This dissertation analyzes the relationships between four state gun laws—universal background checks, waiting periods, may-issue permitting, and violent misdemeanor prohibitions—and firearm homicide and suicide rates among Blacks and Whites in the United States. Using eighteen years of publicly available data, the study examined relationships employing a generalized difference-in-difference linear regression model with fixed effects for states and years. The results indicate that state gun laws in the United States frequently affect mortality rates among Blacks and Whites in different ways. Waiting periods, for example, are associated with large reductions in firearm homicide rates among Blacks but not Whites; may-issue permitting is associated with moderate reductions in firearm homicide rates among Whites but not among Blacks. The study also identifies several statistically significant interactive effects between gun laws and factors such as poverty, police presence, and the density of federally licensed firearm dealers. The dissertation concludes by discussing the value of these findings for informing both public policy and scholarly research in policy analysis and public administration. Most importantly, I argue that policymakers and gun violence researchers must increase their efforts to frame and analyze gun violence in the United States through the lens of social equity. / Doctor of Philosophy / The rates at which Blacks and Whites in the United States die as the result of gun violence differ markedly. This dissertation uses statistical analysis of eighteen years of data collected from governmental and scholarly sources to examine whether four different types of state gun law—universal background checks, waiting periods, may-issue permitting, and violent misdemeanor prohibitions—are related to gun death rates for Blacks and Whites and whether and how these relationships vary between the two. The results suggest that gun laws often affect mortality rates among Blacks and Whites differently. For instance, waiting periods appear to lead to fewer gun homicides among Blacks, while may-issue permitting is associated with fewer gun homicides among Whites. Relationships between different gun laws and the number of gun deaths Blacks and Whites experience also vary depending on levels of poverty, police presence, and the number of federally licensed gun dealers in specific geographic areas. The dissertation concludes by discussing how these findings might help policymakers and suggest topics for future research. Most importantly, the dissertation argues that researchers and policymakers should discuss gun violence in the United States in terms of its disproportionate impacts on different groups.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VTETD/oai:vtechworks.lib.vt.edu:10919/110437 |
| Date | 03 June 2022 |
| Creators | Gregory, Peter Andrew |
| Contributors | Government and International Affairs, Hult, Karen M., Jensen, Laura Smietanka, Zuniga, Raymond A., Malczewski, Eric |
| Publisher | Virginia Tech |
| Source Sets | Virginia Tech Theses and Dissertation |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Dissertation |
| Format | ETD, application/pdf, application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document |
| Rights | In Copyright, http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ |
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