Calculating effective gun policies
Dominik Wodarz, Natalia L. Komarova

TL;DR
This paper uses mathematical models to analyze how different gun policies impact firearm-related death rates, providing a scientific basis to inform the gun control debate.
Contribution
It introduces a quantitative model that predicts the effectiveness of gun bans versus allowing armed carry based on key parameters derived from statistical data.
Findings
Gun bans minimize deaths if enforced similarly to UK laws.
Partial firearm restrictions can reduce death rates when full bans are impractical.
Key parameters identified guide future policy and statistical analysis.
Abstract
Following recent shootings in the USA, a debate has erupted, one side favoring stricter gun control, the other promoting protection through more weapons. We provide a scientific foundation to inform this debate, based on mathematical, epidemiological models that quantify the dependence of firearm-related death rates of people on gun policies. We assume a shooter attacking a single individual or a crowd. Two strategies can minimize deaths in the model, depending on parameters: either a ban of private firearms possession, or a policy allowing the general population to carry guns. In particular, the outcome depends on the fraction of offenders that illegally possess a gun, on the degree of protection provided by gun ownership, and on the fraction of the population who take up their right to own a gun and carry it with them when attacked, parameters that can be estimated from statistical…
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.
Taxonomy
TopicsGun Ownership and Violence Research · Suicide and Self-Harm Studies · Crime Patterns and Interventions
