“The Economics Of Gun Control”: Quantifying The External Costs Of Gun Ownership
After the school massacre in Newtown, everyone has been putting out proposals for how to reduce gun violence. President Obama created an inter-agency task force. The NRA asked for armed guards in every school. And now economists are weighing in with their own, number-heavy approaches.
First, here’s a recent paper (pdf) by Duke’s Philip Cook and Georgetown’s Jens Ludwig trying to quantify the “external cost” of gun ownership. The two economists wanted to figure out precisely what sorts of costs gun owners impose on the rest of society.
That’s not an easy question to answer. For starters, there aren’t even airtight estimates of how many people actually own guns in the United States. So Cook and Ludwig created a data set that used the number of suicides by firearm in a county as a proxy for gun ownership — and checked it against a variety of existing survey data.
The next step was to figure out the “social cost” of owning a gun. The two economists determined that a greater prevalence of guns in an area was associated with an increase in the murder rate, but not other types of violent crimes (guns, the authors argue, lead to “an intensification of criminal violence”). Why does this happen? One possibility: The two economists found evidence that if there are more legal guns in an area, it’s more likely that those guns will be transferred to “illegal” owners.
When the two economists added up the costs of gun ownership—more injuries and more homicides—and weighed them against various benefits, they concluded that the average household acquiring a gun imposed a net cost on the rest of society of somewhere between $100 to $1,800 per year. (The range depends on the assumptions used—and note that they are not including the increased risk of suicide that comes with owning a gun.)
Now, normally when economists come across a product that has a negative externality—like cigarettes or coal-fired plants—they recommend taxing or regulating it, so that the user of the product internalizes the costs that he or she is imposing on everyone else. In this case, an economist might suggest slapping a steeper tax on guns or bullets.
Others might object that this isn’t fair. There are responsible gun owners and irresponsible gun owners. Not everyone with a gun imposes the same costs on society. Why should the tax be uniform? And that brings us to John Wasik’s recent essay at Forbes. Instead of a tax on guns, he recommends that gun owners be required to purchase liability insurance. Different gun owners would pay different rates, depending on the risks involved:
When you buy a car, your insurer underwrites the risk according to your age, driving/arrest/ticket record, type of car, amount of use and other factors. A teenage driver behind the wheel of a Porsche is going to pay a lot more than a 50-year-old house wife. A driver with DUI convictions may not get insurance at all. Like vehicles, you should be required to have a policy before you even applied for a gun permit. Every seller would have to follow this rule before making a transaction.
This is where social economics goes beyond theory. Those most at risk to commit a gun crime would be known to the actuaries doing the research for insurers. They would be underwritten according to age, mental health, place of residence, credit/bankruptcy record and marital status. Keep in mind that insurance companies have mountains of data and know how to use it to price policies, or in industry parlance, to reduce the risk/loss ratio.
Who pays the least for gun insurance would be least likely to commit a crime with it.An 80-year-old married woman in Fort Lauderdale would get a great rate. A 20-year-old in inner-city Chicago wouldn’t be able to afford it.
Gun insurance for gun owners does exist right now, but it isn’t required — as Wasik notes, only 22 cities even require gun dealers to carry liability insurance. And, yes, under this proposal, people would no doubt still acquire guns illegally and evade the insurance requirements.
Granted, this proposal isn’t likely to garner much political support — even the Illinois state legislature, which has often looked favorably on gun-control laws, swatted a gun-insurance bill down pretty quickly in 2009. It might not get past the Supreme Court. And over at the Daily Beast, Megan McArdle outlines a number of other possible problems with having states require individual gun insurance. Still, it’s another way of thinking about the costs of gun ownership.
By: Brad Plummer, The Washington Post Wonkblog, December 28, 2012
“A Crass Deadbeat Sperm Donor”: Rep. Joe Walsh’s “Ashleigh” Moments
When Rep. Joe Walsh looks back on his brief and inglorious career in Congress, he will have many moments to blame for his demise, but none more colorful than Thursday afternoon, when he managed to utter the word “Ashleigh” 91 times over the course of a 12-minute interview.
