 | The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
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| The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA |
Allegra N. Kim, MS and Daniel Webster, ScD. Bloomberg School of Public Health, Dept of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins University, 624 North Broadway, Hampton House, Room 580, Baltimore, MD 21205, 410-614-4985, akim@jhsph.edu
1. Purpose: Despite prohibitions on handgun purchase by specific high-risk users, many convicted felons and youth report having illegal means of acquiring guns. The Maryland Legislature enacted the Maryland Gun Violence Act (MGVA) of 1996 largely to address the illicit markets through which youth and criminals obtain handguns. The one-gun-per-month provision of the MGVA, by restricting handgun purchases to one per person, per month, is expected to reduce gun trafficking and violence by preventing high-volume traffickers from purchasing many handguns in one transaction and quickly re-selling the guns. The purpose of this study is to determine the effects of the MGVA on indicators of illicit handgun trafficking and handgun availability for high-risk users.
2. Methods: This study employs a quasi-experimental research design and linear and multinomial logistic regression. The intervention is the MGVA, and the outcomes are indicators of illicit trafficking and handgun availability. Each analysis compares hypothesized MGVA-related outcomes with other outcomes, for Baltimore or Maryland vs. other sites, before vs. after the MGVA. For the illicit handgun trafficking analysis, we use crime gun tracing data from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for Baltimore and comparison cities.
3. Results: The MGVA is associated with a reduction in the proportion of apparently trafficked handguns recovered from underage possessors.
4. Conclusions: Maryland’s one-gun-per-month law appears to constrict the illicit market supply of handguns to youth.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Firearms, Policy/Policy Development
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.