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Over 40,000 people die by suicide annually in the U.S., and firearms are the most lethal suicide method. There is limited evidence on the effectiveness of many state-level policies on reducing firearm suicide. The objective of this study was to identify public policies that best predict state-level firearm suicide rates. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's WONDER system and the State Firearm Law Database, a longitudinal catalog of 134 firearm safety laws, were analyzed. The analysis included 1,450 observations from 50 states spanning 1991–2019. An ElasticNet regression technique was used to analyze the relationship between the policy variables and firearm suicide rates. Nested cross-validation was performed to tune the model hyperparameters. The study data were collected and analyzed in 2023 and 2024. The optimized ElasticNet approach had a mean squared error of 2.07, which was superior to nonregularized and dummy regressor models. The most influential policies for predicting the firearm suicide rate on average included laws requiring firearm dealers that sell handguns to have a state license and laws requiring individuals to obtain a permit to purchase a firearm through an approval process that includes law enforcement, among others. On average, firearm suicide rates were lower in state-years that had each influential policy active. Notably, these analyses were ecological and noncausal. However, this study was able to use a supervised machine learning approach with inherent feature selection and many policy types to make predictions using unseen data (i.e., balancing Lasso and Ridge regularization penalties). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article "Measuring the Market for Legal Firearms" provides an analysis of the legal firearm market in the United States, focusing on the dynamics and demographic composition. The authors utilize a publicly accessible dataset from the Firearms Records Bureau in Massachusetts to examine firearm transactions and demographics. They find that background checks can serve as a reliable proxy for firearm transactions and that the patterns in Massachusetts closely align with the rest of the country. The article also discusses the increase in firearm purchasing in 2019, which was further influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The authors identify that firearm demand is higher among men and in areas with a higher proportion of White residents and lower levels of education. They emphasize the significance of detailed transaction data for understanding firearm markets and compare the demographic patterns in Massachusetts to national survey data. [Extracted from the article]

Research summary: This study uses a combination of tract‐level and street network‐level analyses to examine: (1) the overall association between federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) and homicides, (2) the relationship between dealers with serious violations (such as selling to prohibited buyers or failing to record sales) and homicide, and (3) whether the dealer–homicide association is moderated by community disadvantage. Results replicate and confirm a relationship between dealers and homicides in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Importantly, however, we also find that proximity to noncompliant dealers specifically elevates the risk of lethal violence. Policy implications: We detail how a coordinated effort between federal, state, and local agencies to regulate firearm dealers and ensure that legal compliance can be instrumental in reducing gun violence. There is a clear need for increased oversight of gun dealers and more robust policies that hold negligent dealers accountable, including the necessary funding and regulatory manpower to enable regular auditing and support consistent follow‐up for noncompliant dealers. A comprehensive policy framework that supports supply‐side gun violence reduction should include additions to state‐level laws that require record keeping, videotaping and store security, and regular inspection for firearm dealers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines how legal and illegal firearm availability correspond to subsequent rates of firearm and non-firearm homicide in 226 U.S. cities from 2010 through 2017. We also assess how city-level economic disadvantage conditions this relationship. Results show that greater availability of illegal guns corresponds to future rates of firearm homicide while the rate of legal firearms dealers does not significantly influence firearm homicide. The association between firearm availability and homicide is conditional upon level of structural economic disadvantage. Our findings support efforts to decrease access to illegal firearms to reduce gun violence, especially among vulnerable and disadvantaged communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has taken a historic step in curbing gun violence by closing the gun show and online sales loophole. This loophole allowed firearms to change hands without proper scrutiny, posing a serious threat to public safety. Under the new regulation, individuals who sell firearms predominantly for profit will be required to obtain a license and conduct background checks, regardless of whether the sales occur online, at gun shows, or in brick-and-mortar stores. The response to this regulation has been overwhelming, with nearly 388,000 comments supporting the closure of this loophole. [Extracted from the article]

Objectives: Examine the spatial relationship between firearm dealers and shootings in Atlanta. Methods: We combine data from the Atlanta Police Department (APD), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), and the American Community Survey (ACS) to conduct a street network analysis from 2016 through 2018. We employ the Network Cross K Function to assess whether firearm dealers attract shootings in the city. We examine whether this spatial relationship differs by level of concentrated disadvantage in neighborhoods. Results: Without consideration of concentrated neighborhood disadvantage, firearm dealers and shootings are spatially unrelated to one another. Tract-level disadvantage influences the relationship between firearm dealers and shootings wherein dealers significantly attract shootings in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Conversely, shootings are located further from gun stores in non-disadvantaged communities. Shootings related to manslaughter and assault, but not robbery, are spatially associated with firearm dealers in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Conclusions: Building on prior research regarding firearm dealers and gun violence, we find support for an attraction effect in disadvantaged neighborhoods for certain types of shootings. We contextualize these findings within a broader discussion of how firearm dealers contribute to the complex ecology of local gun violence. This is important in light of federal policies and investments related to the prevention of and response to gun crime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current study provides a quantitative examination of 634 firearms used in 348 mass shootings (1966–2018) through a unique firearm-level database. Specifically, this work identifies the relationship between the types of firearms, methods of obtainment, firearm regulations, and incident outcomes. Findings indicate the most common firearms were handguns. They were often legally obtained by the perpetrator, from independently owned or operated federally licensed firearms dealers. Although handgun-specific regulations did not appear to impact the legality of firearms, assault weapons bans were associated with an increase in illegal obtainment. Furthermore, the presence of a semiautomatic rifle and a higher number of guns were associated with increased casualties. A discussion of key findings provides important implications and future directions for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Returning to the Great Gun Buying Spree of 2020 and 2021, gun buyers who do not come from the traditional gun owning demographic will not necessarily adopt a gun owner identity and become reliable political allies in the struggle for gun rights, as many in the pro-gun movement hope or expect. While support for new gun laws among gun owners has almost always been lukewarm ([15]; [24]), rarely are gun owners asked their views on such laws when they have personally been exposed to gun violence. Moreover, as the Pew Research Center found, Americans are divided into three groups of roughly equal size: those who currently own a gun, those who do not and could never see themselves owning a gun, and those who do not currently own a gun but could see themselves owning a gun in the future ([19]). Beyond appreciating the diversity of gun owners, gun scholars should do more to understand the complexity of gun ownership. [Extracted from the article]

