Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence (2013) / Chapter Skim
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Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence
Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence
Pages 11-68
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: Firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- 2000-2010, United States, all races, both sexes, all ages (accessed May 1, 2013)
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Broadly, the committee was charged with identifying the most critical research questions in the following areas: The characteristics of firearm violence Risk and protective factors Interventions and strategies Gun safety technology The influence of video games and other media The evidence generated by implementing a public health research agenda can enable the development of sound policies that support both the rights and the responsibilities central to gun ownership in the United States. In the absence of this research, policy makers will be left to debate controversial policies without scientifically sound evidence about their potential effects.
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: Overall firearm gunshot nonfatal injuries and rates per 100,000 -- 2010, United States, all races, both sexes, all ages (accessed May 1, 2013)
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: Overall firearm gunshot fatal injuries and rates per 100,000 -- 2010, United States, Hispanic, males, all ages (accessed April 30, 2013)
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, in the context of about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008 (BJS, 2010)
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Even when defensive use of guns is effective in averting death or injury for the gun user in cases of crime, it is still possible that keeping a gun in the home or carrying a gun in public -- concealed or open carry -- may have a different net effect on the rate of injury. For example, if gun ownership raises the risk of suicide, homicide, or the use of weapons by those who invade the homes of gun owners, this could cancel or outweigh the beneficial effects of defensive gun use (Kellermann et al., 1992, 1993, 1995)
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. Developing an integrated and collaborative public health and criminal justice injury prevention paradigm will improve interventions to reduce harms associated with firearm-related violence.
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These successes suggest the following strategies for reducing firearm-related injuries: Individual- and family-level interventions focused on the victim (host) pre-event: o Routine primary care counseling o Education o Family risk factors Individual-, family-, or community-level interventions focused on the perpetrator or gun (agent)
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; state and local programs addressing equipment and human fac tors such as fatigue and alcohol; and public education and law enforcement programs. A similar multifaceted program, through the development of a public health research agenda, is needed to ultimately reduce the burden of gun violence.
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. The workshop was organized in order to hear from a range of authorities in the area of firearm violence research; policy makers and advocates with long-standing interest in gun policy; and researchers with expertise in injury prevention, media influences, and firearms technology, as well as to seek general public comment about the development of a public health research agenda to reduce firearm-related violence.
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Video games and other media: Identify questions that improve the un derstanding and impact of violence in video games, the media, and social media on real-life violence. Risk and protective factors: Identify research questions that will as sess potential risk and protective factors and other critical issues, such as the socioeconomic and socio-cultural environment.
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Following the overview of each of these research domains, the committee identifies the topics that should constitute a public health research agenda to reduce and prevent firearm-related injuries and fatalities. AN OVERARCHING ISSUE: RESEARCH DESIGN AND DATA Throughout its deliberations, the committee identified a series of issues related to data and research methods that would impact the design and implementation of its proposed research agenda.
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City of Chicago.16 However, the scarcity of research on firearm-related violence limits policy makers' ability to propose evidence-based policies that reduce injuries and deaths and maximize safety while recognizing Second Amendment rights. Since the 1960s, a number of state and federal laws and regulations have been enacted that restrict government's ability to collect and share information about gun sales, ownership, and possession, which has limited data collection and collation relevant to firearm violence prevention research.
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Consequently, researchers often rely on aggregated (at the national or state level) or proxy measures of gun ownership and violence (NRC, 2005)
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. The system provides information about firearm deaths in the context of all violent deaths, including child abuse, intimate partner homicide, and suicide, but is limited to only 18 U.S.
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: Overall firearm gunshot nonfatal injuries and rates per 100,000 -- 2010, United States, all races, both sexes, all ages (accessed April 30, 2013)
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. In order to develop relevant research questions and targeted interventions to prevent firearm-related violence, it is important to understand what is and is not known about the general characteristics of both fatal and nonfatal firearm violence.
