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Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement

John R. Lott Jr.
University of Maryland Foundation, University of Maryland

William M. Landes
University of Chicago Law School; National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)


April 1999

University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 73

Abstract:     
Few events obtain the same instant worldwide news coverage as multiple victim public shootings. These crimes allow us to study the alternative methods used to kill a large number of people (e.g., shootings versus bombings), marginal deterrence and the severity of the crime, substitutability of penalties, private versus public methods of deterrence and incapacitation, and whether attacks produce copycats. Yet, economists have not studied this phenomenon. Our results are surprising and dramatic. While arrest or conviction rates and the death penalty reduce normal murder rates, our results find that the only policy factor to influence multiple victim public shootings is the passage of concealed handgun laws. We explain why public shootings are more sensitive than other violent crimes to concealed handguns, why the laws reduce both the number of shootings as well as their severity, and why other penalties like executions have differential deterrent effects depending upon the type of murder.

Working Paper Series

Date posted: April 21, 1999 ; Last revised: June 07, 1999

Suggested Citation

Lott, John R. and Landes, William M., Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement (April 1999). University of Chicago Law School, John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 73. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=161637 or doi:10.2139/ssrn.161637


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Contact Information

John R. Lott Jr. (Contact Author)
University of Maryland Foundation, University of Maryland ( email )
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20742
United States
William M. Landes
University of Chicago Law School ( email )
1111 E. 60th St.
Chicago, IL 60637
United States
773-702-9606 (Phone)
773-702-0356 (Fax)
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
1050 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02138
United States
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