Do bans on carrying firearms work for violence reduction? Evidence from a department-level ban in Colombia

This paper aims to fill a gap in the assessment of armed violence reduction programming by evaluating the impact of a ban on gun-carrying licenses in Colombia. Exploiting regional and temporal variations, and controlling by enforcement levels we found a large and significant violence reduction impact, both in terms of firearm homicides and firearms-related intentional injuries. These positive effects seem to diminish as time passes by and rely on continuous and significant enforcement of the restriction. This gun control intervention operates by extending law enforcement to previously uncontrolled territories and periods, thus increasing gun availability costs for violent criminals.