This might be largely for show since these laws do really force people to buy a gun, but it tells potential criminals something about the mindset of the town. Tomas Philipson and Richard Posner at the University of Chicago have a paper some years ago that looked at Kennesaw, Ga and found a reduction in crime from these laws. From US News:
. . . An individual's freedom to decide whether or not to buy a gun, however, may soon be taken from residents of small towns in Maine, Georgia, and Utah.
In Nelson, Ga., city officials are mulling a proposal to mandate that its citizens take up arms for personal protection. Nelson, with a population of around 1,000 people, has just one police officer, WSB-TV reports, who patrols for eight hours a day.
"When he's not here we rely on county sheriffs—however it takes a while for them to get here," Nelson City Councilman Duane Cronic explained to the WSB. . . .
A vote on the Nelson measure is scheduled for April 1. . . .
Hundreds of miles away, a 145-person Maine town called Byron is considering a similar proposal.
The Lewiston-Auburn Sun Journal reports that all three selectmen on the town's governing body support a proposal to making owning a gun required. . . .
Spring City, Utah, is also mulling a measure that would turn the right to bear arms into a duty. In the 1,000-person town there's a debate brewing between a resolution encouraging gun ownership and an ordinance writing the encouragement into law. . . . .
