When to Rob a Bank: ...And 131 More Warped Suggestions and Well-Intended Rants (22 page)

The problem here is that crime rates are volatile and it really matters what control group you pick. I would argue that the most sensible control groups are other large, crime-ridden cities like Baltimore or St. Louis. When you use those cities as controls, the gun ban doesn’t seem to work.

What about indirect evidence? In Chicago we have a gun ban and 80 percent of homicides are done with guns. The best I could find about the share of homicides done with guns in D.C. is from a blog post which
claims
80 percent in D.C. as well. Nationwide that number
is 67.9 percent
, according to the FBI.

Based on those numbers, it is hard for someone to argue with a straight face that the gun ban is doing its job. (And it is not that D.C. and Chicago have unusually low overall homicide rates either.)

It seems to me that these citywide gun bans are as ineffective as many other gun policies are for reducing gun crime. It is extremely difficult to legislate or regulate guns when there is an active black market and a huge stock of existing guns. When the people who value guns the most are the ones who use them in the drug trade, there is next to nothing you can do to keep the guns out of their hands.

My view is that we should not be making policies about gun ownership, because they simply don’t work. What seems to work is harshly punishing people who use guns illegally.

For instance, if you commit a felony with a gun, you get a mandatory five-year add-on to your prison sentence. Where this has been done there is some evidence that gun violence has declined (albeit with some substitution toward crimes being done with other weapons).

These sorts of laws are attractive for many reasons. First, unlike other gun policies, they work. Second, they don’t impose a cost on law-abiding folks who want to have guns.

Are there more guns in the U.S. or more opinions about guns?

Hard to say. We have
written widely about guns
over the years. Here we present a quorum with a narrow focus: What are some good ideas to cut gun deaths? Let’s put aside momentarily the standard discussion about the right to bear arms and deal instead with the reality on the ground: there are a lot of gun deaths in this country; how can they be lessened?

We asked a few people who think about this issue a simple question: What’s your best idea to cut gun homicides in the U.S.? You may not personally like these answers, but it strikes me that most of them are more sensible than what you typically hear in the gun debate these days.

Jens Ludwig
is the McCormick Foundation professor of social service administration, law, and public policy at the University of Chicago’s Harris School.

We should give out rewards—I mean big, serious rewards—for tips that help police confiscate illegal guns.

More people die from gun suicides than homicides in the U.S., but gun crime accounts for most of the $100 billion in social costs that
Phil Cook
and I estimate gun violence imposes each year. Most murders are committed with guns (around 75 percent in 2005 in Chicago). We also know that young people—particularly young males—are vastly overrepresented among offenders; most murders happen outdoors; and a large share of all homicides stem from arguments or something related to gangs. A big part of America’s problem with gun violence stems from young guys walking or driving around with guns and then doing stupid things with them.

Young guys carry guns in part because this helps them get some street cred. For a project that Phil Cook, Anthony Braga, and I conducted with the sociologist Sudhir Venkatesh (published in
Economic Journal
), Venkatesh asked people on the South Side of Chicago why they carry guns. As one gang member said, in the absence of having a gun:

“Who [is] going to fear me? Who [is] going to take me seriously? Nobody. I’m a pussy unless I got my gun.”

Guns are something that a lot of guys seem to have mostly to take to football and basketball games or parties and to show off to their friends or girlfriends. At the same time, the costs of carrying guns might be low. A
previous Freakonomics post
by Venkatesh notes that cops are less likely to be lenient for other offenses if someone is caught with a gun. But the chances of being arrested with a gun are probably modest, since the probability that even a serious violent crime or property crime results in arrest is surprisingly low.

Giving out serious money for anonymous tips about illegal guns would increase the costs of carrying a gun and reduce the benefits; flashing a gun at a party might still score points, but it would now massively increase your legal risk.

These rewards might help undercut trust among gang members and could be particularly helpful in keeping guns out of schools. A bunch of logistical issues would need to be worked out, including how large the rewards would be (I think $1,000 or more wouldn’t be crazy) and how police should respond to tips and confiscate guns while respecting civil liberties.

But this idea does have the big advantage of getting
us out of the stale public debate about gun control, and it gives us a way to make progress on this major social problem right away.

Jesus “Manny” Castro Jr. became an active gang member at the age of twelve. After a brief incarceration, he joined Cornerstone Church of San Diego and now runs the GAME (Gang Awareness Through Mentoring and Education) program at the Turning the Hearts Center in Chula Vista, California.

Growing up in gangs and living the gang lifestyle, I have firsthand knowledge after seeing so many people die from gangs and guns! One great idea that can help to cut gun deaths in the U.S. is having the perpetrator’s family be financially responsible for all emotional, mental, and physical damages that result from the victim’s family’s loss.

This should include (but not be limited to) garnishing their wages for their entire lives and having them pay all funeral arrangements and all outstanding debts. If the perpetrator is under eighteen, then not only will he have to do time in prison but his parents should also be required to serve at least half of the time on behalf of his crime. Everything starts and stops in the home!

The greatest way to make this happen is to make it law and set up organizations that educate parents on
how to stop gun violence and clearly teach [their children] the consequences that result from gun violence. At Turning the Hearts Center, through our GAME program, we found that the young people we are working with care about their parents and what they think.

I get parents’ input on what goes on at home so that I can implement and address their issues into our GAME curriculum. Kids have respect for their parents—and if parents knew that they would/could do time for their children’s behavior, perhaps they would stay more involved in their lives.

If the people in communities around the U.S. can model what we do at Turning the Hearts Center, we can make a difference in the world. Hard-core issues like gun deaths need hard-core consequences.

