By Emily Ann Greene-Colozzi  and Jason R. Silva

In this commentary, we propose a unifying public mass shooting definition that captures the generally conceptualized phenomenon but also expands the inclusion to all incidents regardless of casualty count. We suggest that public mass shootings be broken down into four outcome categories – completed, attempted, failed, and foiled – which have unique incident outcomes but share a common thread of mass intent. We argue for the importance of a no-minimum casualty count definition (thus including zero casualties) that emphasizes mass intent rather than the completion of the shooting. We highlight the value of and rationale for this definition by discussing the limitations of current victim criteria, and we conclude with a proposed strategy that emphasizes objective indicators of mass intent.

Journal of Mass Violence Research, 2022 Volume: 1, Issue: 2, September 2022: Pages 27-41 

By  Emily Ann Greene-Colozzi

This dissertation used environmental theoretical frameworks to understand how public mass shooting incidents are impacted by aspects of the crime situation and opportunity. Predatory, public shootings perpetrated by individuals with evidence of mass intent were examined in the United States between 1966 and 2019. This project progressed in several distinct steps with discrete aims: (1) establish an open source database of public mass shooting incidents meeting definitional criteria; (2) perform statistical analysis, including latent class analysis, regression modeling, and structural equational modeling to assess research questions; and (3) perform comparative case studies and crime script analysis to assess situational crime prevention failure or success in eight purposively selected cases. Two research questions, guided by pathway to violence literature, rational choice perspective, and situational crime prevention, were examined: (1) can public mass shooting perpetrators be sorted into meaningful classes according to preparatory and warning signs behaviors?; and (2) how do the built environment and situational guardianship structure of the public mass shooting location influence incident casualties and severity outcomes? Results from this mixed methods study indicate that public mass shooting perpetrators fall into three distinct behavioral classes characterized by different probabilities of warning signs behaviors. Next, there is a protective role of holistic situational crime prevention for mitigating harm of public mass shooting incidents. Protective environmental design exerted a contradictory effect on incident outcomes, mediated by perpetrator and victim behaviors during the shooting. Case studies revealed that failure is often due to human error in implementation of established SCP protocols, rather than a lack of SCP protocols. Implications for prevention and harm mitigation are discussed.

New York: CUNY, 2022. 365p.

