Disrupting Illegal Gun Transfers

The purpose of this study is to assess the effectiveness and cost effectiveness of informative letters sent to handgun buyers in Los Angeles reminding them of their legal responsibilities as gun owners. This study will first provide a five year follow-up on participants of an experimental pilot letter program implemented between August 2007 and September 2008. In the pilot, buyers receiving letters were twice as likely to later report their gun stolen compared to those who received no letter. Efforts in follow-up will be directed toward assessing whether any of these guns were recovered. Second, a new experiment will involve 1,800 recent buyers with letters sent to only to those initiating handgun purchases on odd numbered days, thereby comparing rates of completed gun sales for a specified period of time for both those receiving and not receiving the letter. Third, the study will examine the effect of the letter across time comparing pre- and post-letter implementation periods for the city as a whole.ca/ncf