The Iron Yuppie

The Volokh Conspiracy

VERY interesting stuff. Linked to here is John Lott's (noted gun rights activist) response to the study. The quote that seems to be getting the most play in all the blogs is:

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

Interesting data! The exception, not mentioned here, was right-to-carry laws, which apparently does reduce crime. If I was running the next study, I'd like to see if the lack of effect is because gun control laws are not written correctly, or if this is accurate data across all types of laws (not just those that passed their legislative bodies). Did the study compare countries with no guns? What about those with more severe laws, but still allowed guns? Nonetheless, a very solid case has been made, the current gun control laws provide no benefit... and I am a big fan of "if something provides no benefit, it must be removed from the law".