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The social burden of gun violence involves more than just the actual victims. Social costs include the widespread fear and trauma that stem from the threat of gun violence and the required vigilance to avoid victimization. The social costs of gun violence have been estimated at $80 billion per year (1998), an amount that is far higher today. Interpersonal gun violence includes mass shootings, officer-involved shootings, and political assassinations. Most gun assaults involve more common circumstances such as domestic conflicts, arguments, robberies, retaliatory gang violence, and drug disputes. The victims and suspects in routine gun violence are overwhelmingly young, male, and Black. Guns provide the means to kill someone quickly, at a distance, with little skill or strength required. Gun use in violent attacks matters greatly because victims are more likely to die from gunshot wounds. Reducing gun violence is cost-effective and supports social justice.

Low clearance rates for fatal and nonfatal shootings are a deadly problem in U.S. cities. Detectives attempting to solve gun assaults and homicides have more forensic and technological tools at their disposal than their predecessors from a few decades ago. Despite these new tools, clearance rates are dismally low in many cities. Finding cooperative witnesses remains a key challenge in building strong cases against shooters. The failure to arrest and convict undermines the deterrent effect of the law. Unsolved shootings also contribute to cycles of urban gun violence; deprive victims and their families of justice; and erode trust in the police, which further undermines witness cooperation with investigations. Police departments must invest additional resources in the investigation of fatal and nonfatal shootings. When additional investigative effort is expended, police can improve their success in gaining the cooperation of key witnesses and increase the amount of forensic evidence collected and analyzed.

Policing has evolved during the past few decades in a variety of ways. The police have become less corrupt, better educated, more professional, better paid, and far more diverse with respect to race and sex. They have become more respectful of citizen rights due to exclusionary rules, citizen review boards, consent decrees, and other accountability measures. Police are also more effective in crime control due to improved technology, greater resources, and better strategies. However, challenges remain. Crime control is a co-production process, and community cooperation in investigations is essential. Unfortunately, communities most affected by gun violence generally do not trust the police and fear retaliation for cooperation with the police. Community policing and procedural justice may be helpful in repairing frayed police–community relations. Police also need to be properly motivated and guided to control crime. Low morale undermines police proactivity, and new policing approaches can be limited by union restrictions.

Most guns used in crime are not obtained by purchase from a licensed dealer but, rather, through informal transactions in underground markets supplied by guns diverted from legal commerce. Many major cities have units and specific police personnel investigating and curtailing criminal access to guns. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives works with state and local law enforcement agencies to interdict trafficking, straw purchases, and illicit manufacture. These efforts attempt to reduce gun violence by disrupting the illegal supply of guns to criminals. Supply-side interventions seek to further limit illegal transactions, and they enhance the incentive for prohibited persons to economize on gun possession and use. Unfortunately, few police departments are much invested in disrupting supply. Local police departments should take a problem-oriented approach to understand how criminals access guns in their jurisdictions and collaborate with federal and state law enforcement partners to implement interventions to shut down specific gun trafficking pathways.

Most shootings are highly concentrated among groups of criminally active individuals who use guns to settle disputes emanating from personal clashes, drug market business, ongoing gang rivalries, and other conflicts. Cities can diminish their overall gun violence problems by reducing violent victimization in these very high-risk groups through the strategic application of “carrots and sticks” or, more formally, incentives and disincentives. “Focused deterrence” programs designed to change offender behavior through a credible threat of law enforcement are effective in controlling crime. These programs gain legitimacy if coupled with social services and opportunities for targeted offenders, and they can help improve police–community relationships in disadvantaged minority communities. These multifaceted programs can be difficult to implement and sustain over extended periods. Jurisdictions must develop a strong network of willing partners, adopt accountability structures and sustainability plans, and conduct upfront and ongoing analyses of gun violence problems to customize the program to local conditions.

