Targeting_Change

This paper aims to estimate the impact of a single foundational firearm law change, specifically Background Check and Extreme Risk legislation, on firearm related homicide rates in the United States of America. The analysis is focused on three states, Connecticut, Indiana, and California, and primarily utilizes administrative data from the Center for Disease Control’s WONDER database. This study employs the use of Synthetic Control and Difference-in Difference methodologies to estimate the causal effect of the law change. While we find no significant results at the state-level, county-level regressions show that a single law change results in a statistically significant decrease in firearm mortality rates. We assert that these single law changes target a specific subgroup of potential consumers who do not have legal alternatives for firearm procurement. This targeting of the law results in less purchases of firearms which, in turn, results in a marginal decrease in firearm related homicides at the county level. Full paper and results can be found on my Linkedin page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-v-nahhas/