Balancing Gun Ownership and Public Safety

Participants Casey — argues for gun ownership. Riley — argues against gun ownership.

Casey: When we talk about gun ownership, we need to start with deterrence and self-defense.

The idea is simple: if potential offenders believe victims may be armed, some crimes never

happen. That’s exactly what several state-level studies suggested after right-to-carry

laws expanded—violent crime fell in those jurisdictions. Even when researchers disagree about magnitudes,

the core result is compatible with basic economics: raise the expected cost of attack,

reduce the attack rate. Riley: Deterrence is plausible in theory,

but the better the methods get, the weaker those “crime-reduction” findings look.