More Readers of Gun Magazines, But Not More Crimes

Abstract

The paper describes an analysis of the relationship between changes in the number of guns and changes in the number of crimes. Both variables are non-negative integers with large mass points at zero, and both variables are likely to affect each other. We account for these characteristics by analyzing our data with a multivariate Poisson-lognormal model that we estimate with the Gibbs sampler. Because county-level data on gun ownership are not available, we use data on subscriptions to the gun magazine Handguns Magazine as a proxy. We do not find any evidence of a pattern that would suggest that either more gun magazine sales lead to more crimes or that more crimes lead to more gun magazine sales.

Keywords: Gun Control, Markov chain Monte Carlo, Gibbs sampler