Yves here. This piece presents some ideas on how to reduce gun deaths without putting formal restrictions on gun use. I still favor the idea of gun licensing, particularly since studies have found that training in gun safety prior to ownership does produce adherence to good practices, while instruction afterwards has no impact on behavior. Admittedly, this article points out that suicide by firearm is a much much bigger cause of death than gun accidents, but I wonder if “gun accident” statistics include when household members get in a fight and one picks up a gun and fires it (again whether by professed accident or not). In other words, I am sure suicides still greatly outnumber gun accidents, but I wonder how comprehensively the latter is defined.
By Dan Falk (@danfalk), a science journalist based in Toronto. His books include “The Science of Shakespeare” and “In Search of Time.” Originally published at Undark
Each year, nearly 49,000 lives are lost in the United States due to gun violence, of which more than half are suicides. More Americans died as a result of gun violence in 2021 (the most recent year for which complete statistics are available) that in any other year on record — though due to the nation’s growing population, the rate of gun deaths has remained lower than its peak in the 1970s. Youth gun violence, in particular, appears to be on the rise.
For decades, the question of how best to confront the epidemic of gun violence — with policy, law enforcement, education, public health, or a combination — has been fiercely debated and politically contentious.
In 1996, under pressure from the gun lobby, Congress enacted the so-called Dickey Amendment, which prohibited federal money from being used to “advocate or promote gun control,” effectively blocking the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using federal money to conduct research into gun-related violence. But in 2019, lawmakers brokered a deal that clarified the amendment’s intent, approving $25 million in annual funding for the CDC and the National Institutes of Health to study gun violence through the lens of public health.
Now revived, the field is still in its early stages, and so far there is little evidence of common ground between public health advocates and gun rights activists, and others who don’t see gun violence as a public health problem. But there are signs of traction: The American Public Health Association, the Association of American Medical Colleges, and the National Institute for Health Care Management have all adopted a public health approach to the nation’s gun violence crisis.
David Hemenway, a professor of health policy at Harvard University and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, advocates for the public health approach, which he explored in his 2004 book, “Private Guns, Public Health.” “Public health is about prevention,” he says, while acknowledging the crucial role of law enforcement. “It’s not a fight about finding fault. It’s not about finding who did something wrong. It’s about trying to figure out ways to prevent the problem from occurring.”
While Hemenway is eager to see more research, databases like the National Violent Death Reporting System, which combines police and medical examiner information on all violent deaths across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., and the Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, have already proven to be vitally useful, he wrote in an email to Undark. (Both are maintained by the CDC.)
Our interview was conducted over Zoom and by e-mail, and has been edited for length and clarity.
Undark: The United States has a high rate of gun violence and gun deaths compared to other industrialized countries. Why?
David Hemenway: The big reason is the guns and the gun laws. Evidence indicates that we are really an average high-income country in terms of non-gun violence and crime. So if you look at our overall rates of burglary, or robbery, or sexual assault, or car theft, we do better than some of the other high-income countries and we do worse than others.
But where we are different is we have lots, lots more guns; much greater household gun ownership; and also the types of guns we have. Canada has a fair number of long guns, but we have so many handguns; almost half of our gun stock now is handguns. And we also have all these military weapons that are easy for anyone to get. Then we have by far the weakest gun laws.
UD: You’re known for supporting a public health approach to combating gun violence. What does that entail?
DH: If you ask me for a one-sentence description of the public health approach, it would be: Let’s make it really difficult to get injured, or to injure someone, and let’s make it really easy to be safe. So for example, I do some work about obesity, and the public health approach to obesity would be, let’s make it really easy for people to get healthy food, and make it harder for people to get junk food; let’s make it really easy for people to get healthy exercise and make it harder for them to be couch potatoes. And we do just the opposite in the United States.
The public health approach is about prevention. It’s not about individuals; it’s about the population.
We now have a good national system about violent deaths. Every time now that there’s a violent death in the United States, a homicide or suicide, there’s about 120 pieces of information collected, consistently and comparatively, across all the states and over time.
So we’re starting to understand more and more about what is happening, what might work, what might not work. And then we try things; you’re going to be able to tell, did this really work or didn’t this work? So having good data really matters.
UD: It’s been difficult in the United States to get federal gun legislation passed. Are there things that can be done at the state or local level?
