Relationship betwixt licensing, registration, and other gun sales laws and the source state of crime guns

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  1. D West Webster,
  2. J S Vernick,
  3. L Thou Hepburn
  1. Centre for Injury Research and Policy, Middle for Gun Policy and Enquiry, Johns Hopkins University, Bloomberg School of Public Wellness, Baltimore
  1. Correspondence to:
 Daniel W Webster, Center for Injury Enquiry and Policy, Johns Hopkins School of Public Wellness, 624 Due north Broadway, Rm 593, Baltimore, Doc 21205–1996, United states of america dwebster{at}jhsph.edu

Abstruse

Objective—To determine the clan betwixt licensing and registration of firearm sales and an indicator of gun availability to criminals.

Methods—Tracing data on all crime guns recovered in 25 cities in the United States were used to approximate the relationship between country gun law categories and the proportion of offense guns first sold by in-state gun dealers.

Results—In cities located in states with both mandatory registration and licensing systems (five cities), a mean of 33.vii% of law-breaking guns were kickoff sold by in-state gun dealers, compared with 72.7% in cities that had either registration or licensing but not both (seven cities), and 84.2% in cities without registration or licensing (xiii cites). Little of the difference between cities with both licensing and registration and cities with neither licensing nor registration was explained past potential confounders. The share of the population near a city that resides in a neighboring country without licensing or registration laws was negatively associated with the event.

Decision—States with registration and licensing systems announced to do a meliorate job than other states of keeping guns initially sold within the state from being recovered in crimes. Proximity to states without these laws, withal, may limit their bear on.

  • firearms
  • evaluation
  • law
  • gun control

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  • firearms
  • evaluation
  • law
  • gun control

There is general consensus among scientists that firearm availability is positively associated with homicide risks1; assaults with firearms are, on average, much more lethal than assaults with other mutual weapons.ii However, there is much less understanding about the effectiveness of government efforts to control firearm availability. Skeptics of gun command laws argue that criminals can easily evade regulations past acquiring guns through theft, straw purchases (those by legally eligible purchasers on behalf of individuals legally proscribed from purchasing guns), and other difficult-to-regulate private sales.3, iv Melt and colleagues argue that restrictions on legal gun sales tin reduce the supply and consequently raise the toll of acquiring guns within illicit as well as licit gun markets. Restricted supplies and increased prices may reduce gun availability within these interconnected markets.v, six

In the United States, federal law proscribes gun sales to specific groups deemed to be potentially unsafe, such every bit persons convicted of serious crimes, and requires criminal background checks of persons ownership guns from licensed dealers. Simply in many states this requirement is fulfilled via "instant check" procedures vulnerable to the use of falsified identification cards and straw purchasers.seven Some states in the U.s., nonetheless, have much more extensive regulatory systems that include registration of firearms, licensing of buyers, and very restrictive eligibility criteria for firearm purchases.

Permit-to-purchase licensing systems require prospective gun purchasers to have straight contact with law enforcement or judicial government that scrutinize purchase applications, and some let these agencies broad discretion to disapprove applications. Some licensing laws require applicants to exist fingerprinted and allow officials weeks or even months to conduct extensive background checks. Mandatory registration makes it easier to trace guns used in crime to their last known legal owner, and to investigate possible illegal transfers. In combination, these laws take the potential to significantly restrict gun acquisition past loftier hazard individuals through stricter eligibility criteria, safeguards confronting falsified applications, and increased legal risks and costs associated with illegal gun transfers to proscribed individuals. Recently, several United states of america gun control groups take fabricated licensing of buyers and registration of handguns the centerpiece of their advocacy agenda.

Most industrialized countries place broad restrictions on private buying of firearms.8, nine For example, Canada created a centralized registry for purchased handguns in 1951, and instituted very restrictive permit-to-buy requirements for handguns in 1969. These restrictions were expanded to long guns in 1977.8 Evaluations of the 1977 law were mixed, merely suggested that the law was associated with a reduction in homicides.10– 12 In a cantankerous sectional study of gun control laws in the The states, Kleck and Patterson besides nowadays mixed evidence that permit-to-purchase laws were associated with lower rates of homicide.13

