Citation

Reeping PM, Gobaud AN, Morrison CN, Branas CC. J. Urban Health 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1007/s11524-023-00800-4

PMID

37964181

Abstract

There have been no peer-reviewed, quantitative research studies on the effectiveness of gun-free school zones. The objective of this study was to use a cross-sectional, multi-group controlled ecological study design in St. Louis, MO city that compared the counts of crimes committed with a firearm occurring in gun-free school zones compared to a contiguous area immediately surrounding the gun-free school zone (i.e., gun-allowing zones) in 2019. Gun-free school zones were measured and analyzed in two ways. In the primary analysis, boundaries of the tax parcels were used for each school as the beginning of the gun-free school zone.

RESULTS from this analysis, after adjustment for pair-matching and confounding, were null. In the secondary analysis, gun-free school zones were measured as beginning at the geographic centroid of the school's address. After adjusting for the pair-matching and confounding, this analysis showed 13.7% significantly fewer crimes committed with a firearm in gun-free school zones compared to gun-allowing zones. These results suggest that gun-free school zones are not being targeted for firearm crime in St. Louis, MO.

Language: en

Keywords

Epidemiology; Violence prevention; Gun violence prevention