Gun reform after a major mass shooting in Australia has largely been heralded as a success. However, understanding how compliance is encouraged among the gun owning community with a history of opposing regulation is currently limited in systematic sociological research. Gun dealers in particular appear to be important for understanding levels of compliance and possibilities for promoting compliance, as they are simultaneously involved in the compliance process and subject to its enforcement as members of the gun owning community. This paper positions gun dealers as street-level bureaucrats responsible for implementing gun regulations and uses a Compliance Motivation framework to explore the possible motivations for compliance and their role in promoting compliance within the gun owning community. Findings are based on 28 in-depth interviews with gun dealers across Australia and demonstrate the challenging but important role that gun dealer's play in enacting gun control policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the relationship between the concentration of legal firearm dealers and firearm homicide in 27 states. Using data collected from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), multilevel negative binomial models are used to estimate homicides perpetrated with a firearm. We assess separate models for White and Black victims across three homicide types. The results demonstrate that a greater concentration of firearm dealers in surrounding counties increases the risk for firearm homicide with White victims. However, a greater concentration of firearm dealers within counties increases the risk for intimate partner homicide when the victim is Black. Stronger gun laws decrease the risk of total and gang/drug-related gun homicide with White victims, and decrease intimate partner homicides across racial groups. The results suggest the need for policy and intervention strategies that account for diverse community and gun market dynamics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some states have enacted laws extending background checks on persons seeking to acquire a firearm to cover gun transfers among private persons, not just those involving licensed gun dealers. The same kind of law has been proposed at the federal level. The effectiveness of 'universal background checks' (UBCs) is dependent on how many people seeking to acquire a gun from a private party comply with the required background check. Data on background checks on attempted private transfers were combined with estimates of total private gun acquisitions (with or without checks), and the results indicated that only 10.6% of private transfers in Colorado in 2019 and 3.5% of those in Oregon in 2017 were subjected to a state-mandated background check. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The novels of Gina Apostol fall within the genre of postcolonial diasporic novels, which arise from a critical attitude of hope, and aspire to become sources of liberation, as discussed by Bill Ashcroft. They fall under Philippine-American literature as well, a literature that distinguishes itself from Asian-American literature because of its discussion of the Philippine colonial experience under the US, and thus lends itself to important reflections regarding hybridity, historiography, and solidarity. This article examines three novels of Apostol: Gun Dealers’ Daughter, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, and Insurrecto. In each of these works, Apostol explores the construction of the Filipina identity in relation to the Philippines, the United States, Philippine history, and Philippine-American relations. These novels illustrate the richness of Philippine-American literature, and its possibilities of liberating Philippine and American narratives, identities, and possibilities. They show the vibrant importance of literature in questioning history and show us how reading against the grain is a skill needed in unearthing narratives about US colonialism in the Philippines and the Philippine nation-state’s oppressions of its own people. In the discussion of hybridity, this article employs the theories of Homi Bhabha and Gloria Anzaldua; in the discussion of historiography, it uses the theories of historiographic metafiction, as developed by Linda Hutcheon, as well as theories regarding counter-memory and suprahistorical history by Michel Foucault. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Firearm dealer density is correlated with firearm interpersonal violence, but no quasi-experimental studies have assessed whether changes in dealer density lead to changes in firearm self-harm injuries and deaths. We assessed whether openings of firearm dealers are associated with short-term changes in local firearm self-harm injury rates. Methods: We identified 718 openings of firearm dealers in California using licensing data, 2014–2016. We defined exposure regions based on aggregations of zip codes defined by proximity to firearm dealer openings and matched each opening to four control regions on time and determinants of firearm injury. We applied a differences-in-differences approach to compare rates of firearm self-harm, in the month before and after each opening, in places with and without openings. Results: Firearm dealer openings were not associated with acute, local changes in firearm self-harm relative to places without openings (ratio of rate ratio: 0.90 [95% CI:0.68–1.19]). Results were robust to numerous sensitivity and secondary analyses. Conclusion: We found no associations of firearm dealer openings with acute, localized firearm self-harm deaths and injuries. Our focus on acute, local effects; broad availability of dealers and firearms; durability of firearms; or strong confounding-control may explain these null findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the threat posed by Registered Firearms Dealers (RFDs) in the UK, based on an analysis of 12 case studies of dealers found to have committed serious criminal acts and 29 semi-structured interviews with law enforcement agencies and representatives of 'shooting' organizations. The analysis reveals a number of concerns with the regulatory and enforcement regimes surrounding RFDs. Our research demonstrates that RFDs have the capability and opportunity to pose a threat to public security but a key challenge remains to identify and assess the likelihood of RFD criminal intent. At the time of writing, there were no standardized structured methodologies to identify intent during the RFD licencing process. However, via a novel 'Indicators and Warnings' analysis, we provide a basis for how this might be undertaken. The article concludes with a discussion about how the potential threat posed by a small minority of RFDs might be reduced. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]