Editorial Board
‘More Guns, Less Crime’? Stanford RTC Study Suggests Otherwise
There’s mounting evidence violence rises after states adopt right-to-carry laws.
More guns, more crime.
Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg
The evidence is compelling.
In the most thorough study yet published on the effects of concealed carry laws, a team led by Stanford University law professor John Donohue found that state laws making it easy to carry concealed firearms lead to more violent crime. The Stanford analysis follows a stream of previous studies reaching similar conclusions about so-called right-to-carry (RTC) laws. It’s the most definitive refutation of the “more guns, less crime” thesis promoted by the gun lobby — which, not surprisingly, remains hostile to peer-reviewed research on the causes of gun violence.