Gun Ownership May Increase Odds of Being Burglarized: New Study Finds "Gun-rich" Communities More Attractive to Burglars

1/27/2003

From: Steve Bowers of the Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, 202-797-6414 or sbowers@brookings.edu or Mark Karlin of Mark Karlin and Associates, 312-474-1740 or mark@markkarlin.com

WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 -- Contrary to the belief that owning a gun deters would-be burglars, a new study finds that residences in neighborhoods with higher rates of gun ownership may stand a greater risk of being burglarized.

The study, "Do Guns Deter Burglars," was conducted by Philip J. Cook, Ph.D., ITT/Sanford professor of public policy at Duke University, and Jens Ludwig, Ph.D., associate professor of public policy at Georgetown University. It is included as a chapter in Evaluating Gun Policy, a collection of studies examining the consequences and public policy implications of gun possession and gun commerce in the United States. Edited by Dr. Cook and Dr. Ludwig, the book will be published by the Brookings Institution Press in January 2003.

"Keeping a gun at home is unlikely to provide a net benefit to the rest of the community in the form of burglary deterrence," Dr. Cook concluded, based on the findings of the study. "If anything, residences in a neighborhood with high gun prevalence may be at greater risk of being burglarized. Ironically, guns are often kept to protect the home, but the aggregate effect of keeping guns at home may be to increase the victimization rate."

According to the study, a 10 percent increase in a county's gun ownership rate is associated with a three percent to seven percent increase in the likelihood that a home will be burglarized.

Testing the possibility of reverse causation, the authors found that gun prevalence drives burglary; but burglary does not drive gun prevalence. One possible reason why the risk of burglary increases with gun ownership rates is that guns are valuable loot: they are easily concealable and readily sold or fenced. Providing some support for this theory is the fact that in 14 percent of the burglaries in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data in which a gun was stolen, it was the only item stolen.

The authors' analysis is based on a new geo-coded version of the NCVS for the years 1994 through 1998, which provides the only nationally representative data about "hot" burglaries in the United States. "Hot" burglaries are those burglaries in which residents are at home at the time of the break-in. The authors conducted additional analyses using annual county and state crime data from the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR).

Supported in part by a grant from the Joyce Foundation, the study challenges a common perception that gun ownership deters "hot" burglaries, a claim based primarily on international comparisons. But, as the authors point out, the fact that residential burglaries in Britain are more likely to be "hot" does not prove anything about the deterrent value of higher gun ownership in the United States. The two countries differ in a variety of other ways as well. For example, the legal penalties for burglary are much harsher in the United States.

"Do Guns Deter Burglars?" provides the first systematic evidence on the effects of guns on hot burglaries by comparing burglary patterns across states and counties within the United States and adjusting for other relevant factors. The result? Burglaries are no more likely to be "hot" in areas with few guns than in those where they are common.

The research was conducted while the authors were Census Bureau research associates at the Triangle Census Research Data Center in Durham, North Carolina.