A Reassessment of the D.C. Gun Law: Some Cautionary Notes on the Use of Interrupted Time Series Designs for Policy Impact Assessment

Interrupted time series designs are commonly used to assess the impact of gun control legislation, as well as other legal and policy changes. Three common problems in the use of these designs-(1) selection of an appropriate control series, (2) specification of the intervention model, and (3) specifi...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Law & society review 1996-01, Vol.30 (2), p.361-380
Main Authors: Britt, Chester L., Kleck, Gary, Bordua, David J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Criminal law
Criminal sociology. Police. Delinquency. Deviance. Suicide
Criminology
Evaluation
Firearms
GUN CONTROL
Guns
Handguns
Homicide
Homicide rates
Law
LEGISLATION
Local Government (Washington, DC)
Observational research
Policy
Policy Analysis
POLITICAL EVALUATION
PUBLIC POLICY
Research Design
Sociology
Sociology of law and criminology
Time series
Time Series Analysis
Time series models
Washington State
WASHINGTON, D.C
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Summary:Interrupted time series designs are commonly used to assess the impact of gun control legislation, as well as other legal and policy changes. Three common problems in the use of these designs-(1) selection of an appropriate control series, (2) specification of the intervention model, and (3) specification of the time series studied-raise questions about the validity of the conclusions reached in research on the impact of gun control. We illustrate these problems with a critical reassessment of Loftin et al.'s (1991) evaluation of the 1976 District of Columbia Gun Law. We then use monthly homicide data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Center for Health Statistics to illustrate how careful consideration of these three design issues results in a significantly different conclusion about the effectiveness of the District of Columbia Gun Law.
ISSN:0023-9216
1540-5893
DOI:10.2307/3053963