A proposal to evaluate handgun restriction laws for intimate partner homicide across gender and race Research goals

Although intimate partner violence has declined over the past 25 years in the United States (Dugan & Apel, 2003; Dugan, Rosenfeld, & Nagin, 2003), it is still a great social concern. In terms of homicide, a recent study reports that more than half of victims of intimate partner violence are killed with a firearm (Smith, Fowler, & Niolon, 2014). A variety of handgun restriction laws has been implemented to control intimate partner homicides with a handgun. Several studies have evaluated the effectiveness of the restriction laws, and revealed that the laws have a great deterrent impact on decreasing intimate pater homicides (Dugan, et al., 2003; Sorenson, 2006). Despite the overall decline, however, women and African-Americans remain at a higher risk. Some argue that the variation of the decline in intimate partner homicides is inconsistent across gender and race. For example, homicides against male victims and African-American victims have declined at a larger rate, whereas homicides against female victims and White victims have declined at a smaller rate (Dugan, et al., 2003; Wells & DeLeon-Granados, 2004). The current proposal suggests an impact evaluation of handgun restriction laws for intimate partner homicide in relation to gender and race. This will address the following four hypotheses.

Intimate partner homicide includes the killing of an intimate partner. It is critical to define the partner relationship. In general, it includes current spouses, formal spouses, boyfriends, and girlfriends. In the meantime, several studies consider same gender partners because some states cover same-gender intimate partner violence (Zeoli, Norris, & Brenner, 2011). For example, Fox and Swatt’s (2009) categorizations include spouses, common...

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...tes. In terms of statistical analyses the unit of analysis is the number of victims of intimate partner homicide. To estimate the association between the handgun laws and homicide victim counts, negative binomial regression models will be designed.

In this time-series design, history is a main concern because there might be events that affect intimate partner homicide rates other than the handgun restriction laws. For example, states without a handgun restriction law may be affected by the federal laws. Within states, there might be several laws for other types of crime. Changes in articles and laws are also history threats. On the other hand, threats to external validity are less likely in this study, but it should be confirmed that the data used in analyses are accurate. Again, missing data imputation seems critical to maximize the external validity of the data.