Aiming for Success

Abstract

Despite the popularity of the Evidence-Based Policy Making paradigm, scholarly evidence often fails to have an impact in emotional or value-laden policy debates. Consequently, changes to Canada’s gun control laws in recent years have often failed to incorporate scholarly research. This is problematic given that the forces of path dependence impose costs on policy makers who seek to reverse established policies, even if they are dysfunctional. This article lays the theoretical foundations for a Firearms Policy Evaluation Framework, which can be used by scholars, policy makers, advocates, and the public to conduct preliminary evaluations of proposed firearms policies before they become law. The utility of the framework is then demonstrated with an evaluation of the 2020 assault-style weapons ban in Canada, which includes a systematic scoping review of the literature on the impact of assault-weapons bans.

Taking stock: The contribution of policy studies to our understanding of gun policy

“…For example, Jacobs and Fuhr (2019, p. 192) demonstrate that after 5 years, many important elements of New York's SAFE Act have “proven very difficult to implement and enforce,” casting doubts on the ability of the policy to contribute to public safety. Similarly, given that firearms policies are rarely given an in‐depth evaluation, as well as the difficulty of reversing policies that have proven unsuccessful, Schwartz (2022b) lays out an evaluation framework for proposed firearms policies.…”

Note From the Editor

“…Gun debates are also hampered by divergent opinions and major disagreements between stakeholders, academics, and other experts concerning how to construe "evidence," making the issue particularly resistant to rational policy evaluation analyses. In our first fall article, Schwartz (2022) tackles the difficulties involved here (cf. in previous issues of World Affairs: Kamal and Burton 2018;Fleming et al 2018).…”