Ken
O’Brien
A 1995 Connecticut law requiring a permit or license
- contingent on passing a background check - in order to purchase a handgun was
associated with a 40 percent reduction in the state's firearm-related homicide
rate, new
research finds.
Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun
Policy and Research, part of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, compared Connecticut's homicide rates during the 10 years following the
law's implementation to the rates that would have been expected had the law not
been implemented. The large drop in homicides was found only in firearm-related
killings, not in homicides by other means, as would be expected if the law
drove the reduction.
