The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #68903

Garen J. Wintemute, MD, MPH¹, Philip Cook, PhD², and Mona A. Wright, MPH¹. (1) Violence Prevention Research Program, University of California, Davis, 2315 Stockton Blvd, Western Fairs Bldg, Sacramento, CA 95817, 916-734-3539, gjwintemute@ucdavis.edu, (2) Sanford Institute of Public Policy, Duke University, Duke University, Room 124A, Durham, NC 27708-0245

A small minority of federally licensed firearm retailers (FFLs) are linked to most of the crime guns recovered by law enforcement and traced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). This may simply reflect the large sales volume of these retailers. To test that hypothesis, we identified all handguns sold by California FFLs during 1996-2000, using the California Department of Justice handgun sales archive, and identified all ATF traces of those handguns during those years. When a traced handgun had been sold more than once, we assigned the trace to the retailer whose sale most closely preceded the recovery date. We restricted our analysis to the 421 FFLs with average annual sales ?100 handguns during 1996-2000; they made up12% of the 3611 FFLs in California with handgun sales, but accounted for 81% of handguns sold during those years and 83% of traces of those handguns. Using iteratively reweighted least squares regression, we found that individual FFL sales volume predicted individual FFL trace volume, but did so poorly: TRACES= -0.33287 + .00413 SALES (R2= 0.27, P< .0001). Significant covariates in a multivariate model included the percentage of prospective sales that resulted in denials, the median time in circulation of handguns sold (i.e., duration of exposure to the risk of tracing), local law enforcement tracing policy, and the median age of handgun purchasers. The multivariate model did not account for a substantial portion of the variation in traces attributed to individual FFLs (R2= 0.43).

Learning Objectives:

• Participants will be able to assess the relationship between a gun retailer's sales volume and the number of crime gun traces linked to that retailer.
• Participants will recognize additional predictors of the number of crime guns linked to individual gun retailers.
• Participants will be able to describe the implications of these findings for public policy.

Keywords: Crime, Firearms

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.