by Ronan Brew

Abstract

Child Access Prevention Laws (CAP) came to prominence in the early 1990s in the wake of the highest recorded rate of overall and adolescent firearm deaths seen in the United States at that time, placing mandatory firearm storage requirements on adults living in a home with children. While the primary – and perhaps sole – intention behind these policies are to prevent adolescent gun death, I contend CAP laws have the added function of reducing the rate of firearms stolen from homes due to the legal incentives against improper firearm storage. In the first of a two-stage analysis, CAP laws are proven to substantially reduce the rate of household firearm theft based on the ascending stringency of different CAP law storage requirements. The scope of the study is then widened in the second stage of analysis, where I demonstrate the overall impact illicitly-obtained firearms have on predicting increased firearm homicides.

Professor John DeSimone, Faculty Advisor

JEL Codes: C23, K00, K42

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