Tufts University School of Medicine analysis suggests universal background checks alone aren’t associated with significantly lower shooting death rates in the U.S.
“These findings cast doubt on the main strategy currently being used by gun violence prevention advocates and policymakers to reduce firearm fatalities,” says study author Michael Siegel, a professor of public health and community medicine at the School of Medicine. “If state lawmakers really want to reduce gun violence, the most effective policy they can enact is one that requires permits in order to purchase or possess a gun.”
While research on universal background check laws shows that they are associated with decreases in firearm homicides, most of this work has not differentiated between policies requiring permits and those that do not. By separating them, two studies from 2018 and 2020 found early evidence that the success of universal background checks can be attributed to the permit laws. These findings are further supported by Siegel’s investigation, which compared firearm death rates recorded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to the State Firearm Law Database, a database he oversees at Tufts that aggregates and updates all state firearm legislation.