Gun regulations can only be effective to the extent that they are enforced. The goal of regulation is to keep guns away from dangerous people while allowing the vast majority of law-abiding adults to purchase and possess firearms. Federal regulations place restrictions on firearm design, transactions, and possession. Some states have more stringent controls that do not infringe on Second Amendment rights allowing people to keep guns in their home. Convicted felons and other prohibited persons generally do not acquire firearms from licensed retail dealers. Rather, proscribed people get their guns from unregulated transactions with friends and family or from the street. Increasing the time, effort, and expense of illegally acquiring guns can reduce gun use in violent crime. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, local police, and other law enforcement agencies can increase transaction costs for prohibited possessors by policing underground gun markets. Police can also enforce regulations against illegal carrying of guns in public places.

Police officers shoot roughly 1,000 people each year in the line of duty. Police killings typically occur in the context of fraught encounters with people carrying guns or other weapons, who in many cases are intoxicated or impaired due to mental illness, and who pose an imminent threat to the officer or others. Most police shootings are legally justifiable but are still problematic and preventable. Police departments need to improve their internal accountability mechanisms in order to launch a powerful response to officer-involved shootings. Nonlethal means of responding to tense situations must receive priority attention in training and departmental policy. Other reforms include better training for dealing with mental health crises, and strategies to prevent people from dying after being shot. Many police departments fail to provide sufficient training, guidance, and options to the great majority of officers who want to do the right thing in challenging circumstances.

Gun violence is not evenly spread throughout cities. Specific public places can be persistent and very dangerous gun violence “hot spots.” Police can control recurring gun violence by concentrating patrol activities in specific places. One approach is to curtail illicit gun carrying by conducting stops and frisks in these locations. These kinds of enforcement strategies need to be very carefully implemented because they risk undermining police legitimacy in the communities they serve if stops are done excessively and unlawfully. Police stops need to be lawful, conducted in a procedurally just manner, and highly focused on risky people carry guns in relatively small violent places. Another approach involves analyzing violent situations in these hot spots, identifying ways to reduce risky situations, and implementing community problem-solving responses to improve public safety. These problem-oriented strategies economize on the use of costly enforcement actions that could produce unintended harms in minority communities.

Gun violence surged in American cities with the 2020 arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic. Effective policing is an essential component of any comprehensive effort to reduce gun violence. Many observers are skeptical of this position given the troubled relationship between the police and minority communities that experience a vastly disproportionate number of shootings. Recent innovations in policing make it possible to prevent shootings in a legitimate manner that respects individual rights. Properly motivated police departments can implement proactive strategies to control repeat gun offenders and gun violence hot spot areas. The police can strengthen shooting investigations to hold violent offenders accountable, disrupt cycles of violence, and deliver justice to victims. Working with federal law enforcement partners, police can work to disrupt the illegal supply of guns to violent criminals. Equally important, police departments can reduce lethal use of force by having clear rules of engagement and personnel rules that ensure accountability.

This book makes the case that increasing the effectiveness of the police in gun-violence prevention is both possible and essential. It is essential because in many cities, gun violence is the most pressing crime problem, making cities less liveable and negatively affecting economic development. There is no good alternative to police authority for gaining control of criminal gangs and interrupting cycles of retaliation. Increasing police effectiveness is possible due to considerable advances in the understanding of what works (and what does not) in the strategic use of police resources. In particular, innovations such as focused deterrence, hot spots policing, procedural justice, and enhanced shooting investigations have been widely studied and offer real promise if implemented correctly. The challenges in this domain begin with the fact that low-income communities of color, which bear the brunt of gun violence, tend to be distrustful of the police. Residents of these communities often believe that they are overpoliced, due to heavy-handed tactics and officer-involved shootings. But they also believe they are underpoliced, as evidenced by slow response times, failure to intervene in tense situations, and low arrest rates for serious crime. A comprehensive strategy for policing gun violence requires a community focus and a commitment to reining in police misbehavior. This book makes the case that, done correctly, policing gun violence is an urgent investment and a matter of social justice.