By The Violence Policy Center

 Guns are rarely used to kill criminals or stop crimes. In 2019, across the nation there were only 316 justifiable homicides involving a private citizen using a firearm reported to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program as detailed in its Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR). That same year, there were 9,610 criminal gun homicides tallied in the SHR. In 2019, for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 30 criminal homicides. And this ratio, of course, does not take into account the tens of thousands of lives ended in gun suicides or unintentional shootings that year. This report analyzes, on both the national and state levels, the use of firearms in justifiable homicides. It also details, using the best data available on the national level, the total number of times guns are used for self-defense by the victims of both attempted and completed violent crimes and property crimes whether or not the use of the gun by the victim resulted in a fatality. Key findings of this report, as detailed in its accompanying tables, include the following. JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES WITH A GUN COMPARED TO CRIMINAL GUN HOMICIDES n In 2019, there were only 316 justifiable homicides involving a gun. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, there were only 1,453 justifiable homicides involving a gun. [For additional information see Table One: Firearm Justifiable Homicides by State, 2015-2019. In In 2019, 17 states reported no justifiable homicides (Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, and Wyoming). [For additional information see Table One: Firearm Justifiable Homicides by State, 2015-2019.] n In 2019 for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 30 criminal homicides. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, for every justifiable homicide in the United States involving a gun, guns were used in 34 criminal homicides. [For additional information see Table Two: Circumstances for Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] RELATIONSHIP OF PERSON KILLED TO SHOOTER IN JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES BY FIREARM n In 2019, 40.5 percent (128 of 316) of persons killed in a firearm justifiable homicide were known to the shooter, 38.9 percent (123) were strangers, and in 20.6 percent (65) the relationship was unknown. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, 37.6 percent (546 of 1,453) of persons killed in a firearm justifiable homicide were known to the shooter, 44.0 percent (640) were strangers, and in 18.4 percent (267) the relationship was unknown. [For additional information see Table Three: Relationship of Person Killed to Shooter in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] SEX OF SHOOTER IN JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES BY FIREARM n In 2019, of the 316 firearm justifiable homicides, 87.0 percent (275) were committed by men, 10.8 percent (34) were committed by women, and in seven cases (2.2 percent) the sex of the shooter was unknown. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, of the 1,453 firearm justifiable homicides, 88.2 percent (1,282) were committed by men, 10.0 percent (145) were committed by women, and in 26 cases (1.8 percent) the sex of the shooter was unknown. [For additional information see Table Four: Sex of Shooter in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] SEX OF SHOOTER AND PERSON KILLED IN JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES BY FIREARM n In 2019, of the 316 firearm justifiable homicides, 96.8 percent (306) of the persons shot and killed were men and 3.2 percent (10) were women. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, of the 1,453 firearm justifiable homicides, 97.1 percent (1,411) of the persons shot and killed were men and 2.9 percent (42) were women. [For additional information see Table Five: Sex of Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] In 2019, 98.2 percent (270) of the persons killed by a male with a gun in a justifiable homicide were male and 1.8 percent (five) were female. For the five year period 2015 through 2019, 97.4 percent (1,249) of the persons killed by a male with a gun in a justifiable homicide were male and 2.6 percent (33) were female. [For additional information see Table Six: Sex of Shooter and Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] n In 2019, 85.3 percent (29) of the persons killed by a female with a gun in a justifiable homicide incident were male and 14.7 percent (five) were female. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, 94.5 percent (137) of the persons killed by a female with a gun in a justifiable homicide incident were male and 5.5 percent (eight) were female. [For additional information see Table Six: Sex of Shooter and Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] RACE OF SHOOTER IN JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES BY FIREARM n In 2019, 48.7 percent (154) of the shooters who committed justifiable homicides were white, 47.5 percent (150) were Black, 0.6 percent (two) were Asian, and 3.2 percent (10) were of unknown race.7 For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, 46.5 percent (676) of the shooters who committed justifiable homicides were white, 48.0 percent (697) were Black, 2.5 percent (37) were Asian, 0.5 percent (seven) were American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 2.5 percent (36) were of unknown race. [For additional information see Table Seven: Race of Shooter in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] RACE OF PERSON KILLED IN JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES BY FIREARM n In 2019, 41.1 percent (130) of persons killed with a gun in a justifiable homicide were white, 57.6 percent (182) were Black, 0.9 percent (three) were Asian, and 0.3 percent (one) were of unknown race. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, 37.4 percent (543) of persons killed with a gun in a justifiable homicide were white, 60.8 percent (884) were Black, 1.0 percent (15) were Asian, 0.6 percent (eight) were American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 0.2 percent (three) were of unknown race. [For additional information see Table Eight: Race of Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] n In 2019, 70.1 percent (108) of the persons killed with a gun in a justifiable homicide by a white shooter were white, 28.6 percent (44) were Black, 0.6 percent (one) were Asian, and 0.6 percent (one) were of unknown race. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, 67.0 percent (453) of the persons killed by white shooters were white, 30.3 percent (205) were Black, 1.5 percent (10) were Asian, 0.7 percent (five) were American Indian/Alaskan Native, and 0.4 percent (three) were of unknown race. [For additional information see Table Nine: Race of Shooter and Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] n In 2019, 10.7 percent (16) of the persons killed with a gun in a justifiable homicide by a Black shooter were white, 88.7 percent (133) were Black, and 0.7 percent (two) were Asian. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, 9.0 percent (63) of the persons killed by Black shooters were white, 90.7 percent (632) were Black, and 0.3 percent (two) were Asian. [For additional information see Table Nine: Race of Shooter and Person Killed in Justifiable Homicides by Firearm, 2015-2019.] TYPES OF FIREARMS USED IN JUSTIFIABLE HOMICIDES n In 2019, firearms were used in 86.1 percent of justifiable homicides (316 of 367). Of these: 72.2 percent (228) were handguns; 1.9 percent (six) were shotguns; 4.4 percent (14) were rifles; 21.2 percent (67) were firearms, type not stated; and, 0.3 percent (one) were other gun. For the five-year period 2015 through 2019, firearms were used in 84.2 percent of justifiable homicide incidents (1,453 of 1,725). Of these: 74.4 percent (1,081) were handguns; 3.2 percent (47) were shotguns; 2.9 percent (42) were rifles; 19.1 percent (277) were firearms, type not stated; and, 0.4 percent (six) were other gun. [For additional information see Table Ten: Weapon Used in Justifiable Homicides, 2015-2019 and Table Eleven: Type of Firearms Used in Justifiable Homicides, 2015-2019.]    

