Hemenway David, Hicks James G
Harvard School of Public Health, 677 Huntington Avenue, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Natick Police Department, 20 East Central Street, Natick, MA, 01769-4631, USA.
J Public Health Policy. 2015 Aug;36(3):324-34. doi: 10.1057/jphp.2015.11. Epub 2015 Apr 16.
In almost all states in the United States, to carry a concealed handgun legally requires a permit from the police. Many states have changed from may-issue laws (where the local police chief has discretion about to whom to issue a license) to shall-issue laws (where the police chief must issue a permit if the applicant passes a computerized federal background check). Studies conflict on the effect on crime. None considered the situation in may-issue states when police used discretion and refused to issue a permit. We provide suggestive evidence from a December 2013 survey of police chiefs in Massachusetts' 351 cities and towns. Of the 121 responding police chiefs, a large majority favored retaining police discretion. Chiefs issued few discretionary denials - median 2 per year, citing providing false information, a history of assault (often domestic violence), a history of drug or alcohol abuse, or of mental-health issues as the most common reasons for denial.
在美国几乎所有的州，合法携带隐藏式手枪都需要获得警方的许可。许多州已从可自行决定发放许可的法律（地方警察局长有权决定向谁发放许可证）转变为必须发放许可的法律（如果申请人通过了联邦电脑化背景调查，警察局长就必须发放许可证）。关于这对犯罪的影响，研究结果存在冲突。没有一项研究考虑过在可自行决定发放许可的州里，警方行使自由裁量权并拒绝发放许可证的情况。我们从2013年12月对马萨诸塞州351个城镇警察局长的调查中提供了一些启发性证据。在121位回复的警察局长中，绝大多数人赞成保留警方的自由裁量权。局长们很少自行决定拒绝发放许可——每年中位数为2次，最常见的拒绝理由是提供虚假信息、有攻击行为史（通常是家庭暴力）、有吸毒或酗酒史，或有心理健康问题。
