Fifty State Alcohol Related Firearm Law Data

The State Alcohol-Related Firearm Statutes (SARFS) dataset was developed to analyze statutes that aim to prevent or regulate firearm access by individuals who are either acutely intoxicated or have alcohol misuse history (“alcohol-related firearm laws”) from all 50 states and to examine their impact on firearm-related injuries and mortality. This dataset contains numerical variables that describe enactment, amendment, and repeal (if applicable) of alcohol-related firearm laws during the years of 2010 to 2023.<br><br>The methods used to perform the original legal research followed a pre-published protocol: Silver D, Bae J, Macinko J. Protocol for creating a dataset of US state alcohol-related firearm laws 2000–2022. PLoS one. 2024 Mar 7;19(3):e029924. In brief, the most up-to-date version of statutes were collected from Westlaw, a proprietary online legal research database, beginning with the following broad search terms applied to the entirety of the state statutory codes: [(influence intoxicat! drunk! alcohol) /50 firearm] and [(influence intoxicat! drunk! alcohol) /50 gun]. Utilizing the legislative history summary provided by Westlaw and its historical database, any bills that enacted, amended, or repealed the statutes from 2010 to 2023 as well as court decisions enjoining the laws from going into effect (temporary or permanent) were also obtained. All texts were reviewed and key provisions were coded as separate variables. Each calendar year constitutes a separate sheet in the file, containing variables representing the laws as of that time of 50 states. Any substantive modifications of existing laws were coded as new events with their effective dates specified. Additional Westlaw research was conducted to retrieve penalties and other relevant factors.<br>