Why won’t gun-control activists bet on Brazil’s successful firearm ban?

Will Brazil’s Gun Ban Reduce Crime? Academics Won’t Bet on It

Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro increased gun ownership six-fold during his four years in office. However, on his first day in office, newly inaugurated Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed an executive order banning sales of guns and ammunition and limiting people to a maximum of three guns. Lula also banned concealed carry and is moving to take away gun ownership licenses issued under Bolsonaro. While gun-control supporters are thrilled, leading academics who support these policies are unwilling to bet that murder rates will fall.

A Unique One-Country Case Study

Brazil provides a unique experiment because of how radical the changes in law are. In the U.S., the handgun bans in Chicago and Washington, D.C., provide the closest case studies. But many gun-control activists dismissed the post-ban increases in murder in those cities, arguing that the ban could only work if the entire country instituted the same rules. With Brazil, we have a country-wide case to examine.

What Will Result from Brazil’s Gun Ban?

With the dramatic changes earlier this year in Brazil’s gun-control laws, the country again offers a good test of the more guns, less crime hypothesis. So, John R. Lott, Jr., the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of “Gun Control Myths,” contacted 12 prominent gun-control advocates in academia, including Dan Webster of Johns Hopkins University. He offered a $1,000 bet on whether Brazil’s homicide rate would go up or down during the first two years of Lula’s presidency. If it went down, he would pay them. If it goes up, they would pay him. The ultimate test of a theory is whether it accurately predicts what will happen.

Seven of the 12 didn’t respond to Lott’s emails. Duke University’s Phil Cook wrote back a nice response, saying: “I like the idea of a bet, but am not going to take this one, since I have no confidence that guns and ammo will actually become scarcer in the neighborhoods with high rates of violence.” Indiana University’s Paul Helmke turned down the bet but wrote: “Happy to read/review any data and conclusions you come to.” University of California at Berkeley’s Frank Zimring expressed some interest, but he stopped responding after asking Lott to sketch out the different theories for why the homicide rate fell.

Stanford’s John Donohue insisted that we already had all the evidence we need to support gun control and that we should look at past data rather than making predictions. UCLA’s Adam Winkler wanted changes in the bet so he wouldn’t have to pay Lott the money but would write an op-ed with him if he lost. However, Winkler wouldn’t have to write up a similar op-ed if he lost. When Lott asked Winkler to explain the asymmetrical bet, instead, as an explanation, he offered a string of personal attacks saying he didn’t take the discussion seriously.

These academics have no problem confidently making predictions for the press or legislative committees about the future effects of gun-control laws. But they aren’t willing to put their money where their mouths are in a way that would make people remember their bad predictions. Maybe that’s because they already know the crime-fighting benefits of private gun ownership.

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