@article{74a5fe66e15a4187a3804d0bd61ae8f7,
title = "Repeal of comprehensive background check policies and firearm homicide and suicide",
abstract = "Background: In 2016, firearms killed 38,658 people in the United States. Federal law requires licensed gun dealers, but not private parties, to conduct background checks on prospective firearm purchasers with the goal of preventing prohibited persons from obtaining firearms. Our objective was to estimate the effect of the repeal of comprehensive background check laws - requiring a background check for all handgun sales, not just sales by licensed dealers - on firearm homicide and suicide rates in Indiana and Tennessee. Methods: We compared age-adjusted firearm homicide and suicide rates, measured annually from 1981 to 2008 and 1994 to 2008 in Indiana and Tennessee, respectively, to rates in control groups constructed using the synthetic control method. Results: The average rates of firearm homicide and suicide in Indiana and Tennessee following repeal were within the range of what could be expected, given natural variation (differences = 0.7 firearm homicides and 0.5 firearm suicides per 100,000 residents in Indiana and 0.4 firearm homicides and 0.3 firearm suicides per 100,000 residents in Tennessee). Sensitivity analyses resulted in similar findings. Conclusion: We found no evidence of an association between the repeal of comprehensive background check policies and firearm homicide and suicide rates in Indiana and Tennessee. In order to understand whether comprehensive background check policies reduce firearm deaths in the United States generally, more evidence on the impact of such policies from other states is needed. See video abstract at, http://links.lww.com/EDE/B353.",
keywords = "comprehensive background checks, firearm policy, firearm violence, gun policy, gun violence",
author = "Kagawa, {Rose M.C.} and Alvaro Castillo-Carniglia and Vernick, {Jon S.} and Daniel Webster and Cassandra Crifasi and Rudolph, {Kara E.} and Magdalena Cerd{\'a} and Aaron Shev and Wintemute, {Garen J.}",
note = "Funding Information: Submitted April 3, 2017; accepted March 30, 2018. From the aViolence Prevention Research Program, Department of Emer-gency Medicine, University of California, Davis School of Medicine, Sacramento, CA; bCenter for Gun Policy and Research, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD; and cSchool of Pub-lic Health, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA. Code is available in eAppendix 7. Data are available upon request. The results reported herein correspond to specific aims of grant ID 15-36377 to investigator Garen Wintemute from the Joyce Foundation. This work was also supported by the Robertson Fellowship in Violence Prevention Research, Becas Chile as part of the National Commission for Scientific and Technolog-ical Research and grant ID 2016–219 from the Heising-Simons Foundation. The authors report no conflicts of interest. Supplemental digital content is available through direct URL citations in the HTML and PDF versions of this article (www.epidem.com). Correspondence: Rose M. C. Kagawa, Violence Prevention Research Pro-gram, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of California, Davis School of Medicine, 2315 Stockton Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95817. E-mail: rkagawa@ucdavis.edu. Funding Information: The authors gratefully acknowledge Philip J. Cook for his contributions to this work. This study was funded by the Joyce Foundation (grant ID 15-36377), the Robertson Fellowship in Violence Prevention Research, Becas Chile as part of the National Commission for Scientific and Technological Research, and the Heising-Simons Foundation (grant ID 2016–219). Publisher Copyright: Copyright {\textcopyright} 2018 Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc. All rights reserved.",
year = "2018",
month = jul,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1097/EDE.0000000000000838",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "29",
pages = "494--502",
journal = "Epidemiology",
issn = "1044-3983",
publisher = "Lippincott Williams and Wilkins",
number = "4",
}