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2023. 29p.

By Everytown Research and Policy

On average, more than once per day in the United States, a tragedy occurs where a perpetrator kills an intimate partner, and then dies by suicide themself. Of these incidents, 93 percent involved a gun, and 95 percent had women killed by their male partners. To document the circumstances and bring attention to the effects of these incidents, in 2024, Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund conducted focus groups with 43 survivors of intimate partner homicide-suicide. The focus group participants were people who survived an attempted intimate partner homicide-suicide, family members, and individuals closely involved with the incident. Through these survivor interviews, we show the importance of understanding the risk factors for intimate partner homicide-suicide and ensuring effective implementation of laws that disarm domestic abusers. The focus groups were approved by the Pearl IRB Institutional Review Board (IRB) to protect the rights, welfare, and confidentiality of participants. Participants in this study were recruited from Everytown for Gun Safety’s database of volunteers and through partner organizations that support survivors of gun violence. Participants received IRB-approved recruitment materials, such as the flyer with the study information, through email and text message. All participants signed a consent form, which included their rights, such as the ability to withdraw from the study at any time. In addition, the researchers provided mental health resources and a licensed clinician on staff with Everytown was on the call to provide emotional support for participants. Following the focus group, every participant received a $25 prepaid Mastercard gift card for their participation in the study. Before the focus groups, participants were asked to complete a survey with demographic and experience questions regarding their race, gender, sexuality, and geographic location in the United States. Participants then attended one of the five focus groups conducted by the researchers. Previous studies have shown that three focus groups are sufficient to capture nearly all themes. Thus, five focus groups provided an adequate sample size to identify a range of themes, and researchers documented theoretical saturation5 at this stage. A focus group methodology was chosen as the most appropriate means to explore gun violence survivors’ experiences and thoughts on trauma. This methodology involves asking a group of participants open-ended questions in a supportive environment that encourages people to share their experiences and views. There are many advantages to focus group research. The method can yield detailed, in-depth information to study social processes, provide insights into complex social phenomena, and facilitate openness among participants as they provide their language to describe their experiences—this is particularly relevant for survivors who share experiences of gun violence. Thus, the focus group approach was used to gain a deeper understanding of the intersections of gun violence and trauma. All focus groups were conducted by a trained researcher and a trauma-informed expert who has some training and experience in running focus groups. The focus groups were conducted and recorded on Zoom. Each participant was asked to rename themselves to protect their anonymity. Each session was also attended by an assistant who observed the focus group to aid in subsequent analysis. Focus groups lasted approximately one hour to one hour and 15 minutes. Data collected from the focus groups were professionally transcribed and then professionally analyzed using Nvivo qualitative coding software. A line-by-line analysis was completed to develop theoretical codes, and three to four focus groups were analyzed at a time to determine themes, categories, and connections across categories and themes. Following the approach of researchers Tiggemann, Gardiner, and Slater, each theme from the focus groups was rated on frequency, intensity, extensiveness, specificity, and level of agreement. These approaches subjected the data to a systematic analysis of themes and concepts.

Washington, DC: Everytown for Gun Safety, 2024.

By Lieba Faier 

 In The Banality of Good, Lieba Faier examines why contemporary efforts to curb human trafficking have fallen so spectacularly short of their stated goals despite well-funded campaigns by the United Nations and its member-state governments. Focusing on Japan’s efforts to enact the UN’s counter-trafficking protocol and assist Filipina migrants working in Japan’s sex industry, Faier draws from interviews with NGO caseworkers and government officials to demonstrate how these efforts disregard the needs and perspectives of those they are designed to help. She finds that these campaigns tend to privilege bureaucracies and institutional compliance, resulting in the compromised quality of life, repatriation, and even criminalization of human trafficking survivors. Faier expands on Hannah Arendt’s idea of the “banality of evil” by coining the titular “banality of good” to describe the reality of the UN’s fight against human trafficking. Detailing the protocols that have been put in place and evaluating their enactment, Faier reveals how the continued failure of humanitarian institutions to address structural inequities and colonial history ultimately reinforces the violent status quo they claim to be working to change.

