Is There a Policy That Reduces Mass Public Shooting Deaths?

Dr. Carl Moody, the Crime Prevention Research Center’s research director, has published a new paper on stopping mass public shootings.

A copy of the paper is available here. Clicking on this link downloads a pdf.

.

Abstract

.

The fact that an individual is willing to commit the most serious crime that carries with it the most serious punishment means that that person is unlikely to be deterred by laws with less serious consequences. This situation is compounded by the fact that many multiple victim public shooters are expecting, even planning, to die in the commission of their crimes. Combining newly developed and traditional difference-in-differences methodologies, we analyze several policies that have been suggested as possibly effective in reducing deaths due to mass public shootings. We find that none of the proposed policies significantly reduce such deaths. However, we find evidence that mass public shooting deaths are lower in places that allow the carrying of concealed firearms.

Carl E. Moody, “Is There a Policy That Reduces Mass Public Shooting Deaths?” Economics, Law and Policy, July 2023.