With few exceptions,14, 15 previous evaluations of state gun sales laws accept not examined the state in which the guns used to commit violence were sold. This written report addresses this gap past examining whether states with licensing, registration, and other gun sales regulations have proportionately fewer of their offense guns that were originally purchased from within the state. Having a low proportion of crime guns with in-country origins would propose that guns are relatively difficult for persons at adventure for criminal involvement to obtain from in-state gun dealers, acquaintances, or homes that are burglarized. Interstate gun traffickers offer an alternative source of guns to criminals in states with restrictive gun laws, all the same the costs, risks, and inconvenience are likely to be greater. These added costs might curtail access to guns among loftier risk individuals5, 6 and consequently reduce rates of lethal violence.2, 16

Methods

STUDY SAMPLE AND Information

This study uses city level data for 27 cities located in 23 states that accept participated in a federally funded program chosen the Youth Criminal offense Gun Interdiction Initiative (YCGII). Each of these cities agreed to submit information on all offense guns recovered by local law enforcement agencies to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for tracing. (Despite its name, the YCGII was not limited to guns recovered from youth.) In near other jurisdictions, police just attempt to trace a non-random sample of the crime guns they recover, creating the possibility for option bias.17 A criminal offense gun was defined by ATF as any firearm that was "illegally possessed, used in a criminal offense, or suspected to accept been used in a crime."eighteen

Data were available for all 27 cities for all offense guns recovered by police from 1 August 1997 though 31 July 1998.18 For 17 of the 27 cities, information were also available for guns recovered from 1 July 1996 through thirty April 1997.19 To increment the reliability and sample size of our analyses, we combined data from the ii reporting periods for those cities where it was available. Due to limited resource and the difficulty of tracing older guns, ATF did not e'er attempt to complete traces for guns that were manufactured before 1990. Therefore, in order to study a sample of law-breaking guns that were comprehensively traced, we limited our analyses to recovered crime guns that were sold during or after 1 January 1990. With one exception, discussed below, all of the state licensing and registration laws of interest went into effect well before 1990.

Proportion of crime guns from in-state gun dealers

Our master outcome measure out is the proportion of traceable crime guns that were originally purchased from an in-land gun dealer. In our information, this outcome measure was positively correlated with another indicator of gun availability to high risk individuals—the proportion of homicides of males ages 15 and higher up that were committed with guns (Pearson's r = 0.40, p=0.048).

State gun sales laws

Our primary explanatory variable of interest is the set of state level firearm sales laws. Data about these laws was obtained from ATF and United States Department of Justice publications,xx, 21 and through legal research. Two primal laws of interest were permit-to-purchase licensing of firearm buyers and registration of firearms. Based on these laws, we grouped all states into three categories. In category A, we grouped states with both permit-to-purchase licensing and registration. Category B consisted of states with either licensing or registration (only non both). Category C groups those states with neither let-to-buy licensing nor registration.

Though our categorization was based on licensing and registration laws, states with both of these laws often accept many additional firearm sales restrictions that could raise the effectiveness of their gun regulatory system (see tabular array ane). For instance, states with permit-to-purchase laws oftentimes require relatively long maximum waiting periods and prohibit gun sales to persons convicted of certain misdemeanor crimes. In addition, states with both licensing and registration typically immune criminal justice agencies to utilize discretion in issuing permits.

Table 1

State gun sales laws in effect in 25 Youth Criminal offence Gun Interdiction Initiative cities, overall classification of the set of these laws, and the percentage of the city's criminal offence guns that were first purchased from in-country gun dealers

There was only 1 country with a change in its gun sales laws from ane January 1990 though 31 July 1998 that would modify its category. Connecticut enacted its permit-to-purchase licensing and registration system beginning i October 1994; but permits for handgun sales were non mandatory until 1 October 1995. Before Connecticut's new police force, Bridgeport (1 of the YCGII cities) would take been placed in category C; after the police, it would be grouped in category A. Therefore, nosotros excluded Bridgeport from our primary analyses. Instead, we conducted a carve up analysis comparing the source state of Bridgeport's crime guns first purchased before and after its regulatory organization became available in October 1994, and contrasted this pre-constabulary versus post-police force departure with other cities in category C. We chose the 1994 engagement because it was the primeval date after which handgun buyers were obtaining permits.

We also excluded Washington, DC from our primary assay. In 1976, the District of Columbia banned most handgun possession and purchase. Therefore, its laws are not truly comparable to the other states nosotros examined.

