Center for Gun Policy and Research

Legal Issues
Legal Issues
The Center monitors and evaluates the effectiveness of major gun laws, including those related to: "Saturday night special" handguns; handgun registration and licensing; child access prevention; and minimum purchase and possession age. More
Gun Trafficking
Gun Trafficking
The Center is committed to studying and reducing illegal firearm trafficking. The Center's work in this area focuses on the role of gun dealers, straw purchases, and firearm theft in the transfer of guns from legal to illegal markets. More
Domestic Violence
Domestic Violence
The Center studies policies and behaviors related to gun violence perpetrated by domestic violence offenders. Center research seeks to identify whether current legal practices effectively keep guns out of the hands of batterers. More
Keeping Guns from Youth
Keeping Guns from Youth
The Center studies policies and behaviors related to gun access and carrying among youth. Center research focuses on trends and prevention of youth homicide, suicide, violence, and unintentional injury by firearms. More

Keeping Guns from Domestic Violence Offenders

The Center for Gun Policy and Research studies policies and behaviors related to gun violence perpetrated by domestic violence offenders. As firearms are the most common weapon used in intimate partner homicides (IPH), it is the initiative of the Center to identify whether existing purchase and possession prohibitions effectively keep firearms out of the hands of batterers.

Research by Center faculty has identified important gaps in laws designed to keep firearms from IPV perpetrators and the enforcement of those laws. Nationwide inadequacies in state police gun removal laws have prompted in-depth analysis of their effectiveness in separating IPV perpetrators from firearms. A focus on Maryland gun violence policy has led to Center recommendations for improved implementation of these laws to decrease the prevalence of in-state, gun-related IPH. Additional Center findings on handgun purchase rates among restrained persons illustrate a pressing need to improve the effectiveness of the background checking system in eliminating the unlawful sale of firearms to domestic abusers.

Center Research

RESTRAINING ORDERS AMONG VICTIMS OF INTIMATE PARTNER HOMICIDE
Vittes KA, Sorenson SB
Injury Prevention 2008;14:191-195

KEEPING GUNS OUT OF THE HANDS OF ABUSERS: HANDGUN PURCHASES AND RESTRAINING ORDERS
Vittes KA, Sorenson SB
American Journal of Public Health 2008;98:828-831

SEPARATING BATTERERS AND GUNS: A REVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF LAWS IN 50 STATES
Frattaroli S, Vernick JS
Evaluation Review 2006;30(3): 296-312

UNDERSTANDING AND INFORMING POLICY IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE STUDY OF THE DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROVISIONS OF THE MARYLAND GUN ACT
Frattaroli S, Teret SP
Evaluation Review 2006;30(3): 347-360

For more research on firearms and domestic violence, click here to browse the database of scholarly works by Center faculty.

Highlighted Research

J Womens Health (Larchmt). 2010 Jan;19(1):93-8.
Women with protective orders report failure to remove firearms from their abusive partners
Shootings are the most common method by which women are killed by an intimate partner in the United States. More
Am J Public Health. 2010 Oct;100(10):1856-60.
Fatally flawed study yields misleading results
A widely publicized study of the relationship between gun shows and gun violence is being cited in debates about the regulation of gun shows and gun commerce. We believe the study is fatally flawed. More
J Urban Health. 2010 May;87(3):352-64.
Risk factors for criminal use of handguns recently purchased under conditions that suggest trafficking
Our findings should help law enforcement's illegal gun units to consider which of the thousands of crime gun traces to follow up with an investigation of possible trafficking. More
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