More guns may in fact result in more violent crime, Stanford University researchers report.
Right-to-carry laws across the country are "associated with an increase in violent crime," according to a review of data led by Stanford law professor John J. Donohue III.
That flies in the face of earlier findings commonly espoused by gun-rights activists, according to the Washington Post. The maxim that "more guns lead to less crime" is pushed as truth by certain interests, including in fact sheets distributed to Congress, the newspaper noted.
Donohue and his research colleagues looked at data from 1999 to 2010 that "suggests" right-to-carry laws may increase violent crime by 8 percent or more.
This data suggests "right to carry laws are associated with substantially higher rates" of violent crimes including assault, rape, robbery, and murder, the researchers found.
