Paper Laws, Plastic Guns: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Ghost Gun Regulations

• In Event: Tracking the Trade: Gun Trafficking, Markets, and Regulatory Gaps

Abstract

Privately made firearms, commonly known as “ghost guns” have drawn increasing media and policy attention due to their perceived role in rising gun violence. Differing from traditional firearms, ghost guns are assembled through separately-purchased parts, making them difficult for law enforcement to track and regulate. To combat this, eleven states have passed policies requiring serialization and background checks for these individual parts, effectively equating them with fully assembled firearms. The current study investigates these policies’ effectiveness in reducing gun homicides, utilizing homicide data from two major repositories: the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports and the Murder Accountability Project. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design, we assess whether these policies have created significant changes in state-level gun homicides. Findings indicate a null effect across both datasets, raising questions about the effectiveness of policies aimed at regulating ghost guns, as well as ghost guns’ level of influence on recent state-level increases in homicide.

Authors

• Marc Olson, University of South Carolina

• Dalton Bickley, University of South Carolina

• Ian T. Adams, University of South Carolina