Abstract
BackgroundLittle is known about voluntary divestment of firearms among US firearm owners. Here, we aim to estimate the proportion of handgun owners who divest their handguns in the years following their initial acquisition; examine the timing, duration, and dynamics of those divestments; and describe characteristics of those who divest.MethodsWe use data from the Longitudinal Study of Handgun Ownership and Transfer, a cohort of registered voters in California with detailed information on 626,756 adults who became handgun owners during the 12-year study period, 2004–2016. For the current study, persons were followed from the time of their initial handgun acquisition until divestment, loss to follow-up, death, or the end of the study period. We describe the cumulative proportion who divest overall and by personal and area-level characteristics. We also estimate the proportion who reacquired handguns among persons who divested.ResultsOverall, 4.5% (95% CI 4.5–4.6) of handgun owners divested within 5 years of their first acquisition, with divestment relatively more common among women and among younger adults. Among those who divested, 36.6% (95% CI 35.8–37.5) reacquired a handgun within 5 years.ConclusionsHandgun divestment is rare, with the vast majority of new handgun owners retaining them for years.
Highlights
Firearm ownership is prevalent in the USA, with an estimated 300 million firearms distributed such that one in five US adults owns a firearm and one in three households contains a firearm (Smith and Son 2015; Azrael et al 2015; Smith et al 2018)
Only one study published in the peer review literature has investigated such shifts empirically: In a cross-sectional survey that assessed past firearm ownership retrospectively, Wertz et al estimated that approximately 2% of US adults change from gun owners to former gun owners in a 5-year period (Wertz et al 2019)
We used the LongSHOT cohort to estimate the proportion of handgun owners who divest their handguns after an initial acquisition, describe the timing and durability of divestment, and characterize divesters
Summary
Firearm ownership is prevalent in the USA, with an estimated 300 million firearms distributed such that one in five US adults owns a firearm and one in three households contains a firearm (Smith and Son 2015; Azrael et al 2015; Smith et al 2018). These proportions have been relatively stable for more than two decades, few studies have used individual-level data to examine how personal firearm ownership changes over time. We aim to estimate the proportion of handgun owners who divest their handguns in the years following their initial acquisition; examine the timing, duration, and dynamics of those divestments; and describe characteristics of those who divest
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