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to describe the creation, implementation, activities and rationale for the Area Technology Centers (ATCs), an innovation adopted by the Chicago Police Department’s (CPD’s) Bureau of Detectives (BoD) in 2019 for the purpose of supporting investigations of crimes of serious violence by deploying specialized teams of officers to gather and process video and digital evidence.Design/methodology/approachThis case study utilizes historical information and descriptive data generated by a record-keeping system adopted by the ATCs.FindingsThe ATCs were developed as a collaboration between the CPD and the University of Chicago Crime Lab (a research center). The start-up was funded by a gift from the Griffin Foundation. Detectives have made extensive use of the services provided by the ATCs from the beginning, with the result that homicide and shooting investigations now have access to more video and digital evidence that has been processed by state-of-the-art equipment. The CPD has assumed budget responsibility for the ATCs, which is an indication of their success. The ATC teams have been assembled by voluntary transfers by sworn officers, together with an embedded analyst from the University of Chicago.Practical implicationsThe ATC model could be adopted by other large police departments. The study finds that ATCs can be effectively staffed by redeploying and training existing staff and that their operation does not require a budget increase.Social implicationsBy arguably making police investigations of shooting cases more efficient, the ATCs have the potential to increase the clearance rate and thereby prevent future gun violence.Originality/valueThe ATCs are a novel response to the challenges of securing and making good use of video and digital evidence in police investigations.

PurposeClearance rates for nonfatal shootings, especially cases involving gang- and drug-related violence, are disturbingly low in many US cities. Using data from a previously completed project in Boston, we explore the prospects for improving gang/drug nonfatal shooting cases by investing the same investigative effort found in similar gang/drug gun murder cases.Design/methodology/approachOur analyses primarily focus on a sample of 231 nonfatal shootings that occurred in Boston from 2010 to 2014. Logistic regressions are first used to analyze differences in the likelihood of case clearance for gang/drug nonfatal shooting cases relative to other nonfatal shooting cases. Independent samples t-tests are then used to compare the investigative characteristics of these two different kinds of nonfatal shootings. Next, independent samples t-tests are used to compare the investigation of gang/drug gun assaults relative to the investigation of very similar gang/drug gun homicides.FindingsResults demonstrate that the odds of clearing gang/drug nonfatal shootings are 77.2% less likely relative to the odds of clearing nonfatal shootings resulting from other circumstances. This stark difference in clearance rates is not driven by diminished investigative effort, but investigative effort does matter. Relative to gang/drug gun assaults, gang/drug gun homicides have much higher clearance rates that are the result of greater investigative resources and effort that produces significantly more witnesses and evidence, and generate more forensic tests and follow-up investigative actions.Originality/valueGang- and drug-related violence generates a bulk of urban nonfatal shootings. Low clearance rates for nonfatal shootings undermine police efforts to hold offenders accountable, disrupt cycles of gun violence, and provide justice to victims. Police should make investments to improve investigative effort such as handling these cases with the same vigor as homicide cases.

New York City (NYC) has experienced large reductions in violent crime over the last two decades, but gun-related violence continues to pose a threat to public safety. Despite strong gun laws, high-risk individuals in NYC neighborhoods are unfortunately still able to access and misuse firearms. This research analyzes NYC’s underground gun market by closely examining the flow of guns into the two boroughs where gun violence and crime gun recoveries are most prevalent: the Bronx and Brooklyn. A mixed methods approach is utilized that consists of an assessment of firearms trace data and in-depth interviews with individuals considered to be at high risk for involvement in gun violence. Findings suggest that guns recovered in the Bronx and Brooklyn were significantly more likely to originate in states with less restrictive gun laws and more likely to have changed ownership in unregulated transactions relative to guns recovered elsewhere in NYC. Interviews revealed three primary avenues for illegal guns reaching Bronx and Brooklyn neighborhoods: high-volume gun brokers, middlemen, and individuals who make episodic low-level acquisitions from straw purchasers in other states. No subjects identified theft as a meaningful source of crime guns.