Potential confounders

Factors other than gun sales laws, such as proximity to persons living in other states, may also affect the source land of a city's crime guns. The post-obit hypothesized determinants of the proportion of a urban center'south crime guns originating from in-state gun dealers, in addition to gun sales laws, were considered in the analyses: (1) nearest driving distance from the city of interest to some other country in category C, (2) the ratio of out-of-country to in-state population within a 50 or 100 mile radius of the city, (3) the proportion of the population within a 50 or 100 mile radius of the city that reside in a state in category C, (4) the proportion of the state's population that had moved from another state within the previous year,22 and (v) the proportion of a city's crime guns that were recovered in cases involving drug crimes (illicit drug selling networks often extend across state borders).

Differences in gun buying between states, attributable to cultural and demographic differences, may be an important determinant of whether restrictive gun sales laws are passed in a state. Lower levels of gun ownership inside a state that are independent of the furnishings of those restrictive laws that are not controlled for in our analysis could bias our estimates of the laws' effects. Controlling for pre-law gun buying levels is somewhat problematic, nevertheless, considering direct measures of state level gun ownership are not available and the implementation dates of the laws differ across states. Therefore, we used the per cent of a state's suicides during 1996–97 that were committed with firearms as a proxy measure of gun ownership based on the rationale that this fraction will be strongly influenced by gun availability.23 This measure, notwithstanding, may underestimate the level of pre-police force gun ownership not owing to restrictive gun laws in states that subsequently passed such restrictions because the laws may have depressed gun buying levels in the effected states. If this is the case, this command variable may overcorrect the gauge of the laws' effects. We, therefore, included this covariate in a sensitivity analysis to provide a lower leap signal estimate of the laws' effects.

Population data were obtained from the United States census,24 and the population residing within a 50 and 100 mile radius of the center of each metropolis was determined using the Census' Master Expanse Cake Level Equivalency program.25 Driving distances from central metropolis locations to the borders of other states were determined using Map Expert 2.0 computer mapping software.26

Information ANALYSIS

Analysis of variance of the mean proportion of criminal offense guns originating in-land was used for comparisons across the iii categories of gun sales laws. Dunnet'south C statistic was used to compare between grouping means with unequal variances.27 Ordinary to the lowest degree squares linear regression analysis was used to judge the independent association between the hypothesized explanatory variables and the effect. Theoretically relevant covariates were dropped from the model if their effects were not statistically pregnant and if their exclusion did not appear to influence the other estimates. Cook'southward distance28 and the standardized departure in the beta values were examined to assess whether detail observations exerted undue influence on the regression coefficients.

Results

For the 25 cities in our analysis, 108 000 crime guns were recovered by the police during the report period. Because we limit our analysis to criminal offense guns first purchased since 1990, to summate the proportion of guns in our dataset successfully traced to a source country, it is first necessary to eliminate from the denominator those guns bought before 1990. Using data on the sales dates and ATF's reasons for non completing a trace, we estimated that 60 202 guns were kickoff purchased earlier 1990. Of the remaining 47 798 guns, 35 000 (73.2%) were successfully traced by ATF to a source state.

Table 1 depicts the categorization of the 25 YCGII cities based upon their gun sales laws. In full general, the categories are ordered by the comprehensiveness of the laws. The hateful percentage of crime guns with in-state origins for category A cities (33.7%) was significantly less than that for cities in category B (72.7%) and category C (84.2%) (both differences significant at p<0.001; come across fig 1). Credible in fig i and confirmed by a formal test (Levene statistic = 8.58, df1=ii, df2=22, p=0.002) is that the variance in the outcome measure out among the five cities in category A is larger than in categories B and C.

  Figure 1

Figure 1

Hateful and 95% confidence interval for the per centum of crime guns first sold by in-country gun dealers by gun law category. Category A: licensing and permit to purchase and at least two other gun sales laws; category B: licensing or permit to purchase but not both; category C: neither licensing or let to purchase.

The regression analyses indicated that the big bivariate differences between cities in category A and those in categories B and C remained later controlling for potential confounders (table 2). The estimates from model 1 indicate that the percentage of crime guns with in-state origins was 48.5 percentage points lower in category A cities compared with category C cities (p<0.001). The percentage of law-breaking guns with in-state origins in category B cities was 12.8 percentage points lower than in category C cities (p=0.039). The per centum of the population within a 100 mile radius of a city that resided beyond the state border in a category C country was negatively associated with the percentage of crime guns with in-state origins (β = −19.nine, SE(β) = vii.5, p=0.016).

