Bang for the Buck: The Impact of Political Financial Contributions on Firearm Law.

BACKGROUND 100,000 Americans are shot annually and 39,000 die. State laws restricting firearm sales and use have been shown to decrease firearm deaths, yet little is known about what impacts their passage or repeal. We hypothesized that spending by groups that favor firearm restrictive legislation would increase new state firearm restrictive laws (FRL) and that states increasing these laws would endure fewer firearm deaths. METHODS We acquired 2013-2018 state data on spending by groups against firearm restrictive legislation (A-FRL) and for it (F-FRL) regarding lobbying, campaign, independent and total expenditures from the National Institute on Money in State Politics. State level political party representation data was acquired from the National Conference of State Legislatures. Mass shooting data was obtained from the Mass Shooter Database of the Violence Project and firearm death rates were obtained from CDC WONDER and FBI UCR databases. FRL were obtained from the State Firearms Law Database. A univariate panel linear regression with fixed effect for state was performed with change in FRL from baseline as the outcome. A final multivariable panel regression with fixed effect for state was then utilized. Firearm death rates were compared by whether states increased, decreased or had no change in FRL. RESULTS 22 states gained and 13 lost FRL while 15 states had no net change (44%, 26% and 30%, p=0.484). In multivariable regression accounting for partisan control of state government, F-FRL groups outspending A-FRL groups had the largest association with increased FRL (β 1.420, 95% CI 0.63 to 2.21, p<0.001). States which gained FRL had significantly lower firearm death rates (p<0.001). Relative to states with no change in FRL, states which lost FRL had an increase in overall firearm death of 1 per 100,000 individuals. States which gained FRL had a net decrease in median overall firearm death of 0.5 per 100,000 individuals. CONCLUSIONS Higher political spending by groups in favor of restrictive firearm legislation has a powerful association with increasing and maintaining FRL States which increased their FRL, in turn, showed lower firearm death rates. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Retrospective cohort study, level 3 evidence.