Early life exposure to environmental lead (Pb) has been linked to decreased IQ, behavior problems, lower lifetime earnings, and increased criminal activity. Beginning in the 1970s, limits on Pb in paint, gasoline, food cans, and regulated water utilities sharply curtailed US environmental Pb exposure. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of US children remain at risk. This study reports on how unregulated private well water is an underrecognized Pb exposure source that is associated with an increased risk of teenage juvenile delinquency. We build a longitudinal dataset linking blood Pb measurements for 13,580 children under age 6 to their drinking water source, individual- and neighborhood-level demographics, and reported juvenile delinquency records. We estimate how early life Pb exposure from private well water influences reported delinquency. On average, children in homes with unregulated private wells had 11% higher blood Pb than those with community water service. This higher blood Pb was significantly associated with reported delinquency. Compared to children with community water service, those relying on private wells had a 21% (95% CI: 5 to 40%) higher risk of being reported for any delinquency and a 38% (95% CI: 10 to 73%) increased risk of being reported for serious delinquency after age 14. These results suggest that there could be substantial but as-yet-unrecognized social benefits from intervention programs to prevent children's exposure to Pb from private wells, on which 13% of the US population relies.

For every fatal shooting in the United States, detailed information from reports of coroners or medical examiners, police departments, and other sources is recorded in the National Violent Death Reporting System. There is no such system in place for nonfatal shootings, which far outnumber fatalities. Hospital data systems are in place that could, with some improvements, provide access to reliable local, state and national estimates of firearm injuries. Such estimates are possible because most firearms injuries are treated in hospitals, and hospitals routinely assign "external cause of injury" codes to all injury encounters. Federal health agencies supervise a number of data systems that centralize hospital data. Challenges currently being addressed are public access, timeliness, and accuracy of coding of intent. (Hospitals misclassify many firearm assaults as accidents.) Law enforcement agencies provide detailed data on shootings in criminal circumstances, including shootings that are not treated in a hospital. The FBI's Uniform Crime Reports (UCR) system aggregates data from agencies. The FBI instituted a radical reform of this system beginning in 2021, resulting in a sharp agency participation drop that prevents valid national estimates. The reform requires agencies to report incident-level data instead of summary counts, which is all that was required for the previous 90 years. There are ongoing efforts to increase participation in the new system and restore its former status as the leading source of national crime estimates. In the meantime, data on nonfatal gunshot cases are available from a number of police departments. We discuss additional reforms needed to generate timely, accurate, publicly accessible data from hospitals and police.

Guns that are used in crime and recovered by the police typically have changed hands often since first retail sale and are quite old. While there is an extensive literature on “time to crime” for guns, defined as the elapsed time from first retail sale to known use in a crime, there is little information available on the duration of the “last link”—the elapsed time from the transaction that actually provided the offender with the gun in question. In this article, we use data from the new Chicago Inmate Survey (CIS) to estimate the duration of the last link. The median is just 2 months. Many of the gun-involved respondents to the CIS (42%) did not have any gun 6 months prior to their arrest for the current crime. The CIS respondents were almost all barred from purchasing a gun from a gun store because of their prior criminal record—as a result, their guns were obtained by illegal transactions with friends, relatives, and the underground market. We conclude that more effective enforcement of the laws governing gun transactions may have a quick and pervasive effect on gun use in crime.

This paper provides a summary of our report for the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine on proactive policing. We find that there is sufficient scientific evidence to support the adoption of many proactive policing practices if the primary goal is to reduce crime, though the evidence base generally does not provide long-term or jurisdictional estimates. In turn, we conclude that crime prevention outcomes can often be obtained without producing negative community reactions. However, the most effective proactive policing strategies do not appear to have strong positive impacts on citizen perceptions of the police. At the same time, some community-based strategies have begun to show evidence of improving the relations between the police and public. We conclude that there are likely to be large racial disparities in the volume and nature of police–citizen encounters when police target high-risk people or high-risk places, as is common in many proactive policing programs. We could not conclude whether such disparities are due to statistical prediction, racial animus, implicit bias, or other causes.

