Trust the People: The Case against Gun Control

Few public policy debates have been as dominated by emotion and misinformation as the one on gun control. Perhaps this debate is so highly charged because it involves such fundamental issues. The calls for more gun restrictions or for bans on some or all guns are calls for significant change in our social and constitutional systems.Gun control is based on the faulty notion that ordinary American citizens are too clumsy and ill-tempered to be trusted with weapons. Only through the blatant abrogation of explicit constitutional rights is gun control even possible. It must be enforced with such violations of individual rights as intrusive search and seizure. It most severely victimizes those who most need weapons for self-defense, such as blacks and women.The various gun control proposals on today's agenda--including licensing, waiting periods, and bans on so-called Saturday night specials--are of little, if any, value as crime-fighting measures. Banning guns to reduce crime makes as much sense as banning alcohol to reduce drunk driving. Indeed, persuasive evidence shows that civilian gun ownership can be a powerful deterrent to crime.The gun control debate poses the basic question: Who is more trustworthy, the government or the people

Linear Statistics of Non-Hermitian Matrices Matching the Real or Complex Ginibre Ensemble to Four Moments

We prove that, for general test functions, the limiting behavior of the linear statistic of an independent entry random matrix is determined only by the first four moments of the entry distributions. This immediately generalizes the known central limit theorem for independent entry matrices with complex normal entries. We also establish two central limit theorems for matrices with real normal entries, considering separately functions supported exclusively on and exclusively away from the real line. In contrast to previously obtained results in this area, we do not impose analyticity on test functions.Comment: Preliminary versio

The Costs and Consequences of Gun Control

In politicizing mass murders, gun control advocates, such as President Obama, insist that more laws against firearms can enhance public safety. Over and over again, there are calls for common sense gun controls, such as a system of universal background checks, a ban on high-capacity magazines, and a ban on assault weapons. And yet such proposals are not likely to stop a deranged person bent on murder

Business opportunities for water supply projects in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea

This paper has identified the opportunity for a water supply project in a rural village in the heart of the Western Highlands in Papua New Guinea. It begins with a brief review of the issue of access to safe, clean and portable water for citizens and the inability of Third World governments to meet water requirements and the changing emphasis of donor agencies, more specifically the World Bank to fund water supply and related services through a demand response approach [DRA]. It then examines the national social and economic development status of the country and focuses on the issue of lack of access to safe portable water as a key problem for rural inhabitants who comprise the majority of the population. Against this background the opportunity for this project is presented with a critical analysis of the community’s capacity to undertake and maintain the water supply facility using previous experience in two similar projects. It also outlines progress of work on this water project to date in relation to the formation of the water supply committee, completion of a feasibility study, design information, required materials and cost estimates, community financial contributions and the preparedness of the community to be responsible for the entire process. Potential risks to the project have also been identified and risk mitigation strategies are in place to address emerging issues. The value of undertaking this project is rooted in meeting the requirement for access to safe portable water as a basic need and for the long-term improvement in health and well-being of the people which indirectly contributes to economic benefits

On price competition with market share delegation contracts

We identify a mistake in the specification of the demand system used in the strategic delegation model based on market shares by Jansen et al. (2007), whereby the price remains above marginal cost when goods are homogeneous. After amending this aspect, we perform a profit comparison with the alternative delegation scheme à la Fershtman and Judd (1987).

On the (non) existence of a price equilibrium in delegation games with relative performance compensation

We show that Miller and Pazgal.s (2001) model of strategic delegation, in which managerial incentives are based upon relative performance, is affected by a non-existence problem which has impact on the price equilibrium. The undercutting incentives generating this result are indeed similar to those affecting the stability of price cartels.

Pablo Dearest

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