By Peter Andrew Gregory

This dissertation analyzes the relationships between four state gun laws—universal background checks, waiting periods, may-issue permitting, and violent misdemeanor prohibitions—and firearm homicide and suicide rates among Blacks and Whites in the United States. Using eighteen years of publicly available data, the study examined relationships employing a generalized difference-in-difference linear regression model with fixed effects for states and years. The results indicate that state gun laws in the United States frequently affect mortality rates among Blacks and Whites in different ways. Waiting periods, for example, are associated with large reductions in firearm homicide rates among Blacks but not Whites; may-issue permitting is associated with moderate reductions in firearm homicide rates among Whites but not among Blacks. The study also identifies several statistically significant interactive effects between gun laws and factors such as poverty, police presence, and the density of federally licensed firearm dealers. The dissertation concludes by discussing the value of these findings for informing both public policy and scholarly research in policy analysis and public administration. Most importantly, I argue that policymakers and gun violence researchers must increase their efforts to frame and analyze gun violence in the United States through the lens of social equity.

Blacksburg, VA: Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2022, 164p.

By Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

According to the most recently available data, the retail gun dealers responsible for selling the majority of crime guns are a fraction of the total gun industry: about 90% of guns recovered by law enforcement are traced back to just five percent of licensed firearms dealers. Gun tracing enables law enforcement to identify the gun dealers with poor business practices responsible for diverting guns from the regulated market to the criminal market. However, the federal government's oversight of these dealers is limited. From October 2016 to October 2017, federal agents inspected only 11,000 of the more than 130,000 federal firearms licensees ("FFLs") in the United States — and cited over half the inspected FFLs for violations — yet revoked the licenses of less than one percent of them. The key takeaway: The federal government does not adequately ensure that the country's hundreds of thousands of FFLs sell guns lawfully and appropriately. Significant progress against gun trafficking and gun crime will be made only if local and state officials take action. Brady is proud to release "Combating Crime Guns: A Supply-Side Approach," a report that is intended to help state and local elected officials better understand:

• The issue of crime guns;

• The supply-side approach to gun violence prevention; and

• The various ways a supply-side approach may be implemented at the local level of government.

Washington DC: Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 2021. 25p.

By Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence

America’s deadliest shootings are those we rarely discuss: Over half of all gun deaths are suicides. On average, 64 people die of gun suicide each day in America — more than firearm murders and unintentional shootings combined. Firearms are by far the most lethal method of suicide. Amid the backdrop of COVID-19 and record-breaking gun sales, unsecured firearms in gun-owning households risk an increase in suicide. This report analyzes the relationship between firearms and suicide to provide tangible solutions for policymakers, community organizers, and more to prevent gun suicide and save lives by focusing on:

• Communities uniquely impacted by firearm suicide, including youth and teens, men, Alaskan Native, American Indian, and Black youth, military-connected and LGBTQ+ communities, and more

• Policy solutions, including extreme risk laws, waiting periods, and child access prevention laws

• Public health solutions, including lethal means safety and awareness of safe storage options, like: trigger locks, lock boxes, gun vaults, safes, off-site storage, and “asking to save lives"

Washington, DC: Brady United Against Gun Violence, 2021.

By The Giffords Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center

“Stand your ground” laws do not deter crime—in fact, they drive up homicides in states where they are enacted. Since 2005, a majority of states have enacted laws that make it easier to get away with murder. These laws distort the usual standard for self-defense by allowing people to use lethal force even if they could have avoided violence by stepping away from a confrontation. Research has shown that these laws lead to more killing and exacerbate systemic racism. Giffords Law Center and the SPLC Action Fund jointly released a new report, “Stand Your Ground” Kills: How These NRA-Backed Laws Promote Racist Violence, analyzing the failure of Stand Your Ground policies.Stand Your Ground does not offer the promised reductions in crime that the NRA and other proponents promised it would; in fact, Stand Your Ground laws have been proven to increase homicide rates and have been called a “low-cost license to kill” by the American Bar Association.

Giffords Law Center and the Southern Poverty Law Center, 2022. 22p.

By Ralph Larkin.

On April 20, 1999, two Colorado teenagers went on a shooting rampage at Columbine High School. That day, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed twelve fellow students and a teacher, as well as wounding twenty-four other people, before they killed themselves. Although there have been other books written about the tragedy, this is the first serious, impartial investigation into the cultural, environmental, and psychological causes of the massacre. Based on first-hand interviews and a thorough reading of the relevant literature, Ralph Larkin examines the numerous factors that led the two young men to plan and carry out their deed. Rather than simply looking at Columbine as a crucible for all school violence, Larkin places the tragedy in its proper context, and in doing so, examines its causes and meaning.

Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2007. 265p.

By Andrew Papachristos

This report contains the latest work of a unique group of experts convened by the Joyce Foundation beginning in 2019 under the banner "Toward a Fair and Just Response to Gun Violence." The group includes advocates, prosecutors and defense attorneys, policy experts, researchers, violence intervention practitioners, and members of law enforcement, all experts in their fields who have come together as a community of practice to address some of the hardest questions facing our communities in 2022: how to reduce the devastating toll of gun violence experienced in many U.S. cities; how to limit the proliferation of guns - many owned illegally - in those same communities; how to do so without further undermining the relationship between police and communities of color; and how to do so without contributing to the over-incarceration of men and boys of color.

Following a series of virtual meetings in 2020 and 2021, the members of the community of practice arrived at this set of consensus recommendations for policy, research and practice, all in furtherance of the group's shared goals of reducing the harms caused by guns, and reducing the harms caused by punitive law enforcement responses to gun violence.

Chicago: The Joyce Foundation, 2022. 12p

By Travis Taniguchi, Katherine Hoogesteyn, Eiryn Renouard, and Dean Esserman

Ghost guns (also known as privately made or unserialized firearms) have become a significant concern to law enforcement and public safety. The term “ghost gun” encompasses a variety of firearms produced from components that are not currently regulated by federal firearm laws. Most commonly, ghost guns are produced from components purchased from businesses and individuals that most often include nearly finished aluminum, polymer frames, or receivers. Advances in ghost gun parts manufacturing facilitates homemade production of firearms by non-technical users. Public safety and gun violence prevention advocates cite the growing representation of ghost guns in crime as well as the ease of production, lack of background checks, and poor traceability as reasons that ghost guns components and kits should be regulated like all other firearms.

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  In this study, we addressed current knowledge gaps by exploring law enforcement agencies’ (LEA’s) experience with ghost guns to provide a national overview of current perceptions, practices, and recommendations for improving public policy. Interviews with command, patrol, forensics, and specialized units from 24 LEAs revealed that there was a patchwork of experience with, and strategies to address the public safety risk created by ghost guns. Policy recommendations based on this research include halting the proliferation of ghost guns through regulating the production and sale of ghost gun components and kits by updating the outdated definition of firearm. Recommendations for improvements on the process of tracking and reporting ghost gun data, training, within-agency information sharing, and research are also discussed.

Arlington, VA: National Police Foundation, 20211. 37p.

By Chelsea Parsons and Eugenio Weigend Vargas

In the early morning hours of July 5, 2017, New York Police Department officer Miosotis Familia was ambushed as she sat in a marked NYPD command truck with her partner while providing additional security to a Bronx neighborhood after Fourth of July festivities. In an attack that police officials described as an assassination, Officer Familia was fatally shot in the head with a gun that had been stolen in Charleston, West Virginia, four years earlier. Less than a month earlier on the other side of the country, a UPS driver in San Francisco shot and killed three co-workers and injured two others using a gun that had been stolen in Utah. The shooter was also armed with a gun that had been stolen in Napa County, California. Stolen guns pose a significant risk to community safety. Whether stolen from a gun store or an individual gun owner’s collection, these guns often head straight into the illegal underground gun market, where they are sold, traded, and used to facilitate violent crimes. Gun theft is not a minor problem in the United States. According to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during the four-year period from 2012 to 2015, nearly half a billion dollars worth of guns were stolen from individuals nationwide, amounting to an estimated 1.2 million guns. Twenty-two thousand guns were stolen from gun stores during this same period.4 A gun is stolen in the U.S. every two minutes.

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2017. 34p.

By Eugenio Weigend Vargas

A new analysis from the Center for American Progress shows that the repeal of Missouri’s permit-to-purchase (PTP) law in 2007 is associated with an uptick in the annual number of stolen firearms. Drawing from FBI data on stolen and recovered property from 1994 to 2019—12 years before and after the removal of the PTP law, respectively—CAP found that the real annual average value of stolen firearms in Missouri increased from $3.1 million from 1994–2007 to $4.3 million from 2008–2019, a 38 percent increase. The original analysis adds to a growing body of evidence showing that the PTP repeal has led to increased gun homicides, gun suicides, and gun trafficking in Missouri.

