Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-5r2nc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-02-05T06:04:53.189Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Firearms, Violence, and the Potential Impact of Firearms Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2021

Franklin E. Zimring
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper organizes the question of gun controls as violence policy under two quite different headings. The first issue to be discussed is the relationship between gun use and the death rate from violent crime. The second question is whether and how firearms control strategies might reduce the death rate from violence. When we review the evidence on the relationship between guns and violence, it seems clear that gun use, usually handgun use, increases the death rate from violence by a factor of three to five. Nobody in mainstream social science or criminology argues against such weapon effects these days, although some are more skeptical of the magnitude estimated than others (one example is Lance Stell; please see his essay in this issue). Thus the problem is both genuine and important.

Type
Article
Information
Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics , Volume 32 , Issue 1 , Spring 2004 , pp. 34 - 37
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics 2004

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Jacobs, J. B., Can Gun Control Work? (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).Google Scholar
Zimring, F. E. Hawkins, G., Crime Is Not the Problem: Lethal Violence in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997): at 108.Google Scholar
See Zimring, Hawkins, , supra note 2: 113–122.Google Scholar
Wolfgang, M., Patterns in Criminal Homicide (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1958).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimring, F. E., “Is Gun Control Likely to Reduce Violent Killings?” University of Chicago Law Review 35 (1968):721–737.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimring, F. E., “The Medium is the Message: Firearms Caliber as a Determinant of the Death Rate from Assault,” Journal of Legal Studies 1 (1972): 97–123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
See Zimring, , supra note 5.Google Scholar
Zimring, , supra note 5.Google Scholar
Vinson, T., “Gun and Knife Attacks,” Australian Journal of Forensic Sciences 7 (1974): 76;Sarvesvaran, R. Jayewardene, C.H.S.,. “The Role of the Weapon in the Homicide Drama,” Medicine and Law 4 (1985): 315–326.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimring, , supra note 6.Google Scholar
Cook, P. J., “The Technology of Personal Violence,” in Tonry, M., ed., Crime and Justice: A Review of Research (Chicago: Chicago University Press., 1991).Google Scholar
Zimring, F. E. Zuehl, J., “Victim Injury and Death in Urban Robbery: A Chicago Study,” Journal of Legal Studies 15 (1986): 1–40 Cook, supra note 11: 17.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimring, Hawkins, , supra note 2: 34–50.Google Scholar
Handgun Control Inc., Carrying Concealed Weapons: Questions and Answers (Washington, D.C.: Handgun Control Inc., 1995).Google Scholar
Lott, J. R., More Guns, Less Crime (second edition) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).Google Scholar
Black, D. Nagin, D., “Do ‘Right-to-Carry’ Laws Deter Violent Crime?” Journal of Legal Studies 27 (1998): 209–219;Zimring, F. E. Hawkins, G., “Concealed Handguns: The Counterfeit Deterrent,” The Responsive Community 7 (1997): 46–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Donohue, J. Ayers, I., “Shooting Down the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis,” National Bureau of Economic Research (working paper no. w9336, 2002);Donohue, J. Ayers, I., “The Latest Misfires in Support of the More Guns, Less Crime Hypothesis,” Stanford Law Review 55 (2003):1371–1398.Google Scholar
Zimring, F. E., “Firearms and Federal Law: The Gun Control Act of 1968,” Journal of Legal Studies 4 (1975): 133–198.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zimring, F. E., “The Problem of Assault Firearms,” Crime and Delinquency 35 (1989): 538–545.Google Scholar
Fagan, J. Zimring, F. E. Kim, J., “Declining Homicide in New York City: A Tale of Two Trends,” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 88 (1998): 1277–1323.CrossRefGoogle Scholar