State and Local Prevalence of Firearms Ownership: Measurement, Structure, and Trends / Deborah Azrael, Philip J. Cook, Matthew Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Azrael, Deborah.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Cook, Philip J.

Miller, Matthew.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w8570.

NBER working paper series no. w8570

Language:

English

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

State and Local Prevalence of Firearms Ownership

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 2001.

Summary:

Of the readily computed proxies for the prevalence of gun ownership, one, the percentage of suicides committed with a gun, performs consistently better than the others in cross-section comparisons. It is readily computed for states and counties and has a high degree of validity when tested against survey-based estimates. It also appears valid as a proxy for changes over time in gun prevalence, at least at the regional level. Our analysis of this proxy measure for the period 1979-1997 demonstrates that the geographic structure of gun ownership has been highly stable. That structure is closely linked to rural tradition. There is, however, some tendency toward homogenization over this period, with high-prevalence states trending down and low-prevalence states trending up.

Notes:

Print version record

October 2001.