Washington, DC: Center for American Progress, 2021. 7p.

By Katja Triebel

This report is a study of the relationship between legal firearm ownership and crime. It has been reviewed by academics with expertise in this area, in reaction to the process by the European Commission to amend the EU Firearms Directive with much more restrictions on legal firearm ownership. Such changes are allegedly justified by purported links between legal fiream ownership, crime and terrorism in the EU. However, such purported links are highly controversial, especially in view of the data available to the EU Commission in preparing such amendments to the Directive.

Independently Published: 2016. 83p.

By Office of the New York State Attorney General

The mass shooting in and around the Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York on May 14, 2022 that claimed the lives of ten individuals and injured three others was all the more horrific because of the white supremacist ideological motivation that fueled it and the shooter’s meticulous planning. The disturbing reality is that this attack is part of an epidemic of mass shootings often perpetrated by young men radicalized online byan ideology of hate. This report details what my office has learned about how the Buffalo shooter was first indoctrinated and radicalized through online platforms, and how he used these and other platforms to plan, implement, and promote these acts of terror.1 The report assesses the strengths and weaknesses of the response of various online platforms in the wake of the Buffalo shooting. Readers should be cautioned that this report contains graphic textual descriptions of bigotry and violence, including quotes from the shooter’s own writing that, in our opinion, are necessary to contextualize and explain this story.

Office of the New York State Attorney General. 18 Oct, 2022. 49p.

By Nils Duquet and Kevin Goris

Illicit firearms are a phenomenon that mostly elicit attention in times of crisis. Mass shootings or terrorist attacks involving firearms trigger a plethora of questions, including questions regarding the provenance of the firearms that were used. Oftentimes, the firearms used by criminals and terrorists have been procured illegally. This implies that there is a market in illicit firearms where such goods circulate under the radar. The existence of such a market triggers concern but it also speaks to our imagination precisely because we know so little about it. Whether citizen, policy-maker or practitioner, we are all aware that there must be something like ‘an illicit firearms market’ out there. Yet few people, even specialists, can say in a decisive manner what such a market looks like in Europe, which dynamics characterise it or how it has evolved over time. Can we even speak of ‘a market’ or are we dealing with multiple fragmented circuits each characterised by entirely different logics? This uncertainty is driven by the very nature of the phenomena, a covert market is by design hidden from the oversight of state authority. Yet it also has to do with the fact that attention to it tends to be event-driven, and thus misses a sound and structural embedding in broader policy, intelligence or legal frameworks.

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  A further consequence of this is that attempts to study and address illicit firearms markets, and terrorist access to them, have been mostly piecemeal and ad hoc. An overarching understanding of what we talk about when we talk about illicit firearms markets is missing. Our knowledge of the illicit market for firearms very much resembles the Udana parable of the blind men and the elephant: a group of blind men who have never encountered an elephant are asked to describe it based on their palpating of only one part of the creature. Based on this partial impression, they each describe an entirely different phenomenon (a thick snake, a tree trunk, a bumped wall, a fan). None can grasp the entire and true nature of the thing they are confronted with. Moreover, each one of them assumes his (partial) interpretation of reality to be the whole truth.

Brussels: Flemish Peace Institute, 2018. 236p.

By Meenakshi Balakrishna and Kenneth C. Wilbur

How well do firearm markets comply with firearm restrictions? The Massachusetts Attorney General issued an Enforcement Notice in 2016 to announce a new interpretation of the key phrase “copies and duplicates” in the state’s assault weapons ban. The Enforcement Notice increased assault rifle sales by 1,349 (+560%) within five days, followed by a reduction of 211 (- 58%) over the next three weeks. Assault rifle sales were 64-66% lower in 2017 than in comparable earlier periods, suggesting that the Enforcement Notice reduced assault weapon sales but also that many banned weapons continued to be sold.

Unpublished paper, University of California, San Diego, 2021. 50p.

