Aug 1, 2000 Taken from:

http://news.excite.com/news/r/000801/22/news-health-guns-dc

– - – - – - – - – - – - -

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The 1994 Brady law, which required handgun sellers to make background checks and institute waiting periods for buyers, has had little impact on U.S. homicide and suicide rates, researchers said on Tuesday.
However, the waiting period that has since been phased out did play a role in reducing the suicide rate for older Americans, a segment of the adult population more prone to suicide but less likely to own guns, their report said.

The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, named for former presidential press secretary James Brady, established a national system of background checks and waiting periods for those buying handguns from federally licensed firearms dealers. The law was named for former presidential press secretary James Brady, who was wounded in the 1981 assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan.

President Clinton has frequently hailed the law for blocking thousands of convicted felons from acquiring weapons that might have been used to commit new crimes.

Researchers Jens Ludwig of Georgetown University and Philip Cook of Duke University compared data on homicide and suicide rates from 1985 through 1997, examining shifts since the Brady law was enacted in 1994.

Eighteen U.S. states had similar gun control measures already in place when the legislation was passed but the law created new restrictions in 32 other states, which they classified as “treatment states.”

“Our analyses provide no evidence that implementation of the Brady Act was associated with a reduction in homicide rates,” the researchers wrote in this week’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

“In particular, we find no differences in homicide or firearm homicide rates to adult victims in the 32 treatment states directly subject to the Brady Act provisions compared with the remaining control states,” they wrote.

The study took account of the decline in U.S. homicide and suicide rates for victims of all ages before the law went into effect.

The authors said the law may have had an untold impact on the secondary market for guns — illegal sales of guns on the black market or by unlicensed dealers.

According to the study, a significant fraction of guns used in crimes originated in other states where they were sold legally but later found their way into the hands of criminals.

“As Ludwig and Cook acknowledge, direct evidence of the impact of the Brady Act on interstate firearms trafficking does not exist. It is badly needed,” Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St. Louis wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.

The Brady Act’s effect on suicide rates was somewhat clearer, but its impact was limited to seniors in states where regulations were stiffened by the law.

The study suggested the provision in the law requiring a waiting period appeared to be a key factor in reducing suicides among older people. But that provision was phased out in December 1998, with gun dealers now conducting instant background checks, so seniors’ suicide rates may have climbed back up, they said.

The findings “suggest that the shift away from waiting periods could increase the firearm suicide rate (and potentially the overall suicide rate) among older U.S. citizens,” they wrote.

While background checks are effective in stopping handgun sales to convicted felons, fewer sales are blocked to buyers with a history of mental illness who might have a predisposition to suicide, Rosenfeld wrote in his editorial.

Despite the study’s limitations and the need for more research, Rosenfeld said “current knowledge does not warrant relaxing or abandoning any of the Brady Act-type restrictions on handgun purchases.”