Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Among the 1.3 million discipline incidents reported in US public schools during the 2013-14 school year, about 78% were of a violent nature and 5% were related to weapon possession. Although the effectiveness of gun control in improving school safety has been central to public debates, there has been limited research addressing this issue. Motivated by the documented link between school safety and psychological well-being, we examined the impact of state-level gun control on adolescent school safety and mental health.

We used data on 926,639 adolescents from 45 states in the 1999-2015 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys. Students self-reported on the number of times they had been threatened or injured with a weapon at school and been in a fight on school property. Subjective perception of safety and individual mental health were captured by questions on the number of school days missed due to feeling unsafe and on suicide planning and attempts. We combined 38 state-level gun laws into an index of gun control strength. We used difference-in-differences regressions to evaluate the impact of stricter gun laws on binary measures of school safety and mental health. We controlled for individual socio-demographic characteristics, state demographic and socio-economic characteristics, as well as year and state fixed effects. 

The state-level gun control index displays substantial variation across states and years with an average of 8 points and a range between 0 (Wyoming in 2013 and 2015) and 26 (Massachusetts between 2003 and 2015). In our sample, almost 75% of the states had an average score lower than 10. While 7 states never changed their score in our sample, the remaining states displayed substantial variation over time. In sum, 16 states decreased their score by an average of 1.5 points (range between 1 and 3), 12 states increased their score by an average of 3 points (range between 1 and 12), and 8 states experienced both increases and decreases over the study period. For school safety, a 10-point increase in the gun control index (i.e. a strengthening of gun control) was associated with a 1.5 percentage point decrease in the probability of weapon threat at school, and a 2.2 percentage point decrease in the probability of fight involvement on school property (both p<0.05). For mental health and safety perception, a 10-point increase in the index was associated with a 2.8 percentage point decrease in the probability that a student missed school due to feeling unsafe, a 2.8 percentage point decrease in the probability that they considered suicide, and a 4.2 percentage point decrease in the probability that they planned suicide (all p<0.001).

With the prevalence of weapon threats and fights at school decreasing only slightly, and the percentage of students reporting suicide ideation on the rise, school safety and adolescent mental health represent top policy priorities. Our results suggest that the adoption of stricter state gun laws may improve school climate and favor the development of positive mental health in adolescents.