Injuries/Violence
Estimating the effect of Florida’s red flag gun law on firearm mortality rates Catherine Gimbrone* Catherine Gimbrone Kara Rudolph
In response to the deadly Parkland high school shooting in 2018, Florida’s legislature enacted a red flag law permitting the temporary removal of firearms from individuals who pose a danger to themselves or others. Unlike liberal states that have passed similar laws, Florida was one of the first conservative and largely pro-firearm states to pass a law restricting gun ownership. Notably, firearm homicides have increased over time in the US and are a leading cause of death among younger populations, yet there has been little research into the effects of red flag laws on firearm homicide deaths. To address this gap, we employed augmented synthetic control methods to estimate the effect of Florida’s law on subsequent firearm homicide, non-firearm homicide, firearm suicide, and non-firearm suicide mortality rates using yearly data from CDC Wonder from 2009 to 2021, and excluding 2018 to account for lagged effects. A weighted synthetic unit with similar pre-period trajectories of covariates and outcomes to Florida was constructed from 23 conservative states lacking similar gun laws. Models estimated causal mortality rate differences between synthetic and treated units with jackknife+ confidence intervals and were adjusted for socio-demographic and economic factors. We found that firearm homicide rates decreased significantly below the expected value following the passage of Florida’s red flag law (RD: -0.93, 95% CI: -1.68,-0.54), whereas non-firearm homicide rates did not (RD: 0.13, 95% CI: -0.12, 0.41). Trends among firearm (RD: -0.67, 95% CI: -1.57, 0.06) and non-firearm suicide rates (RD: -0.68, 95% CI: -2.28, 0.35) both declined, yet neither were significant. In conclusion, the enactment of red flag laws may serve to reduce the growing burden of firearm homicides in the US.
