Guns Help Deter Crime, Study Says

Laws in 31 states allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons have deterred thousands of murders, rapes and aggravated assaults, two researchers reported. If all states adopted the so-called “right-to-carry” laws, the study said, more than 1,500 murders, 4,000 rapes and 60,000 aggravated assaults “would have been avoided yearly.” The study by economists at the University of Chicago was released at a policy forum sponsored by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. The study analyzed FBI crime statistics in the nation’s 3,054 counties from 1977 to 1992.