Looking Down the Barrel of a Loaded Gun: The Effect of Mandatory Handgun Purchase Delays on Homicide and Suicide

Griffin Edwards, Erik Nesson, Joshua Robinson and Fredrick Vars

Economic Journal, 2018, vol. 128, issue 616, 3117-3140

Abstract: We exploit within‐state variation across time in both the existence and length of statutory delays – both explicit wait periods and delays created by licensing requirements – between the purchase and delivery of a firearm to examine the effect of purchase delays on homicides and suicides. We find that the existence of a purchase delay reduces firearm‐related suicides by between 2% and 5% with no statistically significant increase in non‐firearm suicides. Purchase delays are not associated with statistically significant changes in homicide rates.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/ecoj.12567

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:econjl:v:128:y:2018:i:616:p:3117-3140

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://onlinelibrary ... 1111/(ISSN)1468-0297

Access Statistics for this article

Economic Journal is currently edited by Estelle Cantillon, Martin Cripps, Andrea Galeotti, Morten Ravn, Kjell G. Salvanes, Frederic Vermeulen, Hans-Joachim Voth and Rachel Kranton

More articles in Economic Journal from Royal Economic Society Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().