Child Access Prevention Laws as A Means of Reducing Gun Theft
Keywords:
Gun theft, Child Access Prevention, Gun violence, gun laws safe storageAbstract
This research seeks to determine whether stronger state-level Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws in the United States are associated with reduced rates of gun theft. FBI data on gun thefts are utilized to calculate gun theft rates for 48 states between the years 2012 and 2015. OLS regression with robust standard errors indicates that stronger CAP laws are associated with lower levels of gun theft. Each additional CAP law is associated with an average decrease of 4 percent in the rate at which guns are stolen in a given state.
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