Durham, NC; London:  Duke University Press,  2024

By Mitchell L. Doucette, Cassandra K. Crifasi, Alex D. McCourt, Julie A. Ward, Rebecca L. Fix, Daniel W. Webster

Research Summary: We utilized the synthetic difference-in-difference method to estimate the impact of adopting a permitless Concealed Carry Weapons (CCW) law on rates of assaults, robberies, and homicides committed with a firearm and by other means, as well as weapons arrests, from 1981 to 2019. We stratified permitless CCW laws by whether they previously prohibited violent misdemeanants from obtaining a CCWpermitorpreviouslyrequiredlive firearm training to obtain a permit prior to law adoption. Findings robust to sensitivity analyses suggest that states that lost a training requirement to obtain a CCW permit had 21 additional gun assaults per 100,000 population (SE =5.2) (32% increase). Policy Implications: In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen, states should implement CCW permitting law provisions that may reduce the risk of firearm violence. Requiring live firearm training prior to carry aconcealedweaponmayattenuatenegativehealth impacts of deregulation associated with permitless CCW laws. 

Criminology and Public Policy, 2023

By Eli Ben-Michael , Mitchell L. Doucette , Avi Feller , Alexander D. McCourt, and Elizabeth A. Stuart

Gun violence is a critical public health and safety concern in the United States. There is considerable variability in policy proposals meant to curb gun violence, ranging from increasing gun availability to deter potential assailants (e.g., concealed carry laws or arming school teachers) to restricting access to firearms (e.g., universal background checks or banning assault weapons). Many studies use state-level variation in the enactment of these policies in order to quantify their effect on gun violence. In this paper, we discuss the policy trial emulation framework for evaluating the impact of these policies, and show how to apply this framework to estimating impacts via difference-in-differences and synthetic controls when there is staggered adoption of policies across jurisdictions, estimating the impacts of right-to-carry laws on violent crime as a case study. 

Unpublished paper 2024.

By Brittni Lambing, Ron Frandsen, Jennifer Karberg, and Joseph Durso

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (Brady Act) requires a background check on an applicant for a firearm purchase from a dealer who is a Federal Firearms Licensee (FFL). During the permanent Brady Act period, from 1999 through 2018, background checks were conducted on over 237 million applicants for firearm transfers or permits. During this period, nearly 3.5 million applications for firearm transfers or permits were denied by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) or by state and local agencies. This report summarizes the number of applications for firearm transfers and permits, denials that resulted from background checks, reasons for denial, rates of denial, appeals of denials, and arrests of denied persons during the permanent Brady Act period. Statistics are presented at the FBI, state, and local levels. The report also provides a summary of significant changes in federal and state laws and regulations related to firearm sales. Statistical highlights are presented in the body of the report, and complete details are included in an appendix.

St. Louis, MO: Regional Justice Information Service (REJIS), 2024. 29p.

By Kerry Mulligan and Daniela Gilbert

 Vera’s Redefining Public Safety initiative works with local governments and community leaders to build community-centered and coordinated approaches to creating safety. This includes expanding non-police response to 911 crisis calls, investing in civilian-led approaches to violence prevention and intervention, and building and institutionalizing public safety infrastructures outside the criminal legal system. To be sustainable and effective, these infrasctructures should adopt a public health framework, leverage data-informed decision-making, and focus on community-centered strategies. Gun violence problem analysis (GVPA) can be an important component of this work. Traditionally, GVPA refers to the analysis of data on fatal and non-fatal shootings to establish a common understanding of local violence dynamics and inform the development and implementation of violence reduction strategies.1 Although there is variability in the scope and process of GVPA, it generally involves identifying the characteristics of, and relationships between, people involved in recent fatal and non-fatal shootings. People involved in shootings are, by definition, at greatest risk of future interpersonal violence and gun violence. Therefore, jurisdictions generally use GVPA to inform near-term violence intervention strategies— including group violence intervention strategies, focused deterrence, and fellowship/mentorship programs that focus on people at highest risk of violence.2 This concept paper proposes an expanded version of GVPA that can inform the system changes and strategies necessary for more comprehensive and sustained improvements in public safety. Like a traditional GVPA, this expanded approach analyzes data to guide the development. Expanded gun violence problem analysis can help develop interventions to reduce gender-based violence and violence associated with economic and housing insecurity, inform prevention and system transformation, and prioritize capacity building for sustainability. of community violence reduction strategies. However, unlike traditional GVPA, the expanded approach also illuminates the social-structural factors that drive violence, such as economic and housing insecurity. While traditional GVPA is designed to inform strategies for near-term community violence intervention, this expanded approach can help develop longer-term strategies to support violence prevention efforts. These include strategies to improve access to economic opportunity, housing, and healthcare. It also prioritizes comprehensive strategy development and capacity-building for sustainability.  

