Guns Don't Kill People. Global Warming Does?

Bad guys stay indoors when it's cold outside and come out to kill when the weather's nice. Maybe we should ban warm jackets?

A new study broadens a notion held by the earliest criminologists: Periods of higher temperatures -- on an hour-by-hour or week-to-week basis -- are likely to produce more crime.

The study by Matthew Ranson of Abt Associates, a research and consulting firm in Cambridge, Mass., suggests global warming will trigger more crimes including murders and rapes over the next century, with social costs estimated to run as high as $115 billion.

Between 2010 and 2099, climate change can be expected to cause an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 cases of rape, 1.2 million aggravated assaults, 2.3 million simple assaults, 260,000 robberies, 1.3 million burglaries, 2.2 million cases of larceny and 580,000 cases of vehicle theft, the study published this week in the Journal of Environmental Economics and Management says.