By Christopher S. Koper

Controlling gun crime continues to be a difficult challenge for policymakers and practitioners in the United States. With an estimated 258 million guns in private hands and millions more produced each year, there are many sources and means through which offenders can obtain firearms despite legal restrictions on gun purchasing and ownership by convicted felons, juveniles, and other high-risk groups. In order to better understand the workings of illicit gun markets—and particularly the rapid diversion of guns from the retail market into criminal channels—this study utilizes a decade’s worth of data on handgun sales in the state of Maryland and subsequent recoveries of those guns by police in order to identify the characteristics of firearms, sellers, buyers, and sales transactions that predict whether a gun is used in crime subsequent to purchase. The study provides some of the most sophisticated evidence to date on crime use risks associated with high-risk buyers, problem gun dealers, preferred crime guns, purchases involving multiple guns, and other suspected trafficking indicators. The study is based on three sets of analyses: 1) analysis of 235,011 handgun sales in Maryland from 1990 through October 1999 and 7,575 recoveries of those guns reported by police throughout the nation to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) from 1990 through March 2000; 2) analysis of 71,956 handgun sales in the Baltimore metropolitan area from 1994 through October 1999 and 1,850 recoveries of those guns reported by Baltimore police to ATF from 1994 through March 2000; and 3) analysis of 48,039 handgun sales in the Maryland counties of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area from 1994 through October 1999 and 529 recoveries of those guns reported by D.C. police to ATF from 1994 through March 2000.

Philadelphia: Jerry Lee Center of Criminology University of Pennsylvania, 2007. 96p.

By Aaron Karp

Uncertainty about any firearms data requires systematic estimation that relies on a broad spectrum of sources and makes approximation unavoidable. The Small Arms Survey’s estimates of civilian firearms holdings use data gathered from multiple sources. However, with much of civilian ownership concealed or hard to identify, gun ownership numbers can only approximate reality. Using data from several different sources, at the end of 2017 there were approximately 857 million civilian-held firearms in the world’s 230 countries and territories. Civilian firearms registration data was available for 133 countries and territories. Survey results were used to help establish total gun civilian holdings in 56 countries. The new figure is 32 per cent higher than the previous estimate from 2006, when the Small Arms Survey estimated there were approximately 650 million civilian-held firearms. Virtually all countries show higher numbers, although national ownership rates vary widely, reflecting factors such as national legislation, a country’s gun culture, historical and other factors. While some of the increase reflects improved data and research methods, much is due to actual growth of civilian ownership.

Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2018. 12p.

By John J. Donohue, Abhay Aneja and Kyle D. Weber

This paper uses more complete state panel data (through 2014) and new statistical techniques to estimate the impact on violent crime when states adopt right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws. Our preferred panel data regression specification, unlike the statistical model of Lott and Mustard that had previously been offered as evidence of crime-reducing RTC laws, both satisfies the parallel trends assumption and generates statistically significant estimates showing RTC laws increase overall violent crime. Our synthetic control approach also strongly confirms that RTC laws are associated with 13-15 percent higher aggregate violent crime rates ten years after adoption. Using a consensus estimate of the elasticity of crime with respect to incarceration of 0.15, the average RTC state would need to roughly double its prison population to offset the increase in violent crime caused by RTC adoption.

Cambridge, MA; National Bureau of Economic Research, 2018. 126p.

By Philip J. Cook, Harold A. Pollack and Kailey White

Chicago became infamous for high rates of gun violence during the Tommy Gun era of the Roaring ‘20s. While Tommy Guns are rare these days, Chicago continues to have relatively high rates of lethal violence, almost all involving guns. Homicide rates in Chicago hit a post-War peak during the Crack epidemic circa 1992, and declined thereafter. But other cities, most notably New York and Los Angeles, experienced far greater reductions in violence, as did the nation as a whole. Then in 2016, Chicago experienced a spike in gun violence, with the homicide rate increasing year over year by 58% (University of Chicago Crime Lab, 2017). Reducing gun violence, already a priority for city leaders, has become still more urgent. There was also a nationwide surge in gun violence between 2014 and 2016, raising the question of whether the long downward trend in violence has reversed. What can be done? There are two basic law enforcement strategies for reducing gun violence. The first is through police and court efforts, both reactive and proactive, to deter gun misuse directly. Those efforts entail improved investigation capacity to increase the arrest and conviction rates for gun assault, but also proactive tactics to discourage illicit gun carrying. The second strategy is targeted on illicit gun transactions that arm people who might harm others. The goal is to make guns scarcer to anyone legally disqualified from buying them, including youth and people with prior felony convictions. Crafting an effective supply-side strategy requires a good understanding of how people who might harm others currently procure their guns. Providing that baseline information is the motivation for this project.

Chicago: University of Chicago Crime Lab, 2018. 152p.

By Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig

The National Survey of Private Ownership of Firearms took place during November and December 1994 to gather information on the size, composition, and ownership of the gun stock in the United States; how and why guns are acquired; gun storage and carrying; and the defensive use of firearms against criminal attackers.