This Viewpoint discusses the history and current status of assault weapons bans in the US, provides evidence of the potential effectiveness of a US ban and information regarding the Australian ban, and explores potential next steps.

There is growing concern that it is too difficult or costly to substantially improve the academic skills of children who are behind in school once they reach adolescence. But perhaps what we have tried in the past relies on the wrong interventions, failing to account for challenges like the increased variability in academic needs during adolescence, or heightened difficulty of classroom management. This study tests the effects of one intervention that tries to solve both problems by simplifying the teaching task: individualized, intensive, in-school tutoring. A key innovation by the non-profit we study (Saga Education) is to identify how to deliver “high-impact tutoring” at relatively low cost ($3,500 to $4,300 per participant per year). Our first randomized controlled trial (RCT) of Saga’s tutoring model with 2,633 9th and 10th grade students in Chicago public schools found participation increased math test scores by 0.16 standard deviations (SDs) and increased grades in math and non-math courses. We replicated these results in a separate RCT with 2,710 students and found even larger math test score impacts—0.37 SD—and similar grade impacts. These effects persist into future years, although estimates for high school graduation are imprecise. The treatment effects do not appear to be the result of a generic “mentoring effect” or of changes in social-emotional skills, but instead seem to be caused by changes in the instructional “technology” that students received. The estimated benefit-cost ratio is comparable to many successful model early-childhood programs.

Although the Flint, Michigan, water crisis renewed concerns about lead (Pb) in city drinking water, little attention has been paid to Pb in private wells, which provide drinking water for 13% of the US population. This study evaluates the risk of Pb exposure in children in households relying on private wells. It is based on a curated dataset of blood Pb records from 59,483 North Carolina children matched with household water source information. We analyze the dataset for statistical associations between children's blood Pb and household drinking water source. The analysis shows that children in homes relying on private wells have 25% increased odds (95% CI 6.2 to 48%, P < 0.01) of elevated blood Pb, compared with children in houses served by a community water system that is regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This increased Pb exposure is likely a result of corrosion of household plumbing and well components, because homes relying on private wells rarely treat their water to prevent corrosion. In contrast, corrosion control is required in regulated community water systems. These findings highlight the need for targeted outreach to prevent Pb exposure for the 42.5 million Americans depending on private wells for their drinking water.

What Is the Gun Violence Prevention Movement? Like the gun rights movement, the gun violence prevention movement includes national, state, and local organizations. Some are single-issue organizations, spending all their time on gun violence prevention, while others are multi-issue allies from the women’s, religious,...

With So Many Guns Out There, Is There Any Point to Gun Control? Yes. The evidence suggests that certain regulations have been effective in reducing gun use in crime. And even in the United States, guns are not as readily available as some commentators...

Do Americans Want Stricter Gun Laws? Public opinion experts have long observed that the United States has a gun control paradox: Most Americans favor all sorts of firearms regulations—sometimes overwhelmingly so—yet these regulations are not enacted into law. Four decades ago, one scholar noted...

Why Is Self-Defense Central to the Debate over Gun Control? Personal safety is a vital matter, and self-protection is a more compelling rationale for owning guns than recreation. We can all conjure up the nightmare scenario of being defenseless in a violent confrontation with...

No topic is more polarizing than guns and gun control. From a gun culture that took root early in American history to the mass shootings that repeatedly bring the public discussion of gun control to a fever pitch, the topic has preoccupied citizens, public officials, and special interest groups for decades. In this thoroughly revised second edition of The Gun Debate: What Everyone Needs to Know® noted economist Philip J. Cook and political scientist Kristin A. Goss delve into the issues that Americans debate when they talk about guns. With a balanced and broad-ranging approach, the authors thoroughly cover the latest research, data, and developments on gun ownership, gun violence, the firearms industry, and the regulation of firearms. The authors also tackle sensitive issues such as the impact of gun violence on quality of life, the influence of exposure to gun violence on mental health, home production of guns, arming teachers, the effect of concealed weapons on crime rates, and the ability of authorities to disarm people who aren’t allowed to have a gun. No discussion of guns in the U.S. would be complete without consideration of the history, culture, and politics that drive the passion behind the debate. Cook and Goss deftly explore the origins of the American gun culture and the makeup of both the gun rights and gun control movements. Written in question-and-answer format, this updated edition brings the debate up-to-date for the current political climate under Trump and will help readers make sense of the ideologically driven statistics and slogans that characterize our national conversation on firearms. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in getting a clear view of the issues surrounding guns and gun policy in America.