At the local level, there are so many interesting, exciting initiatives that we think work. Hospitals are having these — it used to be always at level-one trauma centers — somebody would get shot, they’d fix them up and they’d send them back out. And those people are at very high risk for getting shot again or for shooting somebody else. And now what you do is, you have designated entities in the hospital who says, “Oh, someone came in for a shooting; what can we do to make sure to help them so that it’s less likely that they will go back and get shot, less likely that they will retaliate and shoot somebody else?”
We have initiatives in Boston trying to reduce the likelihood that women will get involved in gun violence. In the United States, one way that the wrong people get guns is with “straw purchasing.’’ So a straw purchaser, basically, you’re buying a gun for someone else who won’t pass a background check. When a woman buys a gun, she is disproportionately likely to be a straw purchaser, to buying a gun for her boyfriend who shouldn’t have a gun.
And what’s been happening in Boston is to try to work with women’s groups, and women in the inner city and other places, to try to convince them that, look, you should know, and everybody else should know — it should become the social norm — that if your boyfriend asks you buy by a gun for them, illegally, or to hold a gun for them, illegally, you’re going to be at real risk. Because if you get caught, you have nothing to trade, because you don’t know what’s going on, and they can put you in jail — and have put people like that in jail — for many years. And you’re also hurting your own community.
So it should be the social norm, that you and everybody else knows, if your boyfriend asked you to do that your response should be “Get rid of that boyfriend,” because that’s really a horrible, horrible thing that they’re doing.
UD: How would a public health approach help reduce gun suicides?
DH: The evidence in the United States that a gun in the home increases the risk of suicide in the home is overwhelming. There are case control studies, there are ecological studies, there are longitudinal studies — they’re dangerous to everyone in the house.
Having guns lying around when someone’s at risk for suicide is a terrible, terrible thing. We’re working now to try to make sure physicians understand that. So if you’re a psychiatrist, and somebody comes in, and they’re talking [about] suicide, you should ask not only about their mental health and try to help out, but you should talk directly about guns, and try to get the guns out of the house. And if not, I would argue that that’s like malpractice, not to do that now, with what we know.
Ten or 15 years ago, nobody in the in the gun area was talking about suicide. They believed, completely incorrectly, that if you want to commit suicide, you’ll commit it no matter what, that no one’s going to stop you. So my colleague Cathy Barber spent a lot of time working with gun shops, working with gun ranges, working with gun trainers, to try to make a difference about suicide, and has had a lot of success.
Let me talk about the trainers, since that’s the most interesting. She got herself invited to this association of gun trainers who were teaching about gun carrying. And you should recognize that Utah is a very red state; it has lots and lots and lots of guns, and very conservative. And she said to these trainers, “You know, you’re trying to do a really good job talking about gun accidents, but did you realize that for every accidental gun death, there are 85 gun suicides in Utah?” And they said, “What? That can’t be right!”
And then she said, “Raise your hand if you know someone who accidentally killed themselves with a gun,” and a couple of hands go up; “Raise your hand if you know someone who killed themselves with a gun in a suicide” — and every hand goes up, because they’re all these old White guys, and that’s who’s the biggest risk for suicide.
Then she said, could we work on this, to try to do something, maybe have a module that you might use, because how many people here are talking about suicide? Nobody. And they said, “Alright, let’s work together.” And they work together, and they create this module. And they love it — they think it’s the best thing.
UD: You’re a scientist, you talk about these datasets and policy based on evidence. So, is it working? You’ve given some very positive examples, but I wonder if the issue is just that when we turn on the TV, the news is terrible.
DH: No, things have gotten worse in the United States. More people are carrying guns, there’s more military weapons out there, gun ownership rates have increased a little bit. A lot of bad things are happening. Politically, it’s been very hard because one of our two parties is aligned with the gun lobby. So it’s hard. But what I would say, from a public health standpoint, is that there’s a lot of good things happening, but also, that there’s been so many successes in public health over the last 150 years.
From the sanitation revolution in the 1800s, to immunizations, to the United States reducing smoking, you name it — there are so many good things. But all of these things took a long time. Even getting physicians to wash their hands took about 20 years before they would do that.
But people who believe in public health have pushed and pushed and pushed until suddenly things tip. It’s three steps forward, two steps back, but it’s always been, overall, this incredible movement toward having richer, happier lives.
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I wish these people would offer something more than anecdotes to support their proposals, the anecdotes are rather suspicious, given the motivations of the story tellers.