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2024. 4p.

By Vaughn Crandall, et al.

A study on the factors behind rising gun violence in the Bay Area & our recommended approach for tackling it. Three primary factors are contributing to the Bay Area’s gun violence challenge: the impact of gentrification, a poorly understood regional violence problem, and a lack of formal mechanisms to support regional coordination across public safety departments and service providers. Cities can effectively reduce this violence in the near term. To do so, we recommend that regional leaders: 1. Develop a Regional Intervention Strategy by identifying a convener who can incubate a regional community violence intervention approach. 2. Formalize Communication and Information Sharing Between Oakland & San Francisco Public Safety Providers by having each department systematically share information. 3. Improve Cross-City Coordination to understand and address cross-city violence issues. 4. Utilize Existing Infrastructure by leveraging the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center. 5. Monitor California Highway Patrol Capacity to ensure they can investigate freeway homicides and shootings. 1 2 In recent years, there has been a sustained increase in shootings and gun homicides - with an increase in highway shootings in particular - in the Bay Area. This has implications for the cities of Oakland, Stockton, San Francisco, and Antioch. However, there has been little public study conducted to-date into these increases. This report analyzes the Bay Area’s regional violence dynamics from a variety of data sources to provide crucial information about the factors behind this growing public safety concern. Using this data, it provides recommendations to regional leaders on how best to tackle this issue and improve public safety in the near-term. PURPOSE OF THE REPORT:  In recent years, there has been a sustained increase in shootings and gun homicides - with an increase in highway shootings in particular - in the Bay Area. This has implications for the cities of Oakland, Stockton, San Francisco, and Antioch. However, there has been little public study conducted to-date into these increases. This report analyzes the Bay Area’s regional violence dynamics from a variety of data sources to provide crucial information about the factors behind this growing public safety concern. Using this data, it provides recommendations to regional leaders on how best to tackle this issue and improve public safety in the near-term 

Oakland, CA: California Partnership for Safe Communities, 2023. 13p.

 By Vaughn Crandall, et al.

Bakersfield is a large and rapidly growing city in the Central Valley that has an exceptionally high need for effective violence intervention and prevention strategies. This is supported by crime and violence data; health, social and economic indicators. Gun violence in particular is a serious, long-term problem in Bakersfield, with rates double of those of the state and national overall. In many neighborhoods, a homicide or non-fatal injury shooting takes place almost every day and has a significant negative impact on community health and wellbeing. Based on homicide records from 2014-2019, as well as the problem analysis undertaken as part of this project, high risk social networks (gangs, crews, high risk street groups, etc.) appear to play a major role in community violence. The risk of violence; poor health, educational and economic indicators; and strengthening community-police relations have been real concerns in Bakersfield for many years. While Bakersfield has a higher poverty rate than many California cities; it has a somewhat lower overall violent crime rate but a particular problem with gun and gang violence. The State of California’s CALVIP Grant program presented a much-needed opportunity to take on this difficult challenge in a more comprehensive and evidence-informed way. This opportunity allowed Bakersfield city and community leaders to analyze the dynamics of violence in Bakersfield, and the needs of young people at highest risk of involvement in violence, so they could more effectively intervene and break the cycle of violence. Bakersfield’s CalVIP-funded GVRS strategy combines concepts from several evidence-informed strategies: the group violence reduction strategy (also known as focussed deterrence) is a primary framework, with elements of police-community trust building (through procedural justice) and significant investment in building community violence intervention (CVI) capacity. Focussed deterrence is supported by a significant body of research evidence; while community violence intervention and procedural justice are also supported by growing research evidence (Abt 2017, Braga 2018, Buggs 2022). This combined strategy seeks to reduce violence citywide while providing support and opportunities for community members at highest risk of violence. Together, the city and community partners also work to strengthen community-police relations with residents and neighborhoods who are directly impacted by violence

Oakland, CA: California Partnership for Safe Communities, 2023. 11p.