This national telephone survey used a list-assisted random-digit-dialing sampling method and produced a response rate of 44 percent or 59 percent, depending on the definition used. Results revealed that an estimated 192 working firearms are in private possession; about one-third of these are handguns. At least 40 percent of all handguns are semi-automatics. Only about 1 in 6 handguns have barrel lengths shorter than 3 inches. About one-fourth of adults personally own a firearm; this finding includes 42 percent of men and 9 percent of women. Gun ownership may be less popular among younger adults than among those ages 51 or older. Gun ownership is also most prevalent among middle-aged, middle-class white people from rural areas. Adults who have been arrested for a non-traffic offense are more likely to own a firearm than are other adults. In addition, about 10 percent of the adults own about 77 percent of the total stock of firearms. Overall, 46 percent of gun owners own some kind of gun primarily for protection against crime. Almost all owners report receiving some kind of instruction in the use of their firearms. About one in five of all gun-owning households keep a loaded and unlocked gun in the home. About one in six handguns are kept on the owner's person or in a motor vehicle. Estimates of defensive use of guns are similar to those of Kleck and Gertz, but survey-based estimates appear to be grossly in error for several reasons.

Washington, DC: Police Foundation, 1996. 112p.

By Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig

To learn more about private ownership and use of firearms by American adults, the National Institute of Justice sponsored a nationally representative telephone survey in 1994 to obtain information on the size, composition, and ownership of the private gun inventory; methods of and reasons for firearms acquisition; storage and carrying of guns; and defensive use of firearms against criminal attackers.

In 1994, 44 million Americans owned 192 million firearms, 65 million of which were handguns. Although there were enough guns to provide every U.S. adult with one, only 25 percent of adults actually owned firearms; 74 percent of gun owners possessed two or more. Of handgun owners, 68 percent also possessed at least one rifle or shotgun. Gun ownership was highest among middle- aged, college-educated people in rural areas. Whites were substantially more likely to own guns than blacks, and blacks were more likely to own guns than Hispanics. The most common reason for owning firearms was recreation, followed by protection against crime. About 60 percent of gun acquisitions involved federally licensed dealers. About 211,000 handguns and 382,000 long guns were stolen in noncommercial thefts in 1994. Slightly more than half of all privately owned firearms were stored unlocked; 16 percent of firearms were stored unlocked and loaded. In 1994, about 14 million adults carried a firearm in their vehicles or on their person for protection.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice, 1997. 12p

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By Abhay Aneja, John J. Donohue III and Alexandria Zhang

For over a decade, there has been a spirited academic debate over the impact on crime of laws that grant citizens the presumptive right to carry concealed handguns in public – so-called right-to-carry (RTC) laws. In 2004, the National Research Council (NRC) offered a critical evaluation of the “More Guns, Less Crime” hypothesis using county-level crime data for the period 1977-2000. 15 of the 16 academic members of the NRC panel essentially concluded that the existing research was inadequate to conclude that RTC laws increased or decreased crime. One member of the panel thought the NRC's panel data regressions showed that RTC laws decreased murder, but the other 15 responded by saying that “the scientific evidence does not support” that position.

We evaluate the NRC evidence, and improve and expand on the report’s county data analysis by analyzing an additional six years of county data as well as state panel data for the period 1979-2010. We also present evidence using both a more plausible version of the Lott and Mustard specification, as well as our own preferred specification (which, unlike the Lott and Mustard model presented in the NRC report, does control for rates of incarceration and police).

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  While we have considerable sympathy with the NRC’s majority view about the difficulty of drawing conclusions from simple panel data models and re-affirm its finding that the conclusion of the dissenting panel member that RTC laws reduce murder has no statistical support, we disagree with the NRC report’s judgment on one methodological point: the NRC report states that cluster adjustments to correct for serial correlation are not needed in these panel data regressions, but our randomization tests show that without such adjustments the Type 1 error soars to 22 - 73 percent.

  Our paper highlights some important questions to consider when using panel data methods to resolve questions of law and policy effectiveness. We buttress the NRC’s cautious conclusion regarding the effects of RTC laws by showing how sensitive the estimated impact of RTC laws is to different data periods, the use of state versus county data, particular specifications (especially the Lott-Mustard inclusion of 36 highly collinear demographic variables), and the decision to control for state trends.

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2012. 109p.