Gun purchases and gun violence during a coronavirus pandemic in the United States: a cross-sectional study

Schleimer, JP, McCort, CD, Shev, AB etal. Gun purchases and gun violence during a coronavirus pandemic in the United States: a cross-sectional study. Injection Epidemiol. 8, 43 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-021-00339-5

Commentary

This is a cross-sectional study examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gun violence.

The study covered 48 contiguous states and the District of Columbia from January 2018 to July 2020, and data were obtained from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (a proxy for gun purchases) and the Gun ViolenceArchive A negative binomial regression model was used. Negative binomial regression models were used to estimate the association between cumulative excess gun purchases and intentional and interpersonal injuries from March to July 2020.

As a result, we estimated that there were 4.3 million excess firearm purchases nationwide, resulting in a total of 4,075 firearm injuries. We also did not find a relationship between state-level overpurchases and non-domestic violence, but overpurchases per 100 population were related to the rate of non-domestic violence gun injuries.

From these results, the conclusions indicated that nationwide firearm purchases and gun violence increased substantially during the first few months of the coronavirus pandemic. However, they also found that at the state level, the number of purchases was not associated with an increase in gun violence.