Sharing the Monopoly on Violence? Shall-Issue Concealed Handgun License Laws and Responsibilization

Publication Date

7-27-2019

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Sociology and Criminology

Keywords

Crime, Law, Deviance, Firearms, Shall-issue, Collective security

Abstract

Although research has examined if concealed handgun licensing laws may affect crime rates by enabling gun carry in public, the determinants of these policies have received less attention. Drawing on the thesis of the new criminologies of everyday life and the more recent conceptualization of sovereign subjects, this study posits that the expansion of shall-issue concealed handgun laws in the United States is a product of low-collective security in states. Understanding that shall-issue laws reflect state efforts to responsibilize firearm carrying, shall-issue laws are more likely to become state policy when a state has lower rates of police officers and lower per capita spending on police and corrections. Results from discrete-time, event history analyses indicate that shall-issue laws are, indeed, related to reduced capacities to provide collective security, independent of competing political and social correlates. This understanding of why states adopt such gun laws appears to be unique to shall-issue laws and has little explanatory power for newer unrestricted concealed handgun laws.

Copyright Date

7-27-2019

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Rights Holder

The Authors

Provenance

Received from author

Language

English (eng)

Extent

19 pgs

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the authors. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Publication Title

Sociological Perspectives

Volume

62

Issue

6

First Page

929

Last Page

947

ISSN

1533-8673

This document is currently not available here.

Find in Compass

Find in WorldCat

Share

COinS