TY - JOUR
T1 - The Effect of Gun-Free School Zones on Crimes Committed with a Firearm in Saint Louis, Missouri
AU - Reeping, Paul M.
AU - Gobaud, Ariana N.
AU - Morrison, Christopher N.
AU - Branas, Charles C.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was completed as part of Paul M Reeping’s dissertation. A special thank you to his dissertation committee for their work on this manuscript. This work was also funded by the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research and the Arnold Foundation. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023, The New York Academy of Medicine.
PY - 2023/12
Y1 - 2023/12
N2 - 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.
AB - 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.
KW - Epidemiology
KW - Gun violence prevention
KW - Violence prevention
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85176420176&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1007/s11524-023-00800-4
DO - 10.1007/s11524-023-00800-4
M3 - Article
C2 - 37964181
AN - SCOPUS:85176420176
SN - 1099-3460
VL - 100
SP - 1118
EP - 1127
JO - Journal of Urban Health
JF - Journal of Urban Health
IS - 6
ER -
