1
Does Gun Control Reduce Violent Crime?
A Comparison of New York City and Chicago
The University of Akron
Bricey Kepnes (blk43), Hayley Roppel (hrr10), Ryan Bayonnet (rmb79), Brandon Hennen (beh14), & Diego Hernandez (dsh23)
Abstract: In our comparison of New York City and Chicago, we hoped to find a correlation between violence crime rates and gun control laws. Initially, our group assumed that less guns would result in less crime. Throughout our research we then found many studies that said allowing guns would actually reduce crime. Once the data was obtained and the SAS program was utilized, we found that there was no correlation between New York City and Chicago with the exception of the two laws.
Introduction: As a group we are curious as to see if there is a relationship between gun control and violence. We were very interested in the laws and regulations on gun control and the effect they have on the population. Gun control is a highly debated subject upon legislators, public officials, and the media.
Hypothesis:
We hypothesize that states with strict gun policies would be subject to less violent crimes. In particular, we will analyze two big cities in the U.S.: New York City, NY and Chicago, IL, whose laws for gun control are vastly different.
Economic Model:
In our economic analysis we will establish four variables:
• Current state law on gun control/ ownership (Variable: law)
• Gun related deaths in each big city (Variable: gundeath)
• Number of violent crimes per city reported by the FBI (Variable: violent)
• Population of city (Variable: pop)
• Gun Homocides (Variable: gunhom)
• In SAS (Chicago counties [2] and New York boroughs [5] for t-tests)
Theoretical Overview: We hope to compare the current state law and gun related deaths in each city and find that gun related deaths are lower in Chicago; a state that does not allow concealed carrying of guns. Next we plan to compare the percentage of violent crimes per city and the population to find which city is more dangerous in general.
State Gun Control Laws:
New York City, NY (Variable: law)
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms cannot be infringed.”
Article 2, Section 4 of the New York Civil Rights Law
New york is considered a “may-issue” state[i]. In New York City it is required that those who wish to bear arms must have a permit to purchase, register, or carry a firearm (New York 2011).
Chicago, IL (Variable: law)
“Subject only to the police power, the right of the individual citizen to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
Section 22, Article I of the Illinois Bill of Rights.4
Illinois is considered a “no-issue” state[ii]. In Chicago it is required that those who wish to own a firearm may do so given that: they have a permit to purchase (FOID required), register, or carry a rifle or shotgun. In no instances can a citizen carry a concealed handgun (Illinois 2012).
Table 1
City / Total Firearm Deaths (2006-2007)(Variable: gundeath) / Rate per 100,000 Citizens (Adjusted to 2000 population amount)
New York City, New York (five boroughs) / 684 / 4.0
City of Chicago, Illinois / 700 / 11.6
Violence-Related Firearm Deaths Among Residents of Metropolitan Areas and Cities (Accessed on November 13, 2012)
In Table 1, we were able to see that New York City and the City of Chicago have the same amount of firearm deaths in the years of 2006-2007. However, when adjusted to the population in 2000 (the last available census data at the time this paper was written) it is easy to see that Chicago’s death rate from firearms is about 3 times higher than New York City’s (Kegler et. al 2011).
Table 2
Offenses Known to Law Enforcement by City, 2011City / Population / Violent
crime
(Variable: violent) / Murder and
nonnegligent
manslaughter / Robbery / Aggravated
assault
New York / 8,211,875 / 50,117 / 515 / 19,773 / 29,829
Chicago / 2,703,713 / 26,814 / 431 / 13,975 / 12,408
Offenses Known to Law Enforcement: Illinois & New York
(Accessed on November 13, 2012)
When searching for data, we went to the FBI to find a data set called “Offenses Known to Law Enforcement”. Which detailed both violent crime and property crime (Table 2). We chose both sets from NYC and Chicago and when comparing them side by side saw that New York had double the crime than Chicago. However, Chicago is a third of the size of New York. Also, Chicago did not report the forcible rape amount for their city so we had to expunge that from the data set and stick to three crimes instead of four (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2011).
Literature Review
In this portion of the essay, we are attempting to review the critical points of current knowledge and substantial findings in the research field of gun laws compared to crime rates. This has been a much discussed topic in the past with a very split audience. A study by Harvard University, in support with the American Civil Rights Union produced an article stating, “Gun Control is Counterproductive”. In this article they took a look at both domestic and European gun laws in comparison with murder rates in these respective countries. In this article they were able to determine that nations with the most stringent anti-gun laws generally have higher murder rates than those countries that do no have stringent gun control laws. In this study they focused on nine European nations with the lowest gun ownership and concluded that the murder rate was three times higher than the nine nations with the highest rates of gun ownership. Therefore concluding that a higher rate of gun control (less strict laws) will result in lower crime rates.
Many people disagree with this argument. The obvious argument against this claim is that gun control does reduce crime, most reports state that more hand guns in circulation equal more violent crime. Typical arguments state that owning a handgun increases your risk of being killed and that keeping guns out of the hands of criminals can prevent violent crime. This argument is supported by “The Chicago Journal of Legal Studies” found in JSTOR. In the years after cities adopted the right to-carry laws, homicide rates increased by close to 3% in the five years before and after. There was surprising data when the homicide rates increased by 4.65 times from the year directly before and after the law change.
