American Firearm Homicides: The Impact of Your Neighbors

BACKGROUND Restrictive firearm legislation has correlated with decreased overall firearm fatality rates, but not with firearm related homicide or firearm mortality among Black Americans. We hypothesized that firearm trafficking from states with less restrictive firearm legislation to neighboring states with more restrictive firearm legislation increases firearm homicide rates in those restrictive states. METHODS For years 2011-2015, state firearm legislation Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence scorecards were analyzed in relation to firearms traced by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and Center for Disease Control and Prevention firearm mortality rates. States were ranked by Brady score and arranged by quintile to establish the Standardized Brady Score. The effect of less-restrictive neighboring states on the 10 most-restrictive firearm legislation states was modeled by averaging the 10 most-restrictive states with their bordering states to create a Border Adjustment Score. Firearm fatality rates were calculated for each quintile and Poisson regression models were created for each score and outcome. Model fit was compared using Akaike information criterion (AIC). RESULTS There were 169,396 firearm fatalities including 57,885 firearm homicides. Comparing top and bottom quintile firearm legislation states, 65% vs 44% of firearms traced by the ATF originated in other states respectively. The Border Adjustment Score generated a more linear relationship than the Standardized Brady Score for all firearm fatality categories as firearm legislation scores decreased. The Border Adjustment Score minimized the AIC with respect to the Standardized Brady Score for black (AIC 4443 vs. 4680) and white firearm homicide rates (3243 vs. 4319), indicating improved model fit after adjustment for neighboring state firearm legislation. CONCLUSION Our results suggest that firearm movement across states plays an important role in firearm homicides. Accounting for firearm legislation in both individual and neighboring states may improve our understanding of the relationship between firearm legislation and homicide. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Level IV, Prognostic and Epidemiological study Conflicts of Interest and Source of Funding: There are no conflicts of interest to report. Address correspondence to: Erik J. Olson MD Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania Health System Division of Traumatology, Surgical Critical Care and Emergency Surgery 1st Floor, Medical Office Building, Suite 120 51 North 39th Street Philadelphia, PA 19104 Phone: (215) 662-7320 (Office); Fax: (215) 243-4605 Email: erik.olson@uphs.upen.edu This paper was presented as a Quick-Shot Presentation at 77th Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Surgery of Trauma Conference, September 29, 2017, San Diego, CA. © 2019 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc.

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