New MO Study "Proves" Background Checks Save Lives

[Dale00]

Typical of the anti's they are trumpeting this new pro-gun control study before it is even published and critically analyzed. I'll be interested to get John Lott's assessment of it. Meanwhile it is being proclaimed in every pro-gun control media outlet

Think Progress — Missouri’s decision to repeal its law requiring all handgun purchasers to obtain a “permit-to-purchase” (PTP) verifying they passed a background check led to a 16 percent increase in the state murder rate, a new study from Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research has found. The additional gun murders occurred as the national and regional homicide rates decreased.

State legislators eliminated the permit requirement in June of 2007, as part of a larger firearms bill granting criminal and civil immunity to homeowners who use deadly force against intruders. Proponents of the change, which included the local chapter of the National Rifle Association, boasted that the measure would streamline the purchasing process, save residents the $10 processing fee, and reduce the wait times.

“It’s something we’ve advocated for some time,” Kevin Jamison, president the National Rifle Association affiliate in the state, told the Kansas City Star in August 2007. “This makes it easier for people to buy firearms. They don’t have to get permission first.”

Using state-level murder data for the time period 1999-2012, researchers concluded that removing the licensing requirement contributed to an “additional 55 to 63 murders per year in Missouri between 2008 and 2012.” The increases occurred in the first full year after the repeal, during which the state saw “large increases in the number of guns diverted to criminals and in guns purchased in Missouri that were subsequently recovered by police in border states that retained their PTP laws.”

The analysts controlled “for changes in policing, incarceration, burglaries, unemployment, poverty, and other state laws adopted during the study period that could affect violent crime,” a press release for the study says.

“This study provides compelling confirmation that weaknesses in firearm laws lead to deaths from gun violence,” said Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and the study’s lead author. “There is strong evidence to support the idea that the repeal of Missouri’s handgun purchaser licensing law contributed to dozens of additional murders in Missouri each year since the law was changed.”

Federal law only requires background checks and record-keeping for sales by federally licensed firearms dealers, but 14 states and Washington D.C. also mandate checks for private handgun sales (10 of these states require that the buyers obtain a permit-to-purchase license). Research has found that states with more expansive background check laws experience 48 percent less gun trafficking, 38 percent fewer deaths of women shot by intimate partners, and 17 percent fewer firearms involved in aggravated assaults.

http://publichealthwatch.wordpress.com/2014/02/16/new-study-proves-that-background-checks-save-lives/

 

[ASP785]

I will await further analysis myself too. It says murders went up, but doesn't specifically state murders by handguns went up. I am also not sure how a study 'controls' for all of the variables listed. 2008 saw the beginning of a national recession, the greatest in my lifetime, and high unemployment. I don't know how you can discount that. I think you would also need to correlate the amount of handguns purchased in Missouri,pre and post law repeal, to the national average during the same timeframe to see if Missouri's permission to buy system even effected purchases.

 

[chuter]

“This study provides compelling confirmation that weaknesses in firearm laws lead to deaths from gun violence,”

I would call it death from criminals, but that's just me.

 

[Dale00]

The analysts controlled “for changes in policing, incarceration, burglaries, unemployment, poverty, and other state laws adopted during the study period that could affect violent crime,” a press release for the study says.

There are of course a few more things which might have happened at the same time which could have caused the increase in murder rate - basically almost anything: gang conflicts, an upspike in illegal drug usage, changes in reporting practices by police departments or you name it. But hey, let's not pursue the truth here. It's all about perception and manipulating public opinion.