By Vaughn Crandall, Reygan Cunningham, and Robin Campbell

Gun violence inflicts a grim toll on our nation. Every single day, 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children and teens in the U.S. Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black men under 44 and the second leading cause of death for Latino men. Both African American and Latinx communities are impacted by gun violence at rates that far exceed those of white communities. The economic consequences have been calculated to exceed $550 billion annually. Gun violence inflicts a grim toll on our nation. Every single day, 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children and teens in the U.S.1 Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black men under 44 and the second leading cause of death for Latino men.23 Both African American and Latinx communities are impacted by gun violence at rates that far exceed those of white communities.4 The economic consequences have been calculated to exceed $550 billion annually.5 California’s 2023 passage of the Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Act, colloquially referred to as AB 28, represents the first time that a US state resolved to tax the gun industry in order to fund programs that would address community gun violence. By imposing a modest 11% excise tax on gun sellers and manufacturers, this historic policy will channel nearly $160 million per year to a range of programs supported by the state’s Gun Violence Prevention and School Safety Fund. The largest share of this funding, $75 million, is for the California Violence Intervention and Prevention (CalVIP) grant program, focused on community violence intervention, an increasingly effective field of public safety work that engages people who are most likely to be victims or perpetrators of gun violence to reduce their risk of harm. AB 28 was an audacious idea. It was also a longshot for California, because the state requires a two-thirds majority on any legislation that would increase taxes. This report is an overview of how a diverse coalition of advocates, local practitioners, and policy organizations (The CalVIP Coalition) conceived of, and passed, transformative legislation to establish community violence intervention (CVI) as a permanent part of the state’s public safety infrastructure, including a permanent and dedicated source of public funding. A case study for others interested in pursuing similar strategies, this report concludes with a summary of key elements that contributed to this landmark initiative’s success.  

Oakland, CA: California Partnership for Safe Communities, 2024. 18p.

By Mitchell L. Doucette, Alexander D. McCourt, Cassandra K. Crifasi, and Daniel W. Webster

The United States faces rapidly rising rates of violent crime committed with firearms. In this study, we sought to estimate the impact of changes to laws that regulate the concealed carrying of weapons (concealed-carry weapons (CCW) laws) on violent crimes committed with a firearm.We used augmented synthetic control models and random-effects meta-analysis to estimate state-specific effects andtheaverageeffectofadoptingshall-issue CCW permitting laws on rates of 6 violent crimes: homicide with a gun, homicide by other means, aggravated assault with a gun, aggravated assault with a knife, robbery with a gun, and robbery with a knife. The average effects were stratified according to the presence or absence of several shall-issue permit provisions. Adoption of a shall-issue CCW law was associated with a 9.5% increase in rates of assault with a firearm during the first 10 years after law adoption and was associated with an 8.8% increase in rates of homicide by other means. When shall-issue laws allowed violent misdemeanants to acquire CCW permits, the laws were associated with higher rates of gun assaults. It is likely that adoption of shall-issue CCW laws has increased rates of nonfatal violent crime committed with firearms. Harmful effects of shall-issue laws are most clear when provisions intended to reduce risks associated with civilian gun-carrying are absent. 

American Journal of Epidemiology 192(3) 2023.   

By Cassandra K. Crifasi, Julie Ward, Alex D. McCourt,  Daniel Webster & Mitchell L. Doucette 

 Background

Fatal and nonfatal shootings by police are a public health issue that warrants additional research. Prior research has documented associations between fatal shootings by police and gun ownership, legislative strength scores, and lax concealed carry weapons laws. Despite research on other firearm-related outcomes, little is known about the impact of permit-to-purchase (PTP) laws on shootings by police. We generated counts of fatal and nonfatal OIS from the Gun Violence Archive from 2015 to 2020. We conducted cross-sectional regression modeling with a Poisson distribution and robust standard errors. In addition to PTP, we included several state-level policies that may be associated with shootings by police: comprehensive background check only (CBC-only) laws, concealed carry licensing laws, stand your ground laws, violent misdemeanor prohibitions, and extreme risk protection orders (ERPO). We controlled for state-level demographic characteristics and included a population offset to generate incidence rate ratios (IRR).

Findings

PTP laws were associated with a 28% lower rate in shootings by police [IRR = 0.72, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.64–0.81]. Shall Issue (IRR = 1.34, 95% CI 1.17–1.53) and Permitless (IRR = 1.61, 95% CI 1.35–1.91) concealed carry laws and CBC-only laws (IRR = 1.12, 95% CI 1.01–1.25) were associated with higher rates of shootings by police. Stand your ground, violent misdemeanor prohibitions, and ERPO laws were not associated with shootings by police.

