Do Gun-Purchase Waiting Periods Save Lives?
Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 10, 2025

Measuring Delay Discounting in Humans Using an Adjusting Amount Task
Published on: January 9, 2016
Grace E Arnold1, Mitchell Blaine Priestley1
1College of Urban & Public Affairs, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon, USA.
Abstract:
We study the impact of gun-purchase waiting periods on suicide rates using county-level mortality data from 1991-2019. We find that waiting periods are associated with a reduction in both firearm and overall suicide rates of approximately 5% and 2%, respectively. Novelly, we find that counties that are within 50 miles from a state without a waiting period experience no statistically significant reduction in suicides. Our findings reveal that the decrease in suicides under a waiting period is driven by counties that are more than 50 miles from a non-restricted neighboring state.
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