Firearm retailers' willingness to participate in an illegal gun purchase.
Firearm-related violence is a significant public health and public safety problem for cities in the USA, and licensed firearm retailers are an important source of the guns used in that violence. Using a scripted telephone interview, we screened a sample of licensed retailers in California to assess their willingness to participate in the surrogate or "straw" purchase of a handgun; such purchases are illegal under federal law. Of 149 retailers who provided a response, 30 (20.1%) agreed to participate. In multivariate analysis, pawnbrokers were more likely to agree than were gun dealers (odds ratio 6.58, 95% confidence interval 1.99-21.71). Sales of handguns that were later subjected to ownership tracing (a proxy measure for a gun's use in crime) were not more frequent among retailers who agreed to participate than among others, and other findings were unexpected as well.
Wintemute
Garen
G
Violence Prevention Research Program, UC Davis Medical Center, 2315 Stockton Blvd, Sacramento, CA 95817, USA. gjwintemute@ucdavis.edu
D000328:Adult; D002140:California; D003415:Crime / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D005389:Firearms / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D008297:Male; D040541:Marketing / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000379:methods* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D014754:Violence / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D055815:Young Adult
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