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Civilian ownership of firearms is a contentious political issue. This is particularly true in Canada given the recent national handgun freeze and the proposed buyback of many semi-automatic long guns. Prior empirical analysis on this topic is largely based on proxy measures for flows of firearms and their owners. We investigate the relationship between legal firearms ownership and firearms-related harms using measures of the annual stocks of granted firearm licenses and the total number of registered firearms collected by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). We estimate the impacts of gun prevalence on the prevalence of firearms-related deaths and firearms-related crimes using fixed effects models. We fail to detect effects between total licenses or total registered firearms on firearms-related deaths. While registered handguns and registered rifles are unrelated to firearms-related deaths, our registered other guns variable is statistically significant and positively related to firearms-related deaths. With respect to firearms-related crimes, neither our total licenses or total registered firearms are related to total firearms violations. Firearms licenses coefficient estimates are statistically significant and positively related to first-degree murders. In general, the magnitude of our coefficient estimates suggest only large changes in guns or licenses would be necessary to change firearms-related deaths or crimes.
Presenter(s)
Derek Mikola, Carleton University
Non-Presenting Authors
Matthew D. Webb, Carleton University
Gun Licenses, Restricted Firearms, Deaths and Crime: Results from Administrative Data in Canada
Category
Organized Session Abstract Submission
Description
Session: [295] ECONOMICS OF CRIME: HISTORY, POLITICS, AND DRUGS
Date: 7/6/2023
Time: 8:15 AM to 10:00 AM
Date: 7/6/2023
Time: 8:15 AM to 10:00 AM