What we misunderstand about gun violence

The Indicator from Planet Money

NPR

Business

4.7 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 14 May 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

The U.S. is known around the world for its problem with gun violence. The vast majority of murders in the U.S. are committed using guns. But what leads one person to shoot another? The "conventional wisdom" says gun violence is usually the act of calculated criminals or people acting out of desperate economic circumstances. But economist Jens Ludwig believes the conventional wisdom is wrong. Today on the show, he explains why he believes many of us fundamentally misunderstand the problem of gun violence and how behavioral economics reveals some potential solutions.

Jens's new book detailing his research into gun violence is called "Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence".

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Transcript

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0:00.0	NPR.
0:11.7	Jens Ludwig is an economist at the University of Chicago,
0:15.2	and for years he's been obsessed with one of America's most intractable problems,
0:23.4	gun violence. According to Pew Research,
0:29.2	the vast majority of murders are committed with guns. And that's why in the mid-2000s,
0:36.0	Yen's moved to Chicago's south side, looking for an answer to this question. What leads a person to shoot another? And what can we do about it? His research led him to
0:40.6	all kinds of places. You know, I spent a huge amount of time out in schools, in parks, in
0:47.0	courtrooms, in police stations, in the back of police cars, and in tons and tons of McDonald's
0:52.0	all over the city as well. What happens at the McDonald's?
0:55.1	One of the key things that happens in a McDonald's that doesn't happen in an office
0:58.9	is you talk to people like they're real people, and they talk to you like you're a real person.
1:04.3	After hours and hours of McDonald's conversations and years of crunching data,
1:10.4	Yen says he now knows a lot more about what causes
1:12.9	gun violence. And the answer is not what a lot of us have been told. No wonder we haven't made
1:19.3	more progress on this problem. We've sort of misdiagnosed what it is. And as a result, we've been
1:24.3	deploying the wrong policy lovers.
1:32.1	This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Adrian Ma.
1:36.4	Yenz recently published his findings in a book called Unforgiving Places,
1:39.1	The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence.
1:44.1	Today on the show, he argues why the conventional wisdom around gun violence is wrong and how behavioral economics reveals a path forward.
1:53.0	For a long time, economist Jens Ludwig says the conventional wisdom we've been told about gun violence has followed this predictable pattern.
2:01.3	On the right, gun violence is viewed as being due to people who are basically like incorrigibly
	...

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