More guns, less crime? Changes in the legislation on gun control in the United States through the prism of empirical legal studies

Abstract

The article examines the construction of a legitimate law through the prism of the effectiveness problem. The empirical-legal studies are considered to be one of the most important ways to assess the effectiveness of laws. The main part of the article is devoted to the question, «How do empirical legal studies in the United States evaluate the effectiveness of local legislation for licenses to carry firearms through its impact on the level of violent crimes?» The author makes a review of the gun control studies research area. Particularly, the article provides the short overview of the main results of John Lott's study, called «More guns, less crime». Lott and other authors have concluded that an increase in the availability of firearms for the population is the most effective way to fight against crime. Additionally, the reduction of crime in the United States in the 1990s, for instance, is explained by the «liberalization» of legislation on issuing licenses to bear arms. An alternative approach to the problem is also given in the review: according to it, the «liberalization» of gun rules did not lead to the reduction in the number of violent crimes, but to the increase of it. The author believes that the debates within the gun control studies can be explained by the desire of various political forces to use the results of empirical legal studies as an argument in the ideological disputes over the rules, which facilitate firearms carrying. According to the author, Lott's study, in spite of its engagement, has played an important role in making the idea, that simplified issuing of weapons rules is an effective way to fight with crime, popular among the American politicians. In other words, while the effectiveness of new issuing of firearm licenses rules in the United States was being proved, these rules were being justified as «legitimate».