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: 1999-2010, United States, suicide firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- all races, both sexes, all ages, output by year, age-adjusted (accessed April 30, 2013)
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: 2005-2010, United States, suicide firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- all races, both sexes, all ages, output by race, age-adjusted (accessed April 30, 2013)
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2012. WISQARS injury mortality reports: 2010, United States, homicide firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- all races, both sexes, all ages, grouped by race, age-adjusted (accessed April 30, 2013)
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Although it may seem that protection against such an event is nearly impossible, proactive law enforcement activities, including community policing and intelligence-led policing, may help prevent some mass shootings (Bjelopera et al., 2013)
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2012. WISQARS injury mortality reports: Overall firearm gunshot nonfatal injuries and rates per 100,000 -- 2010, United States, all races, both sexes, 0-19, ageadjusted (accessed April 30, 2013)
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To help achieve a better understanding of the characteristics of gun violence, the following two research topics were identified as priorities. Characterize the scope of and motivations for gun acquisition, ownership, and use, and how are they distributed across sub populations.
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RISK AND PROTECTIVE FACTORS ASSOCIATED WITH FIREARM-RELATED VIOLENCE Trends in firearm-related injury and death differ by type of violence. Between 2005 and 2010, the percentage of firearm-related violent victimizations remained generally stable (Truman, 2011)
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: 1999-2010, United States, suicide firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- all races, both sexes, all ages, output by year, age-adjusted (accessed April 30, 2013)
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These disparities, however, are largely accounted for by family/individual factors (lower levels of household socioeconomic status, higher rates of violent peer exposure and previous violent behavior) and neighborhood risk factors (high levels of concentrated disadvantage, deficiency of youth services)
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or have high levels of aggression or low self-control (Jennings et al., 2010) , or that offenders may victimize one another because they believe they can do so with impunity from law enforcement (Sparks, 1982)
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. Risk factors for unintentional firearm-related fatalities include carelessness; reckless activities (e.g., playing with guns)
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: Suicide firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- 2010, United States, all races, both sexes, ages 10 to 19 (accessed May 8, 2013)
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. Additional research is needed to weigh the competing risks and protective benefits that may accompany gun ownership in different communities.
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Public Health Approaches to Firearm Violence Focused on Particular Types of Locations Public health approaches to ameliorating gun violence have built upon models from other public health successes, such as tobacco control and automobile safety. These successful models have used population-based approaches such as taxation, public education, efforts to change social norms, and engineering safety.
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Criminologists and law enforcement officials have identified "hotspots," or high-risk physical locations, for violent crime. A number of police and criminal justice programs, such as Operation CeaseFire, Cure Violence, Project Exile, and Project Safe Streets, have attempted to reduce gun-related violence in those neighborhoods.
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What is the effect of concentrated disadvantage on community violence, especially firearm-related violence? FIREARM VIOLENCE PREVENTION AND OTHER INTERVENTIONS Successful interventions to reduce firearm-related injuries, like many other public health efforts, must involve the health and public safety communities, educators, and other community groups.
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. Background checks are intended to curtail gun sales to prohibited persons, such as felons, the severely mentally ill, domestic violence perpetrators, and minors.
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. Risk Factors Associated with Gun Possession Certain aspects of suicide, homicide, and unintentional injury may be amenable to public health research.
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Fifty percent of suicides are by firearm and 60 percent of firearm deaths are suicides (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2013)
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Although firearm injury prevention education programs are widespread in public schools, they are inadequately studied and the few evaluations that have been conducted provide little evidence of effectiveness. It has been suggested that school-based prevention programs could actually glamorize guns among youth; however, information on childhood gun safety provided to parents by physicians may be effective (Dowd and Sege, 2012)
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Concerns about privacy regarding gun ownership, as well as individuals' mental health records, encumber data collection and research on firearm violence. The best way to protect children from unintentional firearmrelated injuries remains elusive, but technology interventions appear to offer significant opportunities (see the section "Impact of Gun Safety Technology")
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also found that the share of crime gun traces attributed to these few dealers only slightly exceeded their share of handgun sales, which are almost equally concentrated among a few dealers. Improve understanding of whether interventions intended to di minish the illegal carrying of firearms reduce firearm violence.