Is There a Uniquely American Gun Culture? Yes. We know of no other country where firearms are as plentiful and as inextricably linked to individual identity and popular values as they are in the United States. Citizens of other nations possess and use guns,...

What Is the Gun Rights Movement? The gun rights movement consists of several hundred local, state, and national organizations that seek to promote a positive view of firearms in public life and to prevent and remove restrictions on gun ownership and use. Generally speaking,...

Every question about guns, gun violence, or gun policy is contentious. Basic facts—the annual number of gun transactions, or even the number of guns in private hands—are not known with any precision. Estimates of the costs and consequences of our nation’s gun laws are...

Who Can Be Trusted with a Gun? A simplistic but common understanding of crime is that the population can be divided neatly into two groups, good guys and bad guys. In this view, the bad guys commit crime unless they are locked up, and...

What Is a Gun? A more precise term for the subject of this book is firearm, which is a portable weapon that shoots projectiles from a metal tube, propelled at high speed by expanding gas that is generated by the explosion of gunpowder in...

How Large Is the Gun Industry in America? The gun industry itself is rather small by traditional measures. Only a handful of companies produce a significant number of firearms in the United States, and at most 150,000 people are employed in the industry—about 1...

How Many Americans Are Killed or Injured by Gunfire? Approximately 1 million Americans have died from gunshot wounds in homicides, accidents, and suicides during just the last three decades—more than all combat deaths in all wars in US history. In 2017, the National Center...

What Are the Basics of the US System of Gun Regulation? Gun regulations have a long history, stretching back to the colonial era. By and large, the laws have been enacted to secure the common defense, to protect individuals from harm, to assist law-enforcement...

Just one in ten nonfatal shootings in Chicago lead to an arrest. Unlike in fatal cases, gunshot victims who survive can often provide information of use in the police investigation. Nonetheless, nonfatal shooting cases in Chicago and elsewhere have much lower arrest rates than fatal cases, in part because most victims do not cooperate. We use data from the Chicago Inmate Survey (CIS) to analyze the potential value that gunshot-victim cooperation could have for increasing arrest rates. Half of CIS respondents reported they had been shot before. Very few cooperated with police investigations of these shootings, although at least half of them could have provided useful information. In fact, victims were more likely to speak with the police when they did not have any information on their shooter. Respondents explained their choice not to cooperate by reference to “street codes” against snitching, mistrust of the police, and the desire to retaliate against the shooter personally. If more shooting victims could be persuaded to cooperate, the police could solve more cases and hence be more effective in curtailing gun violence.

In "Consentability," Nancy Kim tackles an important and current topic—in an age of increasing options about how to live, die, and procreate, what limits, if any, should the law place on those choices? "Consentability" is a valuable resource for scholars and policymakers alike, summarizing the arguments for and against government intrusion on the choices of consenting adults with encyclopedic thoroughness. After weighing the arguments, Kim proposes that “bodily integrity exchanges” be permitted, subject to limitations. Although we agree with the general conclusion that bodily integrity exchanges should be permitted, we disagree with the specific limitations that treat the decisions of the poor as suspect, proposing instead methods of structuring payments and the consent process that would enhance the decision-making quality and reduce the possibility of impulsive decisions for all donors— not just those meeting an arbitrary definition of poverty. In any event, when it comes to a life-saving transaction like kidney donation, it is ethically important to consider the welfare of the recipient as well as the donor.