David Hemenway
is a professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the Harvard School of Public Health, and author of
Private Guns, Public Health.

Create the National Firearm Safety Administration.

A milestone in the history of motor vehicle safety in the United States, and the world, was the establishment (forty years ago) of what is now the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The NHTSA created a series of data systems on motor vehicle crashes and deaths and provided funding for
data analysis. This enabled us to know which policies work to reduce traffic injuries and which don’t.

The NHTSA mandated many safety standards for cars, including those leading to collapsible steering columns, seat belts, and airbags. It became an advocate for improving roads—helping to change the highway design philosophy from the “nut behind the wheel” to the “forgiving roadside.” Improvements in motor vehicle safety were cited by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a twentieth-century success story.

A similar national agency is needed to help reduce the public health problems due to firearms. Firearms deaths are currently the second leading cause of injury deaths in the United States; more than 270 U.S. civilians were shot per day in 2005, and 84 of those died. In response, Congress should create a national agency (as it did for motor vehicles) with a mission to reduce the harm caused by firearms.

The agency should create and maintain comprehensive and detailed national data systems for firearms injuries and deaths and provide funding for research. (Currently the National Violent Death Reporting System provides funding for only seventeen state data systems and no money for research.)

The agency should require safety and crime-fighting characteristics on all firearms manufactured and sold in the U.S. It should ban from regular civilian use products which are not needed for hunting or protection
and which only endanger the public. It should have the power to ensure that there are background checks for all firearm transfers to help prevent guns from being sold to criminals and terrorists.

The agency needs the resources and the power (including standard setting, recall, and research capability) for making reasonable decisions about firearms. The power to determine the side-impact performance standards for automobiles resides with a regulatory agency, as does the power to decide whether to ban three-wheeled all-terrain vehicles (while allowing the safer four-wheeled vehicles).

Similarly, each specific rule regulating the manufacture and sale of firearms should go through a more scientific administrative process rather than the more political legislative process. It’s time to take some of the politics out of firearm safety.

I arrived at the West Palm Beach Airport yesterday, trying to make my way back to Chicago, only to see my flight time listed on the departure board as simply
DELAYED
. They weren’t even pretending it was leaving in the foreseeable future.

With a little detective work, I found another flight that
could get me home on a different airline. I bought a one-way ticket and headed for airport security.

Of course, the last-minute purchase of a one-way ticket sets off the lights and buzzers for the TSA. So I’m pulled out of the line and searched. First the full-body search. Then the luggage.

It didn’t occur to me that my latest research was going to get me into trouble. I’ve been thinking a lot about terrorism lately. Among the things I had in my carry-on was a detailed description of the 9/11 terrorists’ activities, replete with pictures of each of the terrorists and information about their background. Also, pages of my scribblings on terrorist incentives, potential targets, etc. It also was the first thing the screener pulled out of my bag. The previously cheery mood turned dark. Four TSA employees suddenly surrounded me. They didn’t seem very impressed with my explanation. When the boss arrived, one of the screeners said, “He claims to be an economics professor who studies terrorism.”

They proceed to take every last item out of both my bags. It has been a very long time since I cleaned out my book bag. This is a bag with twelve separate pockets, all of which are filled with junk.

“What is this?” the screener asks.

“It’s a
Monsters, Inc.
lip gloss and key chain,” I respond.

And so it went for thirty minutes. Other than the lip gloss, he was particularly interested in my passport (luckily it was really mine), my PowerPoint presentation, the random
pills floating among the crevices of my bag (covered with lint and pencil lead from years in purgatory), and a beat-up book (
When Bad Things Happen to Good People
).

Finally satisfied that I was playing for the home team, he allowed me to board a plane to Chicago. Thank God I left at home my copy of the terrorist handbook that I recently blogged about, or I would have instead been flying straight to Cuba.

A few months back, Levitt and I were asked help put together a TV cop show based on the concepts of
Freakonomics
. The gist: a big-city police force, in crisis, hires a rogue academic to help get crime under control.

It struck us as a totally crazy but also strangely appealing idea. The concept had been hatched by Brian Taylor, a young exec at Kelsey Grammer’s production company,
Grammnet
, which then partnered with
Lionsgate
; and the acclaimed writer
Kevin Fox
was brought on board. The show would be called
Pariah
.

A couple weeks ago, Levitt and I went to Los Angeles to help these guys pitch the show to the TV networks. Since we know nothing about TV, we tried to not talk too much and let Kevin, Brian, and Kelsey do their thing. And they did!
Here’s the news, from Deadline.com
:

NBC has bought
Pariah
. . . [T]he police procedural features characters inspired by the economic theory “Freakonomics” made popular by authors/economists Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner. In
Pariah,
the Mayor of San Diego appoints a rogue academic with no law enforcement background to run a task force using Freakonomics-inspired alternative methods of policing.

Who knows how far this will go, but the ride has been fun so far. It was particularly enlightening to talk to Grammer about acting (he’s currently starring in the high-end drama
Boss,
playing a Daley-ish mayor of Chicago). At one point, I asked him what it is about certain people that make their faces so appealing on the screen while other people, who might be better-looking or more attractive in some other way, just don’t have that appeal.

He answered immediately: “Head size. Most successful actors have really big heads.”

Physiologically, he meant. At least I think so.

Update: the collapse of this deal was fast even by Hollywood standards. After just a few conference calls, NBC informed the producers that they were changing direction, or that they had changed their minds, or they were changing their oil, or something. We are still waiting for our moment in the sun.