Dynamics in Gun Ownership and Crime – Evidence from the Aftermath of Sandy Hook

Gun rights activists in the United States frequently argue that the right to bear arms, as guaranteed by the Second Amendment, can help deter crime. Advocates of gun control usually respond that €rearm prevalence contributes positively to violent crime rates. In this paper, we provide quasi-experimental evidence that a positive and unexpected gun demand shock led to an increase in murder rates. We show that the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012, and the resulting gun control debate, created additional interest in gun ownership. In states where purchases were delayed due to mandatory waiting periods and bureaucratic hurdles in issuing a gun permit, €rearm sales exhibited weaker increases than in states without any such delays. States that, as a result, saw more gun sales also experienced signi€cantly higher murder rates in the months following the demand shock, as murders increased by almost 15% over the course of a year. Our €ndings survive several robustness checks, and are not driven by di‚erential pre-trends. We also show that women were relatively more likely to become murder victims than men as a result of the shock. Our estimates predict that implementing delays for €rearm purchases in all states could have prevented approximately 98 murders in each month of 2013 alone. JEL codes: K42, H76, H10, K14