Includes vita. / Title from PDF of title page. / Document formatted into pages; contains 47 pages. / Thesis (M.A.)--University of South Florida, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references. / Text (Electronic thesis) in PDF format. / ABSTRACT: This thesis analyzes the policy effects of several state gun control restrictions in the United States. The study employs the data of gun related crimes and gun control restrictions from Statistical Abstract of Criminal Justice Handbook through five years (from 1995 to 2000). Although many scholars have studied previously gun control policy effects on crimes, they always focus on the total violence level and ignore to compare the policy effects of different gun control laws. The present study examines intensively gun related crimes and compares several gun control policies. Pooled data is employed to access the effects of gun control restrictions, and it is another advancement based on previous studies, which always use cross-sectional or time series designs. / ABSTRACT: These findings partially reject the previous conclusions that gun control laws have no effects on violence and for gun related homicides and robberies; several gun control restrictions like registration, license, and waiting period show some significant policy effects. Contrary to the past study, the permit to purchase, which has been regarded as the most efficient law, produces no significant policy effects. Sale report to police and certain firearm prohibited also have no significant effects. Among control variables, race and urban population exert the obvious influences on the gun violence, and specifically, the density of population affects the gun related homicides and high school graduates affects the gun related robberies. Implications of these findings and potential for future research are discussed. / System requirements: World Wide Web browser and PDF reader. / Mode of access: World Wide Web.

Recently, empirical attention has been directed toward understanding public opinion about gun control laws. Despite this focus, three gaps are evident in extant scholarship. First, few current examinations have relied on recently collected, national data to explore predictors of public attitudes. Second, relatively little work systematically investigates whether type of weapon bans (e.g. handgun versus semi-automatic weapon) affects public support for a given gun control initiative. Third, and importantly, the general focus in prediction support for gun control measures has been on social and demographic factors. Little is known from a theoretical perspective about how other variables - such as knowledge of Constitutinal issues or perceptions of the U.S. Supreme Court - affect public attitudes toward gun control. Using national poll data collected in 2011 by Time magazine, this study addresses these research gaps by estimating several logistic regression analyses. Research and policy implications are discussed. / by Elizabeth Borkowski. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2012. / Includes bibliography. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / System requirements: Adobe Reader.