Do Gun Buybacks Work?

Mark Anderson examined buybacks in 277 cities from 1991 to 2015 and found that they don't reduce gun crimes or suicides, partly because there are just so many guns in America that buybacks can't keep make a noticeable dent in the number of firearms already in circulation.

Is the gun buyback program effective?

Gun buyback programs (GBPs), which use public funds to purchase civilians' privately-owned firearms, aim to reduce gun violence. ... Using data from the National Incident Based Reporting System, we find no evidence that GBPs reduce gun crime.

Do gun buybacks save lives?

We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80 per cent, with no statistically significant effect on non-firearm death rates. ... The results are robust to a variety of specification checks, and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate.