Firearms laws and the reduction of violence

Effects of State-Level Firearm Seller Accountability Policies on Firearm Trafficking

“…15 Twenty-two states require buyers of guns from private individuals to undergo a background check to ensure that the potential purchaser is legally eligible to possess a firearm. 16 Rather than examine whether comprehensive regulatory schemes designed to deter illegal sales are effective, most prior studies of gun control laws attempt to estimate the independent effects of discrete laws 17 that, by themselves, may be inadequate for reducing gun availability to criminals. 18 Our prior research found that in states with more comprehensive gun sales regulations, including both handgun registration and a permit-to-purchase licensing system, the guns criminals used were much more likely to have been originally sold by out-of-state retail dealers, typically in states with much weaker firearm sales regulations.…”

Trends in firearm safety—do they correlate with fewer injuries

“…One study found that making minimum purchasing and possession age laws did not reduce the rate of suicide in adults between the ages of 14 and 20 [16]. Another study found that adding laws that make the purchase of firearms more difficult did not substantially decrease the violent crime rate [8]. These findings may be due to the fact that there are very few 14-year olds that are buying firearms and that if someone is restricted from purchasing a firearm, he still has the ability to obtain one by stealing one or finding his parents', relatives', or friends' gun.…”

“…Over half of all violent deaths in the USA involve a firearm [6], and the majority of those involve the use of a handgun [7]. The firearm mortality rate per 100,000 people in the USA is nearly double (11) than that of the next highest developed country (Finland, 6) [8] and 12 times higher than the average death rate in 25 other industrialized nations [2]. This is despite the fact that many of these countries have firearm regulations that are similar to (Australia), stricter than (Britain), or much weaker than (Switzerland) the USA.…”

“…Although there are many individual studies that tie firearms to violence, a systematic review of all available literature could not conclusively state that regulatory efforts put in place to curtail gun violence actually impacted such violence at all [8]. Another study looking at the effect of banning specific firearms and its effect on gun-related deaths came to a similar conclusion [8]. So, if regulations have not been found to diminish firearm-related violence, should they be removed in an effort to decrease their impact on individual's rights?…”

“…Yet, it is unclear what effect banning these types of firearms have had on the reduction of gun-related violence [8]. One study looked at the 1996 National Firearms Agreement that was passed in Australia and prohibited certain types of firearms like assault rifles.…”