Published In

Health Economics

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

4-20-2025

Subjects

Firearms control--United States, Suicide prevention -- Gun laws

Abstract

We study the impact of gun-purchase waiting periods on suicide rates using county-level mortality data from 1991-2019. We find that waiting periods are associated with a reduction in both firearm and overall suicide rates of approximately 5% and 2%, respectively. Novelly, we find that counties that are within 50 miles from a state without a waiting period experience no statistically significant reduction in suicides. Our findings reveal that the decrease in suicides under a waiting period is driven by counties that are more than 50 miles from a non-restricted neighboring state.

Rights

Copyright (c) 2025 The Authors Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Locate the Document

https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.4970

DOI

10.1002/hec.4970

Persistent Identifier

https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/43576

Publisher

Wiley

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Included in

Economics Commons

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