Domestic violence imposes a large cost on society. The authors exploit state variation in timing to examine the impact of three types of law on intimate partner homicides. These laws restrict access to firearms by individuals who are subject to a restraining order or have been convicted of a domestic violence misdemeanor or allow law enforcement…

Law confidence in collective security contributes to the need for and the resistance to gun control policies. Time-series data on legal gun demand in Detroit from 1951 to 1977 are consistent with a model in which individuals respond to high violent crime rates, civil disorders, and police strength. (Author/RM)

The Maryland Gun Violence Act, enacted into law in 1996, explicitly authorized courts to order batterers to surrender their firearms through civil protective orders. It also vested law enforcement with the explicit authority to remove guns when responding to a domestic violence complaint. In order to assess how these laws were implemented, we…