This bizarre verbal obsession had origins in the freshman tea party Republican’s town hall meeting in Illinois a few days earlier, when he unfavorably compared his opponent, who lost both legs in combat in Iraq, to John McCain, who Walsh claimed was reluctant to talk about his military service.
“He talked a little bit about it, but it was very uncomfortable for him. That’s what’s so noble about our heroes,” Walsh said. “Now I’m running against a woman who, I mean, my God, that’s all she talks about. Our true heroes, the men and women who served us, it’s the last thing in the world they talk about.”
So Lt. Col. Tammy Duckworth, who earned a Purple Heart in 2004 when the helicopter she was co-piloting was hit, is not “noble” or a “true” hero because she talks about her military service? It was similar to what Walsh told Politico a few months earlier: “I have so much respect for what she did in the fact that she sacrificed her body for this country. Ehhh. Now let’s move on.”
If this isn’t enough to persuade voters to “move on” from Walsh, the lawmaker continued his self-destruction by appearing on CNN and declining host Ashleigh Banfield’s invitation to cast his remarks as a “slip-up.” Instead, he scolded “Ashleigh,” using her first name repeatedly when he wasn’t calling the 44-year-old anchor “kiddo” or asking the recently naturalized citizen whether she served in the military.
“No, no, Ashleigh. No, Ashleigh, this wasn’t a slip-up. I don’t regret anything I said,” Walsh declared.
Banfield tried to read a list of things Duckworth has talked about other than her military service.
“No, she hasn’t, Ashleigh. No, Ashleigh, no, she hasn’t.”
“Do you want to hear it, Congressman? Do you want to hear it or do you just want to rail on me?”
“Hey, Ashleigh.”
“I’ve got the list here.”
“No, Ashleigh, Ashleigh.”
Banfield read part of the list.
“Ashleigh, Ashleigh, Ashleigh,” Walsh replied. “Hey, Ashleigh, Ashleigh, Ashleigh.”
All indications are that Walsh’s first term in the House may be his last, as challenger Duckworth, a failed candidate in 2006, is favored to win Illinois’s 8th District, redrawn to favor Democrats.
But Walsh’s antics should be of concern to Republicans far beyond the congressional district, both because they are the type of tea party histrionics that raise doubts about the GOP’s readiness to govern, and because they point to a potential Republican vulnerability among veterans, usually a reliable voting bloc.
Polls are conflicting, ranging from a Gallup survey in May showing Mitt Romney with a 24-point lead among vets to a Reuters poll the same month giving Obama a seven-point lead. (McCain won vets by 10 points in 2008.)
Regardless, Obama tends to do better among veterans under 60, and his campaign, seeing a potential inroad, is planning to make veterans’ issues central to the Democratic convention in Charlotte. Obama’s pitch to veterans is that he has sponsored various jobs programs for them and proposed steady increases while Romney backs the House Republican budget, which would cut domestic discretionary spending by 19 percent — likely costing vets tens of billions of dollars.
Walsh is a ripe target for reasons well beyond his crass putdown of Duckworth. During his term, he failed to show up to a court hearing on his ex-wife’s claim that he owed $117,000 in child support (there were earlier tax liens and a foreclosure). His driver’s license was suspended last year for the second time in three years. He called Obama a “tyrant” and accused the president of “lying.” He even squared off with the other Joe Walsh, of the Eagles, over unauthorized use of the song “Walk Away.”
And now there’s Ashleigh, Ashleigh, Ashleigh.
Walsh acknowledged to Banfield that all veterans are heroes, but he defended his claim that Duckworth isn’t a true hero because she spoke about her service. He made this argument primarily by repeating the host’s first name 91 times by my count.
After many such Ashleighs — “Hey, Ashleigh, well, Ashleigh, look Ashleigh” — the interviewer responded in kind with “Yes, Congressman, Congressman. Yes, Congressman.”
“Whew,” Banfield said after the final “Ashleigh.” “I need to take a big breath.”
So should Illinois voters — and send a true hero to Washington in Walsh’s place.
By: Dana Milbank, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, July 6, 2012
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