adoption.  
Paper References:
John J. Donohue - Stanford Law School
Abhay Aneja - Berkeley Law
Kyle D. Weber - Columbia University
Right-to-Carry Laws and Violent Crime: A Comprehensive Assessment Using Panel Data and a State-Level Synthetic Control Analysis Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, Vol. 16(2), p. 198-247 (2019)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jels.12219
Audio Credits for Trailer:
AllttA by AllttA  
https://youtu.be/ZawLOcbQZ2w

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