Reducing Violence?: Examining the Impact of Gun Control Legislation in Massachusetts

Abstract

Over the last decade, high-profile mass shootings in the United States have brought gun policies back to the front of the public policy debate. While Americans remain divided on a number of gun policies, background checks have drawn bipartisan support. This study examines the impact of changes to background checks and licensing policies shortly after the passage of the 2014 Massachusetts gun legislation on violent crimes in counties from 2006 to 2016. Using fixed-effects negative binomial regression models, the findings show no immediate impact on violent crimes. While there is no statistically significant association between the passage of the gun legislation and most violent crimes, the models for robbery indicate a small increase in robberies while controlling for other variables. The findings are consistent with those in other studies and future studies should explore long-term effects following the passage of the legislation.