Every mass shooting, like the recent ones in Colorado Springs and San Bernardino, provokes the same debate about gun control. Would more of it impinge on constitutional freedoms? Would it stop terrorists and criminals?
Some people try to put these questions aside and think about gun control in purely economic terms. Would the dollar benefits outweigh the dollar costs?
Unfortunately, this is a tough question, for at least two reasons. First, much of the cost of gun violence reflects the value of the lives that it takes away, and it's almost impossible to put a price on a human life. Usually, economists measure an item's value by how much people will pay for it — if a refrigerator costs $1,000, then that is the value of a refrigerator.