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The Effects of Waiting Periods on Firearm Suicides in the U.S.

Waiting Periods
Firearm Suicides
Policy Evaluation
Mental Health

Hussain Hadah and Gael Compta, “The Effects of Waiting Periods on Firearm Suicides in the U.S.”

Authors
Affiliation

Hussain Hadah

Tulane University

Gael Compta

Tulane University

Other details

Presented at the Defense Resources Management Institute (DRMI) in 2025, the American Society of Health Economists Annual Conference in Nashville in 2025, the Southern Economic Association Conference in Washington, D.C. in 2024, the University of Houston’s Applied Micro Lunch Seminar, the Murphy Institute Health Seminar in 2023, and the Southern Economic Association Annual Meeting in 2021.

Abstract

Suicide is often an impulsive act, and in the United States, nearly one-half of suicides involve a firearm, the most lethal and readily available method. In this paper, using developments in difference-in-differences design, we study the effect of waiting-period laws on firearm suicides and provide the first causal evaluation of such laws. We find that waiting periods reduce firearm suicides for men (-1.3 per 100,000), while the reduction for the overall population (-0.5 per 100,000), adults aged 55 + (-28.5 per 100,000), and white individuals (-23.1 per 100,000) was statistically insignificant. Waiting periods did not cause an increase in non-firearm suicides. The majority of confidence intervals were in the negative range, and the lack of statistically significant estimates does not mean that waiting periods did not cause a decrease in suicides. These findings provide some evidence that even brief delays in firearm access could disrupt the pathway from suicidal ideation to death, suggesting that cooling-off periods may be a crucial policy tool for suicide prevention.

Important Figures

Figure 1: State-level variation in waiting period policies

Figure 2: The causal effects of waiting periods on firearms suicides

Figure 3: The causal effects of waiting periods on firearms suicides among men

Figure 4: The causal effects of waiting periods on firearms suicides among individuals aged 55+

Figure 5: The causal effects of waiting periods on firearms suicides among white individuals