Hold Your Fire: Did the 1996 Federal Gun Control Act Expansion Reduce Domestic Homicides?

Abstract

In 1996, Congress expanded the federal Gun Control Act (GCA) to prohibit defendants convicted of a qualifying domestic violence misdemeanor from possessing or purchasing a firearm. Using the FBI's Supplementary Homicide Reports along with homicide data collected from selected state law enforcement agencies, I investigate if this expansion was successful in reducing homicides among the target groups. I use variation from a legal loophole and a series of circuit court decisions to generate difference-indifferences estimates. I find evidence that the GCA expansion led to 17 percent fewer gun-related homicides among female intimate partner victims and 31 percent fewer gun homicides among male domestic child victims. The law also has protective benefits for those that were not targeted by the legislation. "Other" family members (parents and siblings) also experience a 24 percent reduction in gun homicides. I find no evidence that reductions in gun homicides were offset by an increase in nongun homicides. While most falsification and robustness tests support the above conclusions, some tests suggest caution when interpreting the results and a need for further research. C 2015 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. 1 The term "homicide" has a broad legal meaning. In this paper, it is used to mean the killing of another person. 2 Both statistics were generated by the author using FBI data for all states for which data are available and using the federal definition of domestic groups. If dating relationships are included, the annual number of homicides increases to 2,280.

Firearm Homicide-Suicides in North Carolina: Evidence from the North Carolina Violent Death Reporting System, 2004-2014

“…Compared to other women in abusive relationships, women in abusive relationships where the abuser had access to a gun were at 25 times the risk of being killed in a femicide-suicide. At the household level, households with a gun and a history of domestic violence were at 20 times the risk of partner homicide compared to households with a history of domestic violence, but without the presence of a gun (Raissian, 2016).…”

“…One study of the effect of the Lautenberg Amendment on domestic homicides found a 17% reduction in female partner homicides and a 25% reduction in domestic child homicides (Raissian, 2016). Another study found that additional state level laws on misdemeanor domestic violence gun prohibition did not lead to any reduction in IPH beyond the effect of federal law, but that additional state level restraining order gun prohibitions reduced IPH by 8% (Vigdor and Mercy, 2006).…”

“…Guns were the primary weapons used by IPH perpetrators against whom the victim had a restraining order (Sillito and Salari, 2011). However, Raissian (2016) and Vigdor and Mercy (2006) provide compelling evidence that restraining order prohibitions and federal misdemeanant prohibitions do reduce domestic homicides despite the major limitations of state and federal gun laws. Most states have no mechanism to confiscate existing firearms from abusers, and background check requirements can be circumvented easily in most states.…”

Potential to prevent mass shootings through domestic violence firearm restrictions

“…Researchers have found that state‐level DVRO firearm restrictions are associated with reductions in intimate partner homicide (Vigdor & Mercy, ; Zeoli & Webster, ; Zeoli et al., ), particularly when these restrictions are extended to dating partners (who are not covered under the federal law or in some states), ex parte DVROs (which are temporary or emergency orders put in place before a full hearing and are also not covered under federal law), and when a state has legislated that a judge can or must order that prohibited DVRO respondents relinquish any firearms in their possession (Diez et al., ; Zeoli et al., ). Additionally, the federal MCDV firearm restriction has been associated with reductions in intimate partner homicides committed with firearms (Raissian, ; Zeoli et al., ).…”

Challenge of Firearms Control in a Free Society

“…The appellate process had the effect of creating a staggered implementation of the Lautenberg Amendment, providing a natural experiment for evaluating its effects. In a careful study, Raissian () found that implementation caused a substantial reduction in gun homicide against family members with no evidence of an increase in nongun homicide…”