Johns Hopkins Gun-Control Study: Background Checks Really Work

Universal Background Checks Study Makes Strong Case For New Policy
An attendee looks through the scope of a Freedom Group Inc. Remington brand gun during the 2013 National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meetings & Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, U.S., on Saturday, May 4, 2013. After the U.S. Senate defeated a proposed expansion of background checks on gun purchases, the NRA's annual conference has a celebratory atmosphere. Yet as the festivities began, gun-control advocates swarmed town halls, organizing petitions and buying local ads to pressure senators from Alaska to New Hampshire to reconsider the measure that failed by six votes on April 17. Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg via Getty Images
An attendee looks through the scope of a Freedom Group Inc. Remington brand gun during the 2013 National Rifle Association (NRA) Annual Meetings & Exhibits at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas, U.S., on Saturday, May 4, 2013. After the U.S. Senate defeated a proposed expansion of background checks on gun purchases, the NRA's annual conference has a celebratory atmosphere. Yet as the festivities began, gun-control advocates swarmed town halls, organizing petitions and buying local ads to pressure senators from Alaska to New Hampshire to reconsider the measure that failed by six votes on April 17. Photographer: Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg via Getty Images

During last year’s battle over gun control, the pro-gun side did more than passionately invoke the Second Amendment: They claimed that gun control doesn’t work. Sometimes even the reformers, surveying the limited impact of legislation from the 1990s, feared the same. But a new study on universal background checks makes the strongest case yet that the policy saves lives. “This is probably the strongest evidence we have that background checks really matter,” said Philip Cook, a gun expert at Duke’s Sanford School of Public Policy.

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