State Firearm Sales and Criminal Activity: Evidence from Firearm Background Checks

Matthew Lang

Southern Economic Journal, 2016, vol. 83, issue 1, 45-68

Abstract: The FBI has reported the number of monthly firearm background checks in every state since November 1998. This article uses data on background checks at the state level to explore the relationship between guns and crime. The background checks capture an individual's intention to purchase a firearm and explain 96% of the variation in gun manufacturing at a national level. Fixed effect negative binomial regressions show a positive, but insignificant, relationship between background checks and violent crimes. Property crimes are negatively related to background checks and statistically significant at the 10% level. The results suggest that gun control policies should be coupled with other initiatives if policy makers intend to reduce gun‐related crime.

Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1002/soej.12134

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:soecon:v:83:y:2016:i:1:p:45-68

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Southern Economic Journal from John Wiley & Sons
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().