Guns, Crime, and Recession
27 October 2008
No Comment
“Gun Sales Thriving in Uncertain Times” read a Washington Post headline today. Earlier this month a New York Times headline provided a subtext: “Keeping Wary Eye on Crime as Economy Sinks”. And so it was no surprise that the Post and pretty much all those who picked up the story and ran with it today noted that “experts” suggested one reason for “booming” guns sales (Brian Williams) was the crappy economy and fear of crime.
To it’s credit the Post was quick to point out some hard facts:
Gary Kleck, a researcher at Florida State University’s College of Criminology and Criminal Justice whose work was cited in the District’s recent Supreme Court gun-control case, said that although there are no scientific studies linking gun sales and economic conditions, people often buy firearms during periods of uncertainty.
In other words when times get tough people think crime will rise even though there is no evidence that it will. The problem is that assertion doesn’t make sense to people who read article after article quoting police officials blaming rising crime on a bad economy. Trust me. Google “crime economy link” and see how many stories from lazy TV stations and newspapers show up stating the link as fact.
For those of you who are politically conservative and just don’t buy this check out this 2000 article from the Heritage Foundation. The key quote?
But there’s little evidence to suggest that good economic times have much effect on crime. Crime rates rose every year between 1955 and 1972, even as the U.S. economy surged, with only a brief, mild recession in the early 1960s. By the time criminals took a breather in the early 1970s, crime rates had increased over 140 percent. Murder rates had risen about 70 percent, rapes more than doubled, and auto theft nearly tripled. By the same token, a bad economy doesn’t always bring more crime. Crime rates fell about one third between 1934 and 1938 while the nation was struggling to emerge from the Great Depression and weathering another severe economic downturn in 1937 and 1938. Surely, if the economic theory held, crime should have been soaring.
Of course that report was written near the end of the Clinton years during which the economy grew and crime fell. Many liberal researchers were writing about how a good economy = less crime. They then posited that the conservative answers to crime — tougher laws, more cops, more prisons — were beside the point.
