Citation

Vitt DC, McQuoid AF, Moore C, Sawyer S. Appl. Econ. 2018; 50(53): 5747-5765.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/00036846.2018.1488064

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

With a growing debate over tighter firearm regulations, we consider an important social consequence of increased firearm access: increased firearm suicides. Using data from the federal criminal background check system, we consider the impact of firearm ownership on firearm suicide rates. To deal with concerns of identification, we instrument for firearm background checks with state-year-level Google search intensity for phrases that reflect fear of future gun shortages and learning about the constitutional rights of firearm owners. We find that an increase in firearm ownership has a sizable and statistically significant impact on firearm suicide rates. A 10% increase in firearm ownership increases firearm suicide rates by approximately 3%, which is five times larger than non-instrumented estimates. Furthermore, we find no effect of gun ownership on non-firearm suicide rates, suggesting our findings are not simply capturing a suicide method substitution effect. The results are consistent with a variety of validity and robustness tests. Our results make clear the link between firearm ownership and firearm suicide rates, which have increased dramatically over the last decade.

Language: en

Keywords

Google trends; gun ownership; I18; I31; K4; Suicide