This paper examines causal sibling spillover effects among socially advantaged (e.g. white, two-parent, or non-poor school district) and disadvantaged families (e.g. black, single-mother, or poor school district) in elementary and middle school. Exploiting discontinuities in school starting age created by North Carolina school entry laws, we adopt a quasi-experimental approach and compare test scores of public school students whose older siblings were born shortly before and after the school entry cutoff date. We find that individuals whose older siblings were born shortly after the school entry cutoff date have significantly higher scores in middle school, and that this positive spillover effect is particularly large among disadvantaged families. We estimate that these spillover effects account for more than one third of observed statistical associations in test scores between siblings, and the magnitude is much larger for disadvantaged families than advantaged families. Our results suggest that educational spillover effects from older to younger siblings lead to greater divergence in academic outcomes between families.

We respond to the new article by Hayo, Neumeier, and Westphal (HNW), which is a critique of our 2006 article. The principal contribution of that article was to use a greatly improved proxy for gun prevalence to estimate the effect of gun prevalence on homicide rates. While the best available, our proxy, the ratio of firearms suicides to total suicides in a jurisdiction (FSS), is subject to measurement error which limits its use to larger jurisdictions that have enough suicides to stabilize the ratio. In this response, we report estimates for four different specifications and two data sets, the 200-county data and the data for the 50 states. We develop the claim that measurement error in FSS helps explain the observed pattern of results. Adopting the assumption that FSS follows a binomial process with a number of trials equal to the number of suicides, we characterize the relationship between measurement error and size of the jurisdiction, and thereby justify our conclusion that restricting the estimation to large jurisdictions reduces measurement error in FSS and hence the attenuation bias in the key coefficient estimate. We conclude that for the county-level data, the measurement error in FSS is of greater concern than using a specification that is flexible with respect to population. HNW focus on the latter but at the cost of increasing the effects of the former. We then demonstrate that the state-level data provide a robust case that more guns lead to more homicides.

Some law enforcement officials and other observers have asserted that theft is the primary source of guns to crime. In fact, the role of theft in supplying the guns used in robbery, assault, and murder is unknown, and current evidence provides little guidance about whether an effective program to reduce gun theft would reduce gun violence. The current article analyzes publicly available national data on gun theft together with a unique data set for Chicago. The results tend to support a conclusion that stolen guns play only a minor role in crime. First, publicly available data are used to calculate that thefts are only about 1% of all gun transactions nationwide. Second, an analysis of original data from Chicago demonstrates that less than 3% of crime guns recovered by the police have been reported stolen to the Chicago Police Department (CPD). If a gun is reported stolen, there is a 20% chance that it will be recovered, usually in conjunction with an arrest for illegal carrying. Less than half of those picked up with a stolen gun have a criminal record that includes violent offenses. Third, results from surveys of convicted criminals, both nationally and in Chicago, suggest that it is rare for respondents to have stolen the gun used in their most recent crime. The data on which these results are based have various shortcomings. A research agenda is proposed that would provide more certainty about the role of theft.

Intimate partner homicide (IPH) is a critical public health and safety issue in the USA. In this study, we determine the prevalence and correlates of perpetrator suicide and additional homicides following intimate partner homicide (IPH) in a large, diverse state with high quality data. We extract IPHs from the North Carolina Violent Death Reporting System for 2004–2013 and identify suicides and other homicides that were part of the same incidents. We analyze the likelihood (in odds ration form) of perpetrator suicide and additional homicides using logistic regression analysis. Almost all IPH-suicide cases were by men with guns (86.6%). Almost one-half of IPHs committed by men with guns ended with suicide. Male-perpetrated IPH incidents averaged 1.58 deaths if a gun was used, and 1.14 deaths otherwise. It is well-known that gun access increases the chance that a violent domestic relationship will end in death. The current findings demonstrate that gun IPH is often coupled with additional killings. As suicidal batterers will not be deterred from IPH by threat of punishment, the results underline the importance of preemption by limiting batterers’ access to guns.