As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, “Despite the political furor surrounding them, gun shows have little to no effect on murders or suicides in the places where they occur, a new study finds — at least in the weeks immediate following the shows. And the finding holds whether or not the gun shows conduct background checks.”
That study, “The Short-term and Localized Effect of Gun Shows: Evidence From California and Texas,” co-authored by Mark Duggan, Randi Hjalmarsson and Brian A. Jacob, was slated for publication in The Review of Economics and Statistics.
“Researchers looked at data involving 3,400 gun shows in California and Texas, from 1994 to 2004,” the Journal noted. “Those states were chosen not only for their size — they account for nearly 20% of all gun deaths in the United States — but also because they take opposite approaches to regulating gun shows: California demands background checks and a 10-day waiting period while Texas is essentially regulation-free.”
“Researchers compared rates of gun-related and non-gun-related murders and suicides in the four weeks preceding a gun show to the rates in the four subsequent weeks. ZIP codes were the geographical unit examined, but the authors also ran checks 5 miles, 10 miles, and 25 miles from those ZIP codes. They found no spike in gun-related deaths in either state.”
Source: WSJ 4/27/11
Recommended books for gun collectors:
2011 Standard Catalog of Firearms, 21st Edition.
