Has anyone put forward an a priori theory of gun control and its relation to crime?
I'm reading John Lott's "More Guns, Less Crime", and I'm noticing how much it suffers from his a posteriori econometric method.
AnalyticalAnarchism.net - The Positive Political Economy of Anarchism
Not sure whether it is exactly what you're looking for, but Walter Block's Toward a Universal Libertarian Theory of Gun (Weapon) Control might be worth reading.
No - Block's paper is focused on rights. I'm looking for a utilitarian a priori theory.
I think in Murray Rothbard's "The Libertarian Manifesto", he argues that gun control laws disproportionately remove guns from the possession of law abiding citizens, leaving them more disadvataged.
Violence and imitation have a role on this.
Whatever the reason, there are way too many illegal guns on the Venezuelan streets and our cities are among the most dangerous in the whole world. We must remain locked at night. Many political candidates for the upcoming elections are offering gun removal programs such as the ones that considerably reduced crime in Colombia recently.
Of course, our government keeps on buying war weapons to Russia... it is an insane nightmare.
Art transcends ideology.
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/ruben
Sage:I'm looking for a utilitarian a priori theory.
Since the utilitarian methodology fails a priori, I doubt such a theory would be very convincing.
He means purely praxeological, value-free analysis.
-Jon
Freedom of markets is positively correlated with the degree of evolution in any society...
banned:Since the utilitarian methodology fails a priori, I doubt such a theory would be very convincing.
How does it fail?
I guess I didn't get my point across in my post last night.
In the national context I live in, gun control has failed since most of the guns on the street are illegal and plentiful. So despite any attempts for legality, the streets are already back in the Hobbesian jungle.
People, understandably, care more about being able to get back home alive at night than about unemployment, health, and most other major issues.
Exactly right, Jon. I'm looking for a praxeological theory of gun control.
Ruben, I'm pretty sure Stephen Forde wasn't responding to you.
Anyway, I haven't found anything yet, but here's how I think the theory would play out:
1 - Prohibition theory. Prohibiting guns cannot work, because of economic calculation and the black market. Trying to eliminate the supply has little effect on demand, as shown with drug and alcohol prohibition.Because criminals will get guns anyway, all gun control does is disarm law-abiding citizens.
2 - Incentives. Criminals will commit more crimes if they know victims are unarmed. Allowing people to defend themselves reduces crime. Also, it seems that people would be nicer and less aggressive when they suspect others are packing heat; in contrast, when people know others are disarmed, they can afford to be more aggressive and destructive.Moreover, governments can be more tyrannical with a disarmed population. An armed citizenry is a check against Leviathan.
3 - Absurdity. The goal of gun control is supposedly to reduce violence. But enforcing gun control requires initiatory violence on a massive scale!
Also note that Rothbard, in his Reply to Schuller, listed "The Theory of War - Hostile Action" as a category of praxeology, and commented that it was "largely unexplored".
I suppose gun control and defense against criminals would fall under this category (as opposed to Crusoe economics, catallactics, or game theory)? Defense against criminals is "hostile action", i.e. not voluntary, but then again, Rothbard did list interventionism and socialism under catallactics.
Shouldn't be too hard to get data from some of the cities that had their handgun bans shot down by the Supreme Court not too long ago.
May take a while for the official tallies to come out (with a lot of spin if in fact crime does go down) but a lot of places have a weekly 'crime blotter' that you could maybe make your own data from.
Probably also has a lot to do with 'criminal rights' and isn't a pure function of gun control. For example, here in Arizona we have what is called 'castle doctrine' which means I can shoot anyone who comes into my residence uninvited, period. It is also legal to shoot someone through your door if they are trying to break in but that's just asking for trouble IMHO.
Other states have conditions where if they aren't armed or are carrying a knife and you shoot them without feeling your life is in danger then you are guilty of excessive force, blah, blah, blah...if you shoot someone breaking into your home without first consulting your own lawyer then any half-ass ambulance chasing personal injury lawyer is going to pwn your ass.