Evidence About Effects of Gun Policies to Inform Policy Decisions

RAND says that in the new version of the RAND gun policy project, researchers determined there now is moderate evidence that state laws that impose firearms prohibitions for individuals subject to domestic violence restraining orders decrease firearm-related homicides against intimate partners and total overall homicides.

While federal law establishes such prohibitions, states also should consider adopting the strategy as a way to reduce homicides against intimate partners, according to the analysis. These laws may be most effective when they can be applied to a wide range of domestic violence cases and where the law ensures that information about the cases are included in databases used to conduct background checks.

Researchers also concluded that there is moderate evidence that waiting periods reduce firearm suicides and total homicides. Waiting-period laws may be an effective policy lever for states to consider to reduce gun deaths.

There is limited evidence that laws prohibiting the purchase or possession of guns by individuals with histories of adjudicated mental health or incapacity reduce violence crime. Researchers recommend that states consider requiring a background check investigating all types of adjudicated mental health histories that lead to federal prohibitions on firearm purchase or possession for private gun sales.

The analysis also found limited evidence that licensing and permitting requirements for purchasing a firearm reduce total suicides and firearm suicides among adults, as well as limited evidence that shall-issue or right-to-carry laws increase violent crime rates.

Limited evidence was found that before adoption of a ban on the sale of assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, there is an increase in the sales and prices of the products that the ban will prohibit. Additionally, there is limited evidence that a minimum age of 21 to purchase firearms may reduce suicides among youth.

Only inconclusive evidence was found for the effects of minimum age of possession laws, firearm-surrender laws, extreme risk protection orders or “red-flag” laws, firearm safety training requirements, firearm sales reporting, recording and registration requirements, bans on low-quality handguns, and permit-less carry laws. No studies meeting the RAND standard were found for gun-free zones, allowing armed staff in K–12 schools and requiring the reporting of lost or stolen firearms.

The vast majority of research has evaluated the effects of laws on gun violence outcomes, such as suicide and homicide, with far less evidence to inform effects on defensive or recreational gun use. In part, the absence of research on these outcomes reflects an absence of reliable and systematic data collection.

The RAND study urges the federal government to make a sustained commitment to fund gun research on an ongoing basis. Sustained large-scale investments are necessary to develop a data infrastructure to measure outcomes such as gun crimes, nonfatal gun injury and gun ownership.

But researchers warn that until that happens, advances in knowledge about gun policies will need to be supported by private foundations.

“While there are promising signs that more high-quality studies are being performed about gun policies, there still needs to be sustained federal support for this work at levels similar to what is spent on comparable public safety threats such as highway safety and the opioid crisis,” Morral said.

To make progress toward providing improved data to support gun policy research, the new RAND gun ownership database combines information from a wide range of survey and administrative data sources. It provides estimates of the proportion of individuals living in households with a firearm for every state in each year from 1980 to 2016. The database generally shows that household gun ownership has declined over the period.

The tool should allow other researchers to use the annual state-level measures of household firearm ownership to test theories about firearm ownership and usage, including their relation to crime or public policy.

The United States has the highest gun ownership rate in the world, with estimates suggesting that Americans own as many as 300 million guns. Between 10 million and 20 million Americans actively participate in hunting or sport shooting annually, and the gun industry generates $16 billion in revenue and employs hundreds of thousands in gun manufacturing, distribution, sales, and recreation.

At the same time, more than 39,000 people die each year from deliberate and unintentional gun injuries, with two-thirds of these deaths being suicides. Despite wide acknowledgement that gun violence levels are too high, states have pursued diverse approaches to regulating firearms that reflect little consensus on how best to prevent firearm violence while preserving the right to own firearms.