I hate it when people make a big deal out of every anecdote that supports their opinions, but this Chicago shooting illustrates a number of the stastical trends in gun control.

For one, gun control doesn’t work. Handguns are banned in Chicago, yet a madman was able to storm an office building — past that office building’s security (though from my experience, office security typically only requires signing in, and there’s no indication there was a metal detector) — with a revolver.

Two, gun-free zones, like all public places in Chicago, are really sitting duck zones. If people were allowed to carry concealed weapons, this man would have had a strong deterrent. But because he could be almost certain no one would have a gun, he went ahead. Even at this point, in a concealed carry state, someone in the office might have been able to stop him. Now three people are dead because the victims had to wait until police arrived with a sniper rifle.

These are more than principles illustrated by anecdotes; they’re statistical trends. The work of John Lott has been incredibly important in this regard. He found that concealed carry reduces crime, and that multiple-victim shootings like this one tend to happen in gun-free zones. A lot of other research, including James Q. Wilson’s dissent from a National Academy of Sciences report, backs him up.

Even if you take the other side — like the National Academy of Sciences report itself, or the normally anti-gun CDC’s report — you’re not left with much. The consensus has moved to the center, arguing there is no solid evidence that gun control does or does not work.

At the best, more lenient gun laws could have saved three lives in Chicago. At the worst, draconian violations of gun owners’ rights did nothing to stop the incident.

Lott has a new book out that addresses gun control.

Robert VerBruggen blogs at http://www.therationale.com and http://robertsrationale.blogspot.com.