Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.edu.

That's public health question at jh.u.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Firearm purchaser licensing requirements like background checks and fingerprinting very widely from state to state,

but research shows that policies like these can actually help address homicides and suicides.

In today's episode, researchers Sylvia Villarreal and Josh Horowitz talk about a new report

that identifies five ideal components to include in licensing,

why these policies can be key in actually addressing deaths from gun violence,

and how, in the inverse, taking away these requirements can actually result in more deaths.

Let's listen.

Sylvia Virreal and Josh Horowitz, thanks so much for coming back on public health on call.

Today we're going to talk about firearm purchaser licensing.

But first, we kind of want to understand what that is and what it entails.

So, Sylvia, can you talk a little about that?

Fire and purchaser licensing is what some people know as permit to purchase.

And it is exactly what its name says.

It is a system that requires individuals to obtain a license before being able to buy a gun.

And the intention here is very similar to that of a driver's license,

where you need to prove that you can safely operate a car before driving.

So we are applying the same logical principle to firearms. And the end goal is simple.

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