Packing Heat

Daniel D. Polsby from the August/September 1998 issue

(Page 2 of 2)

Lott's work calls all this into question. It does more than advance discussion; it smashes idols.

The response to the publication of the Lott-Mustard paper was instantaneous and noisy. The critics declared not simply that their methodology was "flawed," as a staff member of the Violence Policy Center who had never laid eyes on the paper whispered to the newspapers. They insisted that the work was actually dishonest, like the pseudoscientific chaff that used to be put out by the Tobacco Institute--because, as Rep. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters, Lott was a hireling of firearms manufacturers. He was on the payroll of the Olin Corporation, the company that manufactures the notorious Winchester Black Talon bullet, a spokeswoman of the Violence Policy Center helpfully added.

The basis for this charge, which many newspapers repeated without comment, was that Lott's University of Chicago fellowship was endowed by the Olin Foundation. The foundation--which endows fellowships and professorships at many universities, including Oxford, Harvard, Yale, and Stanford as well as the University of Chicago--is distinct from the Olin Corporation, a chemical company that, among many other things, manufactures Winchester ammunition. The recipient of the foundation's largess was the University of Chicago, not Lott, who was selected by a law school faculty committee. Universities routinely accept money from foundations endowed by people who got rich selling tobacco, demon rum, fatty foods, even the delivery systems for thermonuclear bombs, but ideological strings on such money are seldom proposed and never accepted.

There have been a few responsible criticisms of Lott's work. In particular, a critical paper by economists Dan Black of the University of Kentucky and Daniel Nagin of Carnegie-Mellon University raised the question of whether Lott's results are driven by a selection bias in his data. One of the strengths of this book is Lott's patient refutation of every responsible criticism. His relentless counterattack on Black and Nagin is a model for academic debate. One would like to see Lott's critics respond to his refutations as specifically and in as much detail as he has answered them.

What sort of public policy do Lott's findings point to? Would the world really be better off with everybody packing heat? Well, the Lott data do not say "everybody." In fact, it appears that something like 1 percent to 2 percent of a state's population will get a concealed-carry license if given the opportunity to do so.

It is hard to be certain of the exact numbers (because, for instance, some states freely issue carry permits to nonresidents), and in any case we do not know how possessing a permit affects the actual carrying of firearms. But one cannot reason that, because a legal regime that inspires 1 or 2 percent of the population to get a carry permit does not increase but actually decreases murders, rapes, and other confrontational crimes, a legal regime that would inspire 10 or 20 percent of the population to get licenses would be similarly benign.

For all we know (and as Lott recognizes), the first 100,000 or 200,000 people who go for the permit may be significantly more law-abiding and punctilious than the next cohort of permit seekers would be. If so, it is entirely possible that the often predicted "OK Corral" scenarios that have yet to materialize may simply lie a bit further out on the experience curve. There is ample room for states to display caution and common sense before following the lead of Vermont, which allows any adult not specifically disqualified by law to pack a gun, without even getting a permit. But after a few more years of experience have accumulated--after the massive natural experiment with firearms and crime has run its course--if the Lott results are repeated, it is hard to see how the conventional wisdom about guns could possibly survive. Five or six years from now, we'll know.