Don B. Kates

Don B. Kates is a criminological policy analyst with the Pacific Research Institute in San Francisco and the co-author, with Gary Gleck, of The Great American Gun War: Essays in Firearms and Violence. In the following viewpoint, Kates argues that allowing ordinary citizens to carry their guns in public deters crime. He points to incidents in which potential shooting sprees were stopped by armed civilians as well as to studies showing that violent crime rates have gone down in states that permit “concealed-carry,” as the policy is known. Rather than restricting gun ownership among ordinary people, Kates concludes, the government should permit law-abiding citizens to carry firearms.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. How does the author describe Israel’s “different approach” to...