While the Republican Party ruminates on the best ways to not do anything about gun violence while collecting big checks from “Second Amendment” groups like the NRA, other people are trying their hardest to prove that there are ways in which we can legislate more public safety. There have been many studies over the years that point to how certain kinds of gun laws, or lack thereof, can lead to increases[1] and decreases in various forms of gun-related violence. Two recently published studies point to decreases in violent firearm homicides and suicides in connection to gun laws.
NPR[2] highlights both studies, one dealing with “red flag” laws, which take firearms away from people on a temporary basis if those people being perceived as a threat. The other study examined gun permit laws requiring handgun purchasers to have a license before buying a gun.
In the first study, “red flag” laws, which were brought up after school shootings as a potential way of getting guns away from “disturbed” people, seem to actually have a positive affect on preventing firearm suicides more than actual mass shootings. Aaron Kivisto is a clinical psychologist studying gun violence prevention, and he reports in his study, “Effects of Risk-Based Firearm Seizure Laws in Connecticut and Indiana on Suicide Rates, 1981–2015,” that risk-based seizure laws saved a lot of people from making the quick judgement to end their life with a firearm.[3]
Indiana’s firearm seizure law was associated with a 7.5% reduction in firearm suicides in the ten years following its enactment, an effect specific to suicides with firearms and larger than that seen in any comparison state by chance alone. Enactment of Connecticut’s law was associated