Conclusions

Our study found that PTP laws were associated with significantly lower rates of shootings by police. Removing restrictions on civilian concealed carry was associated with significantly higher rates. State-level firearm policies may be a lever to address shootings by police.

Injury Epidemiology,  10, 28 (2023).

By : Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

* Suicide was identified using ICD-10 underlying cause-of-death codes U03, X60–X84, and Y87.0. Firearm-involved suicide was identified using ICD-10 underlying cause-of-death codes X72–X74.† Homicide was identified using ICD-10 underlying cause-of-death codes U01–U02, X85–Y09, and Y87.1. Firearm-involved homicide was identified using ICD-10 underlying cause-of-death codes U01.4 and X93–X95.

Top

In 2022, among persons aged ≥10 years, the percentage of suicide deaths involving a firearm was lowest among persons aged 25–44 years (47.4%) and highest among persons aged ≥65 years (70.6%). The percentage of homicide deaths that involved a firearm was highest among persons aged 10–24 years and then decreased with age, from 92.2% among those aged 10–24 years to 44.5% among those aged ≥65 years.

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2024;73:828. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7337a3

By Jennifer L. Behrens & Joseph Blocher

At a time when Second Amendment doctrine has taken a strongly historical turn and gun rights advocates have increasingly argued that gun regulation itself is historically racist, it is especially important that historical claims about race and guns be taken seriously and vetted appropriately. In this short article, we evaluate the often-repeated claim that the nickname “Saturday Night Special” derives from the phrase “[n___er]-town Saturday night.” Based on a review of newspapers, legislative debates, dictionaries, slang compendiums, and other sources, we find no historical support for this claim. It apparently appeared for the first time, unsourced, in a 1976 article and has been repeated in dozens of briefs and scholarly sources since. Advocates and scholars should stop invoking this unsupported origin story, which if anything serves as a cautionary example of how citations can cascade. The most plausible origin of the nickname as it related to cheap firearms stemmed from the turn of the century when the phrase “Saturday night special” was already in common usage with connotations of cheapness and convenience. 

108 Minnesota Law Review Headnotes 283 (2024) 

By Patrick Sharkey , Megan Kang

Background: The recent rise of gun violence may lead to the perception that the problem of gun mortality in the United States is intractable. This article provides evidence to counter this perception by bringing attention to the period spanning from 1991 to 2016 when most US states implemented more restrictive gun laws. Over this period, the United States experienced a decline in household gun ownership, and gun-related deaths fell sharply.

Methods: The main analysis examines the conditional association between the change in gun regulations at the state level and the change in gun mortality from 1991 to 2016. We include a range of robustness checks and two instrumental variable analyses to allow for stronger causal inferences.

Results: We find strong, consistent evidence supporting the hypothesis that restrictive state gun policies reduce overall gun deaths, homicides committed with a gun, and suicides committed with a gun. Each additional restrictive gun regulation a given state passed from 1991 to 2016 was associated with -0.21 (95% confidence interval = -0.33, -0.08) gun deaths per 100,000 residents. Further, we find that specific policies, such as background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases, were associated with lower overall gun death rates, gun homicide rates, and gun suicide rates.

Conclusion: State regulations passed from 1991 to 2016 were associated with substantial reductions in gun mortality. We estimate that restrictive state gun policies passed in 40 states from 1991 to 2016 averted 4297 gun deaths in 2016 alone, or roughly 11% of the total gun deaths that year.

Epidemiology. 2023 Nov 1;34(6):786-792. 2023 Sep 26.

By Vaughn Crandall, Reygan Cunningham, and Robin Campbell

Gun violence inflicts a grim toll on our nation. Every single day, 120 Americans are killed with guns and more than 200 are shot and wounded. Gun violence is the leading cause of death of children and teens in the U.S. Homicide is the leading cause of death for Black men under 44 and the second leading cause of death for Latino men. Both African American and Latinx communities are impacted by gun violence at rates that far exceed those of white communities. The economic consequences have been calculated to exceed $550 billion annually.

