The following gun safety laws have all been found to be effective in reducing gun violence and factors associated with gun violence. None of these regulations prevent law-abiding citizens from owning guns.
- Tighter regulation and oversight of gun sellers. A study using crime gun trace data from 54 U.S. cities found that diversion of guns for use in crimes is much less common in states:
o that license retail gun sellers;
o that require careful record keeping that can be reviewed by law enforcement;
o that require potential gun buyers to apply for a license directly with a law enforcement agency; and
o where law enforcement agencies conduct regular compliance inspections.
- Requiring background checks for purchases through private sellers as well as dealers. California, which regulates private gun sales, has substantially fewer illegal straw sales (where a purchaser buys a gun for a person who isn’t eligible to buy it) than states that do not regulate such sales.
- Firearm prohibitions for high-risk groups. A study in California found that denial of handgun purchase to people who have committed violent misdemeanors was associated with a decrease in risk of arrest for new gun and/or violent crimes.
- Child access prevention laws. Studies of child access prevention laws, which require gun owners to store their guns so that children and teens cannot access them unsupervised, have found these laws reduce accidental shootings of children by as much as 23 percentand suicides of adolescents by eight percent.
- Well-designed assault weapons ban. An Australian law banning semi-automatic and pump-action rifles and shotguns and buying back banned weapons was associated with decreased suicide and homicide rates and with the absence of any mass shootings in the decade following the law (compared to 11 mass shootings in the prior decade).