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8 Firearm Injury Prevention Programs
Pages 201-220

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From page 201...
... The first section summarizes behavioral interventions targeted toward reducing firearms injury. The second part considers what is known about technological interventions aimed at preventing firearms injury.
From page 202...
... Other comprehensive programs, such as those listed by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (e.g., Boston Strategy to Prevent Youth Violence) were not listed either because they incorporated suppression and TABLE 8-1 Firearms Prevention Programs Developer, Sponsor Target and/or Type of Age or Program Publisher Program Grade Eddie National "Just say no" Pre-K Eagle Rifle to Gun Association grade 6 Safety Program Steps to Brady Physician-directed Parents Prevent Center to parent education Firearm Prevent Injury Gun (STOP Violence 2)
From page 203...
... For example, if the program is designed to educate parents about firearms safety, a proximal behavior goal would be related to how a gun is stored in the home Description of Program Evaluation Motivational program for Hardy et al.
From page 204...
... 204 FIREARMS AND VIOLENCE TABLE 8-1 Continued Developer, Sponsor Target and/or Type of Age or Program Publisher Program Grade Straight Talk Brady Center Skills-building Pre-K to About Risks to Prevent grade 12 (STAR) Gun Violence Safe San Jose Skills-building Juvenile Alternatives Police offenders and Violence Department ages 10Education (San Jose, 18 (SAVE)
From page 205...
... increasing gun safety knowledge and attitudes for children in grades 3-5 and only moderately effective for older children. Hardy (2002b)
From page 206...
... 206 FIREARMS AND VIOLENCE TABLE 8-1 Continued Developer, Sponsor Target and/or Type of Age or Program Publisher Program Grade Calling the Michael Shock Juvenile Shots McGonigal, offenders M.D., ages 15-17 Regions Hospital, St. Paul, Minnesota The Living The Living Shock Adjudicated Classroom Classroom middle Foundation Foundation, school Baltimore, students MD, with drug contact: or gun John offenses Dillow, Director of the Maritime Institute Teens on Operated by Peer-based Urban Target Youth education, youth at (TNT)
From page 207...
... conducted school for carrying weapons or a randomized prospective study of engaging in destructive the program assessing attitudes behavior. Peers also visit and behavior toward guns and adolescents recovering from truancy rates following violent injuries who convince completion of the program, but them not to retaliate.
From page 208...
... (locked, loaded, etc.) , whereas the distal behavior goal might be to reduce the rare acts of gun violence involving children.
From page 209...
... Mental health clinicians spend time with police officers in squad cars, at police stations, and on the street learning directly from officers about their day-to-day activities. The outcome data may come from a number of sources -- self-report, proxy report (e.g., peers, teachers, parents)
From page 210...
... When behavior is measured, one of two sources of information is typically obtained: · Community-wide or school-wide measures of the consequences of gun-carrying or gun violence -- for example, school suspensions, mortality and morbidity rates, arrest rates for firearm-related offenses, suicide attempts using firearms. The behaviors that firearm violence programs are typically designed to modify or prevent are often rare events (e.g., accidental firearm deaths)
From page 211...
... Inconsistencies between children's knowledge and behavior following participation in more general violence prevention programs is well documented (Arcus, 1995)
From page 212...
... The key point is that the sample should be representative of an identified population; in the above example, the population is more accurately identified as grade schools with highly motivated teachers. A second step that program developers can take to exclude alternative explanations is to assess the targeted knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors in a control or comparison group not exposed to the program.
From page 213...
... Every day children are taught to say "no" to guns and violence by educators who use a variety of methods to get the message across, from depicting the deadly consequences of firearm violence, to building skills needed to resist peer pressure, to using peer educators to reach students at risk. On the surface, this primary prevention approach to reducing firearm deaths and injuries among children and adolescents appears to be a worthwhile venture.
From page 214...
... These studies may include structured laboratory observations -- that is, researchers working closely with the schools and community groups can recruit a representative sample of children and adolescents and randomize the children to experimental and comparison conditions, collect pretest and posttest behavior, and structure an experimental setting to elicit the targeted behavior. FIREARMS SAFETY TECHNOLOGY Safety technologies have often been suggested as an alternative means of preventing injury and crime.
From page 215...
... Locking Technology To illustrate both the complexities of the issue and the lack of evidence, it is useful to consider what is known about locking devices, perhaps the most widely debated, studied, funded, and utilized firearms safety technology. From simple trigger locks and gun safes to more sophisticated personalized and "smart" guns, the promise of this technology is to reduce the unauthorized transfer and use of firearms.2 Unauthorized transfers occur in households, for example, from a parent to a child, in seizures from victims to assailants, in thefts from residences, vehicles, and commercial places, and in illicit transfers on the secondary market.
From page 216...
... , in reviewing the engineering design of the different locks for the Sandia National Laboratories, concluded that the existing personalized locking technologies did not meet the reliability standards required for on-duty law enforcement officers.4 The interaction between gun safety technology and the behavior of users may also lessen the effectiveness of locking technologies. At the most basic level, authorized users may not lock their guns and unauthorized users may design ways to disable locks, access unlocked guns, or use different weaponry.
From page 217...
... Thus, without credible empirical evidence, the realized effects of different safety technologies are impossible to assess. In the absence of direct empirical evidence, a number of researchers have appealed to the lessons learned from other product safety innovations and legislation, especially automobile safety technologies.
From page 218...
... Moreover, CAP laws and other local firearms legislation may be adopted in response to the local variation in the outcomes of interest. For example, a sharp increase in accidental injuries and fatalities spurred a Florida legislature that had previously turned down similar legislation to adopt the CAP law in 1989 (Morgan, 1989)
From page 219...
... suggest that whether a death is coded as an accident, a suicide, or a homicide is "likely to vary across place and time." If the coding behaviors change in response to the legislation, for example, if after the law is passed accidental shootings are more likely to be classified as suicides or homicides, then the observed empirical results may be due to coding changes rather than the law. Thus, in the committee's view, until independent researchers can perform an empirically based assessment of the potential statistical and data related problems, the credibility of the existing research cannot be assessed.
From page 220...
... 220 FIREARMS AND VIOLENCE Thus, the committee recommends that a sustained body of empirical research be developed to study the effects of different safety technologies on violence and crime. There are many obstacles to answering the key empirical questions, not the least of which is the lack of detailed individual-level data on firearms ownership, the use of safety devices and firearms, and the outcomes of interest that, in the case of accidents, are especially rare.


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