If we’re going to solve violent crime–not just “gun crime” but all violent crime–we need to try and understand where it comes from and why it happens. The gun rights trope of guns not causing crime is absolutely true, and any objective understanding of the issue should reveal that.
It doesn’t make people dismiss gun control, necessarily, but it does at least make it clear that violent crime isn’t the result of guns simply existing.
Over at The Atlantic, they apparently decided it was time to wonder why so-called gun violence happens more in some places than others, which is probably a good thing. In particular, they look at Chicago, and it’s worth remembering that most of Chicago doesn’t have a violence issue. It’s just that the neighborhoods where there is a problem have a massive one, yet the city is covered by the exact same gun control laws. There are no restrictions that apply to one neighborhood and not another.
So someone trying to look at it is a good thing. Unfortunately, this is still The Atlantic, so you kind of know at least some of what’s coming.
My name’s Jerusalem Demsas. I’m a staff writer at the Atlantic, and this is Good on Paper, a policy show that questions what we really know about popular narratives. My guest today is the economist Jens Ludwig, from the University of Chicago, who has spent his career studying the economics of crime. He has a book coming out in a few months called Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of Gun Violence.
Jens and I talk about the classic explanations for why gun violence happens in some places and not others. He pushes back against the classic right-wing explanation that the problem is bad people and the classic left-wing argument that solving the problem of gun violence requires ending mass social inequalities first.
Well, that’s a horrible oversimplification of what most on the right argue. It’s not wrong, necessarily, and I sincerely doubt we’re going to see anything that really disputes this anytime soon. What’s interesting, though, is how Demsas ignores the fact that the left-wing argument is generally just enacting gun control, not anything about social inequalities. […]
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