Submitted via comment form (I asked permission to post it under their name, but never got a reply, so I'm posting it anonymously):
Phillip Van Cleave recently put out an alert on the Michigan study of the effects of gun shows. I have read the study. The results are much more favorable than the Detroit article suggests. The headline would have been better stated as below:
Free market gun shows decrease homicide rates, according to results of a study announced Wednesday by the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The study, which compares gun shows that are heavily regulated to prevent private sales of firearms without government permission in California, with gun shows in Texas, where private sellers are freely able to transfer firearms.
In heavily regulated California, no effect on homicides or suicides was found, except that about four suicides per year changed the method of suicide to firearms from something else.
In Texas, the study found that the availability of gun shows reduced homicide by 16 homicides per year, saving about 160 lives over the course of the 10 year study. There was no effect on the number of suicides. The authors of the study tried to minimize this statistically significant fact by speculating that perhaps “local police were more vigilant in the weeks immediately following a gun show” or that criminals “might use gun shows to sell their weapons”. The authors pointedly ignored the possibility that easier access to guns promotes self defense, thereby reducing homicides.
What is clear is that this study validates the effect shown in a previous study by John Lott in 2003, where requiring government permission for private gun sales increased the incidence of violent crime.
The analysis in the study is flawed because it focuses only on the potential harm that may be done with firearms and ignores any benefits that may accrue from firearm ownership. Despite this, the authors must be given credit for the intellectual honesty of reporting their findings, even though they discredit the premises of gun control advocates, especially those who wish to prevent private citizens from selling guns without obtaining government permission.
The authors do not mention the cost of the additional regulation in human lives, but extrapolating from the study, the intense regulation of California gun shows resulted in another 250 homicides in California during the period of the study.