Abstract
As gun control is a controversial, emotional topic, it has become increasingly difficult to resolve. Should guns be limited or made illegal, or should the population be allowed to bear arms, as some argue is permitted by the US Constitution?294 The pros and cons for this debate are numerous. A sample of arguments from each side will be provided here. Then, they are analyzed in a game theoretic format to show how this analytic approach helps facilitate an understanding of the subject.
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The actual wording in the second amendment of the Constitution refers to the rights to form a militia and to bear arms within these groups. “A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” “The Supreme Court has stated that today’s militia is the National Guard.” U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation Home Page, “Three Myths Used Against Gun Control,” January 5, 1997
In Lott, and Mustard, 1/23/96, A8.
Lott, and Mustard, 1997, L
U.S. Department of Justice, [B], 1/5/97.
U.S. Department of Justice, [D], 1/5/97.
Reuters, 2/7/97, 12.
Ibid.
Don Kates refers to those who are completely opposed to the possession of firearms as “anti-gun.” See Kates, 1991.
U.S Dept. of Justice, [G].
Kleck, 1991, 3.
Ibid.
Secter, and McRoberts, 10/1/96.
Verhovek, 8/3/95, 1.
Associated Press, 12/13/95.
Seelye, 4/1/95, 26.
Krauss, 2/25/97, A14.
Krauss, 2/25/97, A14.
Kleck, 1991, 6.
Polsby, and Brennen, 1995, 3.
The Economist, 4/15/95, 27.
Cited in Polsby, and Brennen, 1995, 3.
Seelye, 4/1/95, 1.
In Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 3.
Kleck, 1991, 5. This finding is supported by Kates, 1991, who argued that the number of times per year that handguns are used in self defense slightly exceeds the estimated number of crimes attempted by or committed by handgun armed felons each year. p. 12.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 3and4.
The Economist, 4/15/95, 27.
Kates, 1991, 5. The limits of legal obligations of the police can be seen in: California Government Code 821, 845, 846, and 85, Illinois Rev. Stat. 4–102 construed in Stone v State. (Kates, fn 20.) Also in “Calogrides v City of Mobile, 475 So. 2d 560 (S. Ct. Ala. 1985) - quoting with approval from Weutrich v Delia, 155 N.J Super 324, 326, 382 A.2d 929, 930 (1978) `a public entity such as a municipality is not liable in tort for its failure to protect against the criminal propensity of third persons.” “ among others. (Kates, fn. 16)
Kates, 1991, 6.
There has been, however, an unfortunate lack of research and development on alternative forms of protection and self defense. Kates attributes this lack primarily to the political resistance on the part of those “numerous and influential segment of anti-gun advocates who disapprove of every form of private self protection.” He claims that the resulting political situation deters those from undertaking the costs of developing alternative forms of protection because of the fear that they will be banned. 1991, fn 6.
Kleck, 1991, 5.
Kates, 1991, 13–14. and Cook, 1986, 405and407.
Kleck, 1986.
Kates, 1991, fn. 87.
Ibid.
Kates, 1991, 16.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 3.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid, 4.
Kates, 1991, fn. 51. “for instance, an experienced medical examiner comments that he has never seen or heard of a death occurring `by accident’ in cleaning a gun that did not turn out, on examination, to be either a suicide or a murder.” See also Rushford, Hirsch, Ford, and Adelson, 1975.
Heard, 2/7/97, 1.
Ibid.
See Olson, 1995.
Olson, 1995.
Olson, 1995.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 17.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 17.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 16.
Ibid, 17.
This assertion is not made lightly. Evidence suggests that firearms can be very effective both in aiding a criminal to successfully carry out his crime and also in aiding a victim to deter the criminal. In both cases, the weapon does not actually have to be used to be effective. If one party is armed and the other is not, the mere display of the gun may at times be sufficient to awe the other. See Kates, 1991, 12 and fn. 71.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 16–17.
Kates, 1991, 9.
Community punishment, whether ostracization or in other forms, should not be underestimated. The effect of this treatment has been used to argue against the imposition of “Megan’s Law”, a law which necessitates that a community be informed if a convicted sex offender will move into the area upon release from prison. The arguments against the law have centered around the issue that this requirement forces the offender to be “punished twice” for the same time. Thus, community action constitutes a formidable form of punishment.
It can be shown that if a player cheats another in a repeated PD game, then the other can respond with a strategy of Tit For Tat, TFT, or cheating in response to her opponent’s having cheated, or by cheating 2 times, 2TFT, in response, to punish, or by using the Grim Trigger strategy and always cheating against the original cheater. These strategies can be shown to deter a player from cheating. See Myerson, 1991 for examples of strategies.
Milgrom, North, and Weingast (1990) show that if information is perfect, i.e. if all members of a community share all of the information about the other members, then the using the strategy of ATFT (adjusted TFT) can produce cooperation. In Saari-Sieberg 1998, I show that even imperfect information, up to a certain limit, can help maintain cooperation in a community.