Oakland:  California Partnership for Safe Communities, 2024. 15p

By Brian A. Jackson, Melissa Kay Diliberti, Pauline Moore, Heather L. Schwartz

Shooting incidents at kindergarten through grade 12 (K–12) schools in the United States, including mass attacks like the one that killed 19 students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, have sparked calls to increase security or adopt altogether new approaches to school safety. These approaches include allowing teachers or staff to carry firearms in some schools. To learn what teachers across the United States think about school safety generally and about specific proposals to enhance safety in schools, such as teacher-carry policies, RAND researchers administered a survey to a randomly sampled set of 973 K–12 teachers using the American Teacher Panel. The survey focused on teachers' views of safety in their schools, including their main safety concerns, perceptions of security measures in place, the effect of those measures on school climate, and whether they were concerned for their own safety and that of their students. On the specific issue of firearms in school, the survey asked whether allowing teachers to carry firearms would make schools more or less safe and whether teachers would personally carry a firearm if given the choice to do so. Findings note that teachers, like the U.S. population as a whole, are divided about armed teachers at school: Fifty-four percent of respondents reported believing that teachers carrying firearms will make schools less safe, 20 percent reported believing that it will make schools safer, and the final 26 percent reported feeling that it would make schools neither more nor less safe.

Key Findings

• Similar to older and state-specific surveys, this survey found that teachers are divided about arming teachers at school. Fifty-four percent of the nationally representative sample of teachers reported believing that teachers carrying firearms will make schools less safe, 20 percent reported believing that it will make schools safer, and the final 26 percent reported feeling that it would make schools neither more nor less safe.

• White teachers were more likely than Black teachers to feel that teachers carrying firearms would make schools safer, and male teachers in rural schools were most likely to say that they would personally carry a firearm at school if allowed.

• All told, about 550,000 of the country's 3 million K–12 teachers would choose to carry a firearm at school if allowed.

• Regardless of gender or race, roughly half of teachers felt that physical security measures at their school (which most commonly include locks, ID badges, cameras, and security staff) positively affected the school climate. Only 5 percent of teachers felt that their schools' physical security measures had a negative effect on school climate.

• Despite the growth in gun violence, bullying — rather than active shooters — was teachers' most common safety concern.

Recommendations

• Study early adopter schools or school districts that have more-expansive versions of teacher-carry programs to understand how they work in practice.

• Conduct a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of programs allowing teacher-carry to rigorously assess their outcomes.

• Develop risk analysis approaches to inform school safety and security planning that balance frequent, lower-level forms of school violence, such as bullying, and lower-probability, extreme forms of school violence, such as shootings.

• Develop a deeper understanding of the sources of teachers' safety concerns.

• Identify how fears of victimization and of specific safety concerns contribute to teacher and principal turnover, and to student enrollment, attendance, and academic performance.

• Better characterize the combined effects of school security measures and strategies on safety, school climate, and student attendance and academic performance.

• Take the pulse of parents, teachers, administrators, and students about school safety measures to disaggregate by type of community and to triangulate their views on school safety.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND,  2023.

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By David Hemenway, Chloe Shawah, Elizabeth Lites 

Background: In the past decade, most people who buy and own guns are doing so for self-defense. Yet little is known about actual defensive gun use in the USA.

Methods: To discover what information newspaper articles and local news reports might add, we read the news reports of defensive use incidents assembled by the Gun Violence Archive. We examined a sample of more than a quarter of the incidents from 2019, the last year before the pandemic. We examined all cases from four months-January, April, July, and October. We created a typology of defensive gun use incidents.

Results: Of 418 incidents, in about half, the perpetrator was armed with a firearm. In almost 90% of the cases, the victim fired their firearm-315 perpetrators were shot, and about half of them died. The average number of perpetrators shot per incident was 0.75; the average number of victims shot was 0.25. We estimate that in 2019 fewer than 600 potential perpetrators were killed in defensive gun use incidents that made the news. Among the thirteen categories of shooting were drug-related (4% of incidents), gang-like combat (6%), romantic partner disputes (11%), escalating arguments (13%), store robberies (9%), street robberies (5%), unoccupied vehicle theft (5%), unarmed burglaries (7%), home invasions (20%), and miscellaneous (6%).

Conclusion: We believe the Gun Violence Archive dataset includes the large majority of news reports of defensive gun use especially those in which the perpetrator is shot and dies. Some of the strengths of using news reports as a data source are that we can be certain that the incident occurred, and the reports provide us with a story behind the incident, one usually vetted in part by the police with occasional input from the victims, perpetrator, family, witnesses, or neighbors. Defensive gun use situations are quite diverse, and among the various categories of defensive gun use, a higher percentage of incidents in some of the categories seemed far less likely to be socially beneficial (e.g., drug-related, gang-like, escalating arguments) than in others (e.g., home invasions).

Injury Epidemiology  9:19, 2022.