Please help — Making academic case for guns.

[Sietch]

I'm commencing a serious research project as part of my major and have chosen as my subject the effects of lawful ownership of firearms by residents of Chicago—which trend is expected to grow dramatically in the next several years—on the rates of various Part I crimes within the city. Need and appreciate any help guys. I'm looking for more sources. So far, I'm drawing heavily on John Lott and the UCRs.

Specifically, I anticipate that my research will reveal:
1. There is a significant correlation between higher rates of lawful firearms ownership and lower rates of Part I crimes relative to areas with lower ownership rates.
2. Increased ownership in Chicago is likely to reduce the incidence of some crimes, such as home invasions, as has been observed in comparable communities.
3. However, the rate of unjustifiable homicides committed with firearms is likely to be reduced only slightly, if at all, as the majority of firearm-affected murders in Chicago are known or suspected to be gang-related, and are committed with unlawfully obtained weapons.
4. Nevertheless, there exists no empirical data which suggests that an increase of lawful ownership is likely to precede an increase in unjustifiable homicides in the city.

Really appreciate any help!

[TTS]

Read More Guns, Less Crime by John Lott

Also, freakanomics has some good stats:
http://freakonomics.com/books/freakonomics/chapter-excerpts/chapter-5/

[mrp]

the rates of various Part I crimes

There's a difference between the actual crime rate and the reported crime rate.

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/newsroom/press ... 080912.pdf

Also pay attention to the difference between the crime rate (incidence per 100,000) and the total number of crimes. Chicago's population is down 200K in the last 10 years or so, so you can have an increase in the crime rate at the same time there's a decrease in the number of crimes. (It'll be a small effect, but possibly significant.)

[linksep]

Check out "A Workbook for Arguments" by Anthony Weston. It's really inexpensive (I think ebook versions go for under $10).

Create many different types of arguments (analogy, example, several types of deductive arguments...), avoid argument fallacies like straw-man and red herring...

That book is seriously amazing and will help you write an irrefutable paper.

[bensdad]

Economic factors, population density and racial makeup will all have better correlation with crime (of all kinds) than gun ownership. All three are taboo (as far as recognizing correlation to ANYTHING negative) in America today. Wanna be a pariah? demonstrate those bad boys.

[bstrawse]

I'm commencing a serious research project as part of my major and have chosen as my subject the effects of lawful ownership of firearms by residents of Chicago—which trend is expected to grow dramatically in the next several years—on the rates of various Part I crimes within the city. Need and appreciate any help guys. I'm looking for more sources. So far, I'm drawing heavily on John Lott and the UCRs.

Specifically, I anticipate that my research will reveal:
1. There is a significant correlation between higher rates of lawful firearms ownership and lower rates of Part I crimes relative to areas with lower ownership rates.
2. Increased ownership in Chicago is likely to reduce the incidence of some crimes, such as home invasions, as has been observed in comparable communities.
3. However, the rate of unjustifiable homicides committed with firearms is likely to be reduced only slightly, if at all, as the majority of firearm-affected murders in Chicago are known or suspected to be gang-related, and are committed with unlawfully obtained weapons.
4. Nevertheless, there exists no empirical data which suggests that an increase of lawful ownership is likely to precede an increase in unjustifiable homicides in the city.

Really appreciate any help!

In addition to the UCR data, look at the National Crime Victimization Studies, which show much higher crime rates since they are survey based versus the reporting based UCRs.

I'm curious your major and which school? My undergraduate degree is in criminal justice and I did my honors thesis on a similar topic... I also have a HS friend whose Master's Thesis was on the NRA's Project Exile in Richmond, VA and it's associated impact on gun violence... I also do a lot of research on this issue for a local MN organization :p

Let me know how I can help.
b

[Sietch]

Thanks guys! And, yes, I am meeting some resistance, but nothing epic. My prof is pretty straightforward, although defiantly ignorant on the topic like a lot academia.

The game if afoot

I'm curious your major and which school?

I'm pursuing a Criminal Justice degree at Metro State University.

[liferefugee]

I like the idea of your research, but what length of time do you have to allow the impacts of increased gun ownership to show on the reported crime rates? Also it sounds like you are going into the project with some predetermined results you want to see which can bias your study if your not careful. Perhaps comparing a similar environment to Chicago with data from 10 years ago to data from this year between the 2 (or more) locations would give more pertinent data results should your time frame not allow for a multiple year research project. I think your study has a lot of potential and I would love to see the results.

[ferric021]

These links are probably already known by you and don't appear altogether relevant or supportive of your thesis (particularly the ncjrs study which is about the assault weapon ban), but they have bibliographies (in back for the ncjrs study, in the footnotes for the harvard study) that may provide other useful published material if you're trying to find more diverse sources.
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204431.pdf
http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/org ... online.pdf