Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2017 Dec;107(12):1923-1929.
doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2017.304057. Epub 2017 Oct 19.

Easiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States

Michael Siegel  1 , Ziming Xuan  1 , Craig S Ross  1 , Sandro Galea  1 , Bindu Kalesan  1 , Eric Fleegler  1 , Kristin A Goss  1
Affiliations

Easiness of Legal Access to Concealed Firearm Permits and Homicide Rates in the United States

Michael Siegel et al. Am J Public Health. 2017 Dec.

Abstract

Objectives: To examine the relation of "shall-issue" laws, in which permits must be issued if requisite criteria are met; "may-issue" laws, which give law enforcement officials wide discretion over whether to issue concealed firearm carry permits or not; and homicide rates.

Methods: We compared homicide rates in shall-issue and may-issue states and total, firearm, nonfirearm, handgun, and long-gun homicide rates in all 50 states during the 25-year period of 1991 to 2015. We included year and state fixed effects and numerous state-level factors in the analysis.

Results: Shall-issue laws were significantly associated with 6.5% higher total homicide rates, 8.6% higher firearm homicide rates, and 10.6% higher handgun homicide rates, but were not significantly associated with long-gun or nonfirearm homicide.

Conclusions: Shall-issue laws are associated with significantly higher rates of total, firearm-related, and handgun-related homicide.

PubMed Disclaimer

Comment in

References

    1. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting Systems: fatal injury reports. Available at: http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal_injury_reports.html. Accessed March 15, 2017.
    1. Donohue JJ. Guns, crime, and the impact of state right-to-carry laws. Fordham Law Rev. 2005;73:623–652.
    1. Lott JR. More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws. 3rd ed. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press; 2010.
    1. Miller M, Azrael D, Hemenway D. Firearms and violent death in the United States. In: Webster DW, Vernick JS, editors. Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy With Evidence and Analysis. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press; 2013.
    1. Siegel M, Pahn M, Xuan Z et al. Firearm-related laws in all 50 states, 1991–2016. Am J Public Health. 2017 epub ahead of print May 18, 2017. - PMC - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

LinkOut - more resources