The Effect of Concealed Carry Weapons Laws on Firearm Sales

Publication Date

1-19-2019

Document Type

Article

Organizational Units

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Sociology and Criminology

Keywords

Concealed carry weapons, Laws, Legal firearm sales, Influences

Abstract

Despite numerous studies exploring the link between concealed carry weapons (CCW) laws and the effect of “more guns, more/less crime” it is unknown if liberalizing CCW laws indeed influences legal firearm sales. Building on previous research, I hypothesize that liberal CWW laws are associated with increases in handgun sales while having no association with long gun sales. Using National Instant Background Check System (NICS) data as a proxy for firearm sales and state fixed-effects regression models to examine the effect of CCW laws on gun sales in all 50 states the results can be simply put: liberal CCW laws are associated with increases in handgun sales, are not associated with long gun sales, and are associated with an increase in the overall share of firearms sold that are handguns. This work supports the idea that the expansion of gun rights via liberal CCW laws has increased the rate of handgun sales in the United States, but not the rate of long gun sales. Implications for future research on firearms and policy are discussed.

Copyright Date

1-19-2019

Copyright Statement / License for Reuse

All Rights Reserved
All Rights Reserved.

Rights Holder

Elsevier Inc.

Provenance

Received from author

Language

English (eng)

Extent

11 pgs

Publication Statement

Copyright held by Elsevier Inc. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Publication Title

Social Science Research

Volume

78

First Page

1

Last Page

11

ISSN

1096-0317

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