Using these two arguments sets us up to use the data we found to determine if gun control is really beneficial or detrimental to society. In our experiment we will look at two domestic, large cities. These being Chicago, which has very stringent, gun laws, and New York City, whose gun control laws are more relaxed. For these two cities we used violence rates found on the FBI website and compared these violence rates to the total population of each city found through the U.S. Census Bureau. Using the data from these two sources we are hoping to find the per capita violence rate in both the city with stringent gun laws (Chicago) and the city with lenient gun laws (New York City) and determine which firearm policy is more viable.
Table 3
Year / Population (Variable: pop) / Violent crimes / VCR per100,000 / City / Counties / Gun homicides: (Variable:gunhom) / Gun Law
2007-2009 / 5,285,107 / 126,928 / 723 / Chicago / Cook, Dupage / 1420 / May own but NO CCW at all
2007-2009 / 8,202,103 / 137,147 / 1672 / New York / Bronx, Manhattan, Queens, Staten Isle, Brooklyn / 929 / Strictest state
County Health Rankings and Roadmaps by County
(Accessed on November 14, 2012)
In Table 3, we describe both of our population and gun homicide variables. Here, we have the counties that will be utilized and represented through SAS. Both cities have been broken down into the counties/boroughs that exist within each large city in order to obtain more accurate data. The above statistics have been used to compile statistics from SAS which are represented in tables 4 and 5 below.
Table 4
Location / Counties / Boroughs / Mean / Standard Deviation / Standard Error / Minimum / MaximumChicago (0) / DuPage - Cook (2) / 636.8 / 421.7 / 298.2 / 338.6 / 934.9
New York (1) / Brooklyn – Queens – Bronx – Manhattan – Staten Island (5) / 562.3 / 562.3 / 99.0135 / 288.2 / 871.4
Difference Between Locations (0-1) / 74.46 / 273.4 / 228.8
Table Generated in SA
Table 5
Method / Variances / Degress of Freedom / t-Value / Pr>ItlPooled / Equal / 5 / 0.33 / 0.7580
Table Generated in SAS
Looking back at our data represented in SAS we were able to view our data in its final light. With the mean from our violent crime statistic in Chicago being almost 11% higher than the mean in New York, it seemed like there would be significant data confirming that our claim in our theoretical overview would be significant. That was not the case. We found that with the data we had collected there was insignificant evidence.
There was no correlation found for the two cities with different gun control laws. Each city had similar yet quite different control on guns, and was located in Midwest metropolitan areas. This was concluded in the P-value that SAS generated. (0.7580>.05), showing we had not found significant evidence.
Conclusion: With the data we had recently collected we were surprised to find that the laws really had no impact on each of the cities. Because of this, we realize that this is a much more complex topic than we had originally anticipated it to be. We now know that if we were to repeat this paper that we should maybe compare other variables, or compare states rather than cities for a larger amount of data.
Bibliography
Black, Dan, and Daniel Nagin. "Do Right‐to‐Carry Laws Deter Violent Crime?." The University
of Chicago Law School. Chicago Journals, n.d. Web. 14 Nov 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/10.1086/468019.pdf?acceptTC=true>.
"2012 Cook, Illinois Violent Crime Rate." County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. University
of Wisconsin. Web. 14 Nov 2012. <http://www.countyhealthrankings.org/illinois/cook/43>.
"Harvard Study: Gun Control Is Counterproductive." American Civil Rights Union. N.p., n.d.
Web. 14 Nov 2012. <http://theacru.org/acru/harvard_study_gun_control_is_counterproductive/>.
"Illinois." National Rifle Association of America.: Institute for Legislative Action. National Rifle
Association of America, 10 2012. Web. 12 Nov 2012. <http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-laws/illinois.aspx;.
Kegler, Scott, Joseph Annest, Marcie-jo Kresnow, and James Mercy. United States. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. Violence-Related Firearm Deaths Among Residents of Metropolitan Areas and Cities. 2011. Web. http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6018a1.htm>.
"New York." National Rifle Association of America.: Institute for Legislative Action. National
Rifle Association of America, 5 2011. Web. 12 Nov 2012. <http://www.nraila.org/gun-laws/state-laws/new-york.asp&xgt;.
United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Offenses Known to Law Enforcement: Illinois.
2011. Web. <http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.2011/tables/table8statecuts/table_8_offenses_known_to_law_enforcement_illinois_by_city_2011.xls>.
United States. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Offenses Known to Law Enforcement: New York.
2011. Web. <http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-
u.s.2011/tables/table8statecuts/table_8_offenses_known_to_law_enforcement_new_york_by_city_2011.xls>.
"Violent Crime rate in New York." County Health Rankings and Roadmaps. University of
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Endnotes
[i] Carrying a concealed weapon is prohibited entirely. A Firearms Owner’s Identification Card (FOID) is required for purchase (National Rifle Association of America: Institute for Legislative Action 2012).
[ii] A license is needed to possess a handgun. Application is made to the licensing officer of the city or county where the applicant resides, is principally employed, or where his principal place of business as a merchant or storekeeper is located. An alien may obtain a pistol license if he or she meets these requirements. The determination whether to grant the license is completely within the discretion of the licensing officer. However, the licensing officer must state specifically and concisely in writing the reasons for a denial. A denial can only be overturned in court if the denial is shown to be arbitrary and capricious (National Rifle Association of America: Institute for Legislative Action 2011).