Table 2

Results from ordinary least squares regression on the percentage of a urban center's crime guns that were originally purchased from in-state gun dealers

Key points

  • Only a few states in the Us require firearm owners to be licensed and their guns to be registered.

  • The proportion of a city'south crime guns that come up from in-country, verus out-of-state, is an important measure of how hard it is for criminals to become guns in those states.

  • Cities in states with both licensing and registration have a much smaller proportion of their crimes guns coming from in-state.

  • Licensing and registration laws tin can make it harder for criminals and juveniles to get guns.

Model 2 in tabular array two presents our findings with the surrogate mensurate of gun ownership within the state added to the model. This indicator of gun ownership was positively associated with the percentage of criminal offence guns that had been sold by in-state gun dealers (β = 0.682, SE(β) = 0.180, p=0.001). The magnitude of the judge for the difference between category A and category C cities was reduced (β = −37.i, SE(β) = 5.88, p<0.001) but remained large and highly significant. However, the estimate for the departure between category B versus category C cities was reduced substantially and is no longer statistically significant (β = −4.25, SE(β) = 4.95, p=0.402).

Population migration into the state and the proportion of recovered guns associated with drug offenses were not significantly associated with the proportion of a metropolis'due south criminal offence guns first sold by an in-state gun dealer. Driving distance from the city to the nearest country border and distance to the nearest land with weaker gun sales laws were non included in the models due to colinearity with other covariates. The proportion of total population within a 50 mile radius of the city residing outside the land border was non included in the models because its inclusion lead to an extremely large Cook's altitude statistic for i city. This covariate did not have a statistically significant upshot on the consequence mensurate, and its exclusion from the models did not substantially effect the gun law estimates.

The per centum of Bridgeport's criminal offence guns that had been sold by in-country dealers decreased from 84.9% (124/146) for guns purchased before Connecticut'southward licensing and registration laws went into event to 81.v% (44/54) for guns purchased afterward. In contrast, among the other category C cities, the proportion of crime guns with in-state origins increased from 79.8% (6289/7883) to 87.9% (6798/7732) for guns sold during the aforementioned two time periods. While these divergent trends are suggestive of moderate effects from Connecticut'south mandatory licensing and registration law, the 81.five% of Bridgeport's offense guns that had been sold past in-state dealers after the law's constructive date was significantly higher than was observed in the five other category A cities.

Discussion

Nosotros found bang-up variation among cities in the percentage of their law-breaking guns that originated from in-land gun dealers. This variation was largely explained by the presence or absenteeism of comprehensive state regulations of gun sales that fit our definition of category A—allow-to-purchase licensing and mandatory registration of handguns—and to a lesser degree by proximity to people in states with minimal restrictions on gun sales. Afterward adjusting for confounders, the percentage of criminal offense guns recovered in cities in category A that had been purchased from in-state dealers was less than half equally high equally would have been expected if the weakest country laws (category C) had been in result.

The broad variation in the proportion of crime guns from in-state dealers inside category A suggests that in that location are important determinants of our issue other than the presence of licensing and registration systems. Some of the variance within this category appears to exist explained past complementary sales restrictions. Category A cities with the lowest proportion of their criminal offense guns originating from in-country dealers—Boston, Jersey City, and New York—were in states that as well allowed law enforcement discretion in issuing permits to purchase handguns, had longer waiting periods, and required purchase applicants to be fingerprinted. In contrast, St Louis, Missouri, with the highest proportion of crime guns sold by in-land gun dealers among category A cities, had none of these provisions.

The very strong cantankerous exclusive clan between permit-to-buy licensing and registration laws, and lower proportions of criminal offense guns with in-state origins, is tempered somewhat by the small modify observed in Bridgeport after Connecticut adopted a licensing and registration system. This relatively small-scale change in Bridgeport may exist due to the newness of police, the availability of older used guns purchased inside the state prior to the new law, or to the lack of some of the other sales restrictions mentioned above that have been in place for years in other states with licensing and registration systems. In addition, our utilise of the date the licensing and registration system became operational every bit the intervention point rather than the date, 12 months subsequently, on which these regulations became mandatory may have created a conservative bias in our findings of the constabulary'southward effect.

Interestingly, afterward adjusting for gun ownership too as other potential confounders, in that location was no significant difference between cities in categories B and C in the proportion of their crime guns that had originated from in-state gun dealers. This finding suggests that state level gun command measures may not have a substantial touch on criminal gun availability unless the measures are very comprehensive, including both licensing, registration and other restrictions.

