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Association between state minimum wage and firearm suicides in the USA, 2000-2020

Background

Firearm suicides constitute a major public health issue. Policies that enhance economic security and decrease community-level poverty may be effective strategies for reducing risk of firearm suicide. This study examined the association between state minimum wage and firearm suicide.

Methods

State minimum wage, obtained from Temple’s Law Atlas and augmented by legal research, was conceptualised using the modified Kaitz Index and a continuous variable centred on the federal minimum wage. State-level suicide counts were obtained from 2000 to 2020 multiple-cause-of-death mortality data from the National Vital Statistics System. Log-linear regressions were conducted to model the associations between state minimum wage and firearm suicides, stratifying by demographic groups. Analyses were conducted in 2023.

Results

A one percentage point increase in a state’s modified Kaitz Index was associated with a 0.3% (95% CI –0.6% to –0.0%) decrease in firearm suicides within a state. A US$1.00 increase in a state’s minimum wage above the federal minimum wage was associated with a 1.4% (95% CI –2.1% to –0.6%) decrease in firearm suicides. When stratified by quartile of firearm ownership, the modified Kaitz Index was associated with decreases in firearm suicides most consistently in the two lowest quartiles.

Conclusion

Increasing a state’s minimum wage may be a policy option to consider as part of a comprehensive approach to reducing firearm suicides. These findings expand the evidence base for how economic policies may be leveraged to reduce firearm suicides.

Spatial de-concentration of firearm violence in Boston

It is a “law” of criminology that urban crime chronically recurs at the same microplaces (i.e., street segments and intersections). An influential study found high concentrations of firearm violence at micropl…

Unintentional firearms mortality disparities across states ’01-21

Background

Firearms kill over 130 Americans daily. Most deaths are the result of intentional acts, but in 2021, 549 deaths (1.5 deaths/day) were unintentional. Strategies to prevent unintentional versus intentional firearms deaths differ. This study describes unintentional firearm-related mortality across the US states and within individual states between 2001 and 2021 and considers factors that might explain disparities across states.

Methods

Unintentional firearms mortality from 2001 to 2021, both for the full country and by state, was obtained online along with data for five state-level predictors: rurality, non-white population, poverty, population and gun ownership.

Results

The highest unintentional firearm-related mortality rates clustered in Southeastern states, followed by states in the Northern Plains and Mountain West. The lowest rates were in the Northeast, followed by scattered states in the West and Midwest. At the state level, unintentional firearms mortality correlated positively with per cent below the poverty level (r=0.54, p<0.01), rural (r=0.59, p<0.01) and owning firearms (r=0.72, p<0.01). In a multivariable regression model predicting unintentional firearms mortality by state, three factors emerged as significant: per cent white (β=–0.22, p<0.05), below the poverty level (β=0.43, p<0.01) and owning firearms (β=0.54, p<0.01).

Conclusions

Large disparities exist across the 50 US states in unintentional firearms mortality. Crude rates in the most afflicted states are ~10 times those in the least afflicted states. Nationwide, over 12 000 lives were lost to unintentional firearms mortality between 2001 and 2021. Factors that create disparities are multifaceted and include rurality, poverty and firearms ownership.

The Great American Gun War: Notes from Four Decades in the Trenches

In this essay I provide an account of how research on gun violence has evolved over the last four decades, intertwined with personal observations and commentary on my contributions. It begins with a sketch of the twentieth century history of gun control in the United States. I then provide an account of why gun violence is worth studying, with a discussion of how and why the type of weapon used in crime matters, and assess the social costs of the widespread private ownership of firearms. I then detour into the methodological disputes over estimating basic facts relevant to understanding gun use and misuse. In Section IV, I focus on how gun availability influences the use of guns in crime and whether the incidence of misuse is influenced by the prevalence of gun ownership, regulations, and law enforcement. I go on to review evaluations of efforts to focus law enforcement directly at gun use in violent crime. Next I turn to the hottest topic of our day, the role of guns in self-defense and what might be deemed private deterrence. The conclusion summarizes the claims and counterclaims concerning gun regulation and asks, finally, if there is the possibility of an influential role for scientific research in the policy debate.

The Influence of Gun Availability on Violent Crime Patterns

The spectacular increases in violent crime that began in the mid-1960s continue, and Americans are currently being murdered, robbed, and raped at historically unprecedented rates. Firearms are used in a minority of violent crimes but are of special concern because more than 60 percent of the most serious crimes-criminal homicides-are committed with firearms. This essay presents a variety of evidence to the effect that the widespread availability of firearms contributes to the criminal homicide rate and influences violent crime patterns in several other respects as well. A gun is usually superior to other weapons readily available for use in violent crime; even in the hands of a weak and unskilled assailant, a gun poses a credible threat and can be used to kill quickly, from a distance, and in a relatively “impersonal” fashion. Guns are particularly valuable against relatively invulnerable targets. Hence, gun availability facilitates robbery of commercial places and lethal assaults on people who would ordinarily be able to defend themselves against other weapons. Some of the patterns of gun use in violent crime can be readily interpreted in terms of relative vulnerability of different types of victims. Guns are also more dangerous than other weapons, in the sense that victims of robbery and assault are more likely to be killed if the assailant uses a gun. On the other hand, the victim is less likely to be injured in a gun robbery than in other robberies, since the gun robber usually does not feel the need to employ physical force. This analysis suggests a number of predictions concerning the effects of gun availability on the number, distribution, and seriousness of violent crimes. In principle, these predictions could be tested directly by observing the effects of changes in gun availability on statistical characterizations of violent crime patterns. Not much research of this sort has been done, in part because it is difficult to find a suitable measure for gun availability. Future research should be directed toward remedying this problem. In the meantime, it seems fair to conclude from the available evidence that the type of weapon is not an incidental aspect of violent crime, but rather has a substantial influence on the nature of the encounter and its likely consequences.