Weisheit, and Wells, 1996, 380. 35o Lott and Mustard, 1997, 3.chrw(133)[O]ne has to take seriously the possibility that `across-the-board’ gun control measures could decease the crime-control effects of noncriminal gun ownership more than they would decrease the crime-causing effects of criminal gun ownership.352
Kleck, 1991. 6–7.
Ibid, 7.
Verhovek, 8/3/95, 1.
Ibid.
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 4.
Kates, 1991, 17–18.
Ibid, 18.
For instance, I may not feel the need for, and may even feel inconvenienced by a weapon in Sweden, but I may feel much more secure if I have one while walking through the Bronx in New York.
Kates, 1991, refers to this phenomena as “displacement” and claims that it does not add to the social good, because crime has not been deterred, rather it has just been moved to other victims.
The probability would be p=[R-C]/[R-C+1)].
This assumption is made for simplicity and does not significantly change results.
The new probability is p=2[R-C]/[R-C+D]. Note that if the probability of success in armed conflict were different, it would change only the magnitude of probability of armed victims necessary.
Note that this model does not include the criminal’s additional strategy of fighting in response to a victim’s actions. The model follows Kreps and Wilson (1982) and Selten’s ( 1975 ) CSP model. Additional strategies for the criminal will be taken up later in the chapter.
For proof, see Kreps and Wilson, 1982.
Kleck, 1991, 6.
Kates, 1991, 19–21.
Kates, 1991, 21.
Kates, 1991, 21.
Ibid.
This occurs frequently enough to be a problem, see Kates, 1991. Some criminals harm their victims before their victims resist to prevent them from resisting later.
As the probability, s, increases that a criminal prefers, or will fight an armed victim, then if the payoffs to the victim are very low (in this case, death or injury) for armed conflict, then it can be shown that, for a time, some victims will be deterred from arming themselves. Eventually, beliefs may change and victims may arm themselves again, causing the beliefs of the criminals to change, leading many to avoid attack.
This claim comes from the fact that we can further extend the model to account for the possibility that the criminal will escalate violence even if the victim does not fight. If this possibility is included in the model, then the victim will be better off fighting.
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 18.
Ibid, 19.
Ibid
Ibid, 19–24.
Ibid, 19.
Ibid, 26. It should be noted here that, in reference to what I have argued earlier in the paper, some of these results arrive from aggregating data from rural and urban areas. Thus, the results could have errors.
Ibid, 29.
Ibid, 31.
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 35.
Graph found in Lott and Mustard, 1997, 35. I am grateful to John Lott for calling it to my attention.
Ibid, 39–43. Please refer to the paper for more detail and for other tests run by the authors.
Ibid, 51–62. The results from Arizona may have been affected by the fact that because the change in the law was recent, the authors were unable to control for all of the variables that they controlled for in other regressions.
Kates, 1991, 12.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 19.
Ibid, 19.
Ibid, 62–64.
Please refer to Kleck, 1991, for more details about the relative strengths and weaknesses of the tests, and for the results.
Kleck, 1991, 6.
Lacayo, 1/15/96, 50.
Ibid.
Pooley, 1/15/96, 55.
The Economist, 1/6/96, 19.
The Economist, 8/3/94.
Ibid
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 18–62.
The Economist, 12/17/94, 23.
In a conversation, February, 1997, John Lott mentioned that training requirements can have a beneficial effect, but if they are too long or cost too much, they can decease the benefits of deterrence by provoking some people to decide not to obtain a weapon. I am grateful to him for the conversation and for the information.
Lott, 2000.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 6.
Herbert, 4/1/95.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 7.
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 36–37.
Polsby and Brennen, 1995, 5.
Melcer, 3/4/97, 2.
U.S Department of Justice, [E], 1/5/97.
U.S Department of Justice, [C], 1/5/97.
U.S Department of Justice[A], 1/5/97.
See Olson, 1965, for more detail on the collective action problem.
A simple analogy could be seen in pollution reduction. I may dislike pollution and may believe that we should take steps to reduce pollution, but may be resistant to the idea of purchasing a converter for, or discontinuing use of, my smog-producing car. If everyone has the same reaction, then pollution will continue or even grow.
Obviously, authorities are not going to perform daily checks to ensure that these rules are obeyed. Penalties could be applied, however, to those who do not conform to the rules. If, for instance, a person is accidentally shot due to the fact that the safety measures were not used, then the gun owner could be guilty of murder. This risk could serve to provide incentives to take precautions.
Kleck, 1991, 14–19.
Kleck, 1991, 18–19.
Lott and Mustard, 1997, 36.
Pooley, 1/15/96, 56.
Lacayo, 1/15/96, 53.
See Chapter 1 for more detail.
See Chapter 1 for more detail.
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Sieberg, K.K. (2001). Gun Control. In: Criminal Dilemmas. Studies in Economic Theory, vol 12. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-04543-5_6
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