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2013. WISQARS injury mortality reports: 2010, United States, suicide firearm deaths and rates per 100,000 -- all races, both sexes, all ages (accessed April 30, 2013)
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Although the CDC has devoted significant efforts toward violence reduction, the interaction of guns and violent behavior reduction has not been a focus. Unintentional firearm injury to children deserves special attention due to the uniquely vulnerable nature of this population, although these incidents are relatively infrequent compared with other types of firearm violence and thus do not constitute a large burden of disease.
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Are gun safety programs effective in reducing unintentional inju ry to children from firearms? Are school personnel (e.g., nurses, resource officers, teachers)
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Similarly, making guns a safer consumer product would include design or technology improvements that reduce firearm-related deaths and injury. Gun Technology Safety Features The purpose of gun safety technologies is to prevent unintentional "shootings, usually by very young children; the shooting of police officers by assailants using the officers' own weapons; [and]
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. Recently, gun safety technologies have focused on solutions that involve advanced technologies, passive, and person-specific approaches, such as "smart guns." The term "smart gun" is used as an overarching concept to cover all weapons that have some level of user authorization.
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. Challenges to Developing Gun Safety Technologies There are approximately 1,000 patents on record for various designs to prevent access to a firearm by unauthorized users, but many are untested.
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. Table 1 includes a broad range of conceivable gun safety technologies, without regard to current technological feasibility, cost, or consumer acceptance.
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When originally examined by Colt, the iGun technology was designed for long guns; the project has largely been aban doned. Another version of this approach, called TriggerSmart, is under development by the Georgia Institute of Technology in Ireland.
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A determination of the state of the technology is part of President Obama's 2013 executive orders to reduce firearm violence; a directive under Ac
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past consumer adoption lessons to address the challenge of con sumer acceptance of gun safety features; and 3. the experiences of various states and countries with gun safety technology to identify effective methods for introducing and dis seminating gun safety technologies.
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How compliant would firearm owners be with safety technolo gies, or would owners disable technologies to assure their ability to use the firearms in an emergency? Past Consumer Acceptance Experiences to Inform the Development and Dissemination of Gun Safety Technology Previous successful injury prevention strategies have been informed by examining consumer acceptance challenges (Braitman et al., 2010)
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In previous product safety efforts, how long did it take for the safety feature to become reliable and how did that time frame impact consumer acceptance? Would this experience of timing and acceptance impact projections of gun safety technology im plementation?
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Although the bulk of past media violence research has focused on violence portrayed in television and film, more recent research has expanded to include music, video games, social media, and the Internet. Interest in media effects is fueled by the fact that youth spend an increasing amount of time engaging with media.
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. Fewer studies examine the link between short-term exposure to media violence and violent behaviors such as arguing, fighting, aggravated or sexual assault, shooting, stabbing, and robbery (Gentile et al., 2004; Ybarra et al., 2008)
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. Copycat Behaviors as a Result of Media Violence Some research suggests that media violence may be imitated or copied in real life, especially in cases of suicide (which may or may not involve a gun)
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Longer-Term Longitudinal Studies in Youth on Exposure to Media Violence A number of longitudinal studies document long-term associations between violent media exposure in childhood and the later occurrence of real-life aggression or violence (Anderson et al., 2010; Boxer et al., 2009; Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis, 2005; Eron and Huesmann, 1980; Eron et al., 1972; Huesmann, 1996; 2007; Huesmann and Taylor, 2006; Huesmann et al., 1984; Krahé and Möller, 2010; Savage, 2004; Savage and Yancey, 2008; Slater et al., 2003)
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has been carried out to provide definitive evidence that the long-term associations are causal rather than due to unmeasured common causes that select violence-prone youth into high levels of exposure to media violence. However, data from existing studies have shown that long-term associations cannot be solely explained by these unmeasured common causes.
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Examine the relationship between exposure to media violence and real-life violence. Examples of topics that could be examined: Synthesize evidence from existing studies and relevant databases that would reveal long-term associations between violent media exposure in childhood and subsequent adolescent or adult firearm-related violence.
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? o Are the magnitude and consistency of the plausibly causal relationship sufficient to suggest a public health research agenda on interventions related to media violence?
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