There appears to be general consensus in law enforcement circles that less-than-lethal weapons are effective in reducing police-citizen killings, but this “common wisdom” has not been subject to systematic empirical analysis. Considering a large sample of U.S. cities for 1990, this article examines the association between the availability to the police of various types of less-than-lethal weapons and general and race-specific justifiable homicide rates. The analysis produces no evidence that police killing rates are affected by the availability of less-than-lethal weapons.
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