The potential benefits from comprehensive state gun command measures appear to be diminished by the lack of such controls in other states. Consistent with other research,18, 19, 29 proximity to people living in states with weak gun laws increased the proportion of a city's crime guns originating from out-of-state gun dealers.

In that location are several potential limitations to this study. First, our upshot measure may seem somewhat removed from the virtually important public wellness outcomes such every bit homicides. However, at that place is general consensus among scholars that reduced access to guns among loftier take a chance individuals is likely to lead to reduced rates of lethal violence,1 and the proportion of criminal offence guns that originate from in-state gun dealers should exist directly related to how easy it is for loftier run a risk individuals to obtain guns. Indeed, we found that the proportion of a city's offense guns that had been sold past an in-country gun dealer was positively associated with some other indicator of gun availability to high risk individuals, the proportion of homicides of males ages fifteen and to a higher place that were committed with firearms.

Criminals and delinquent youth tend to obtain guns in private transactions with acquaintances and to a lesser degree from thefts.29, xxx Although these transactions are hard to regulate directly, laws that restrict legal gun ownership and gun transfers such as licensing and registration could constrain the supply of guns from these typical sources of crime guns.5 With fewer guns from local sources, criminals and juveniles must identify out-of-land sources. But interstate traffickers face barriers and risks that may limit their ability to brand up for significant in-state supply restrictions. Peradventure every bit a result of these supply constraints, street prices of guns in places with very restrictive gun command laws tend to be significantly college than in places with more than lax laws.5

Omission or inadequate measurement of confounders is always a potential limitation in evaluations of gun policies. By focusing on the effects of country gun sales police force on the proportion of offense guns originating from in-land gun dealers, all the same, the findings from this study may exist less vulnerable to sure threats to validity that can bias gun control evaluations that focus on the laws' effects on violent crime. Violent crime is influenced by a large number of factors, many of which are difficult to measure fairly. In contrast, at that place are likely to be many fewer unmeasured factors that affect the proportion of crime guns from in-state gun dealers—our final models explained 82% and 89% of the variance in this outcome.

The relatively small, not-random sample of cities, selected by ATF for their willingness to submit information on all crime guns recovered by police, limits the generalizabililty of the findings. Yet, the cities in this written report are diverse with respect to region and population size, and appear to be representative of their states based on the very high correlation between the cities' and states' measures of our outcome variable (r = 0.97, p<0.001).

Kleck has suggested that constabulary in states with firearm registries may be less inclined to request an ATF trace of a criminal offence gun that is registered within the state considering much of the data from the ATF trace may be obtainable from the land registry.17 If pervasive inside YCGII cities, such practices could bias our findings. However, the police force departments that submitted data for this written report agreed to submit information to ATF on all recovered crime guns. ATF devoted considerable resources to assist local agencies making trace requests and to oversee the collection of data. ATF officials working on the YCGII betoken that the protocols for initiating ATF trace requests used past the participating constabulary departments were generally independent from other constabulary investigations, whether or non a state had a registration system. Furthermore, the proportion of offense guns sold past in-state dealers when the state had a registration system but no permit-to-buy licensing organization (five of the seven cities in category B) was quite high (67%–82%) indicating that the agencies were conspicuously submitting data to ATF for guns that should as well be in the state registry.

Our analyses were limited to guns sold less than years years before recovery by the police considering ATF did not trace all crime guns manufactured before 1990. Associations between country gun laws and in-state origins of crime guns may differ for older versus newer guns. Whatever differences between older and newer guns, however, would have to be quite substantial to negate the very big magnitude of consequence for category A state laws.

Finally, the way nosotros choose to categorize state gun sales laws limits our ability to approximate of the contained effects of each of blazon of regulation of interest. Due to the loftier correlation between the presence of many of the laws nosotros considered, preliminary analyses revealed substantial multicolinearity when we attempted to generated split up estimates for each constabulary of interest.

Implications for prevention

Agreement the benefits of restrictive firearm sales laws tin can aid policymakers to make informed legislative choices. Our findings suggest that comprehensive gun sales regulations that include permit-to-purchase licensing and registration can affect the availability of guns to criminals. Conversely, the absence of these regulations may increase the availability of guns to criminals in nearby states.

Acknowledgments

This written report was supported by grant R49/CCR3028 from the Centers for Disease Command and Prevention to the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy.

References

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