To be fair, the article does state that the CDC was not allowed to do research into gun violence from a public health perspective until recently.
Of course my trust for the CDC is effectively zero since covid and the ivermectin scandal (not to mention other missteps regarding covid vaccines, hydroxychloroquine, remdesivir, intubation, et). At this point I expect most research on “public health” to start with a conclusion and work backwards from there.
And I know this discussion was mostly about guns and that’s a different ballgame from whether someone is a couch potato (it’s nonsensical to require a license to watch The Simpsons) but I’m admittedly a bit concerned with his enthusiasm for paternalistic solutions. How exactly does one “make it harder” for someone to be a couch potato? Electric collars that zap you when you’ve watched too much? I’m joking, but seriously what solution is his hand-waving implying?
“Anecdotes”? Do you call the statement that a person is 85 more times likely to kill himself with a gun than die in a gun accident an anecdote? If so, provide a link.
My understanding is that in normal discussion, if someone states a statistic, however it is labelled, it is up them to show provenance. Not for others to disprove it.
Actually, I would call that statement a total fabrication, but, it elicited the desired response. Try this one on: In the United States, 99.36 percent of privately owned firearms have not been involved in a crime, a suicide or a gun accident.
I’ve told a few people over the years that 84.387% of all statistics are made up on the spur of the moment, and a surprising number (to me) of people had a response along the lines of “Really? That high?”.
Maybe this could help: https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2019/aug/21/jason-miyares/62-us-gun-deaths-are-suicides/
From the link:
When I did the math it was 49 times more likely for suicide than accidental death. But then again they were talking about Utah and these are US figures for 2017.
All firearms, one at a time, should be licensed and taxed, along with an insurance requirement. Just like automobiles. Nothing in this requirement “infringes” the “right” of anyone to own and operate a motor vehicle. Same with the right to “bear arms.” Operating a motor vehicle without a license and insurance is a serious offense. If taxes are not paid, no valid license plate and you are a sitting duck for the next police officer who pulls up behind you at a traffic light. Should be the same for a firearm. I’ll be ducking and covering now. Happy Saturday!
Unfortunately, the right to a motor vehicle is not enshrined in the constitution. The right to bear arms is.
I think the insurance industry could have a role to play in requiring gun training for homeowners insurance, for example. Or could states require insurance for ownership?
I’m not sure that would pass muster with the current batch of Supremes…..
Yes. And true about the current Court. The “well regulated Militia” that was “necessary to the security of a free state” refers to slave patrols and the killing and removal of Native Americans as part of what became our Manifest Destiny. Neither activity is of much use now, as originally intended.
What was formerly known as the Post Office Department is also in the Constitution (Article I). It is now the US Postal Service, which the government is doing its damnedest to strangle. The “sanctity” of any particular part of the Constitution depends on who is making the argument and for what purpose. No more and no less.
It also refers to the Minutemen who fought against foreign rule. The people who wrote that constitutional amendment were rebels who had taken up arms to overthrow a goverment they didn’t like. They wanted to constitutionally protect the right of the People to do what they had done. Is that hard to understand?
Today’s America, of course, is governed by people who are the furthest thing from rebels. They are oligarchs, and they want to disarm their potentially unruly subjects. They try it one way, then they try another, then another. Front door, back door, side window. Down the chimney, or up the drain. They never stop. They are as “creative” and as “innovative” (and as relentless) in encroaching on the rights of the citizens, as they are in their shenanigans of finance.
Therefore, I think that Americans should insist on a very liberal, and very literal, interpretation of the Second Amendment–which is the only really socialistic thing in their constitution. An American ought to insist as much upon a liberal interpretation of the Second Amendment, as on the First. The right of the people to own and bear arms shall not be infringed.
I might add that the grammar of the Second Amendment is often, or wilfully, misunderstood. The right to bear arms in not made conditional on the well-regulated militia. That phrase about the militia is an absolute clause–absolute in the grammatical sense, in that it stands apart from the main clause of the sentence. The right to own and bear arms is given unconditionally by the Second Amendment. The words about the militia stand apart, as an absolute observation on the nature of republics and their citizens.
n.b. the men who drafted the work were possessed of a classical education, typical of their class and time. In Latin literature, absolute clauses are a very common construction, and Latinisms can often be seen in the English prose of the 16th-18th centuries. However, in Latin, such clauses are more easily recognized by a reader than in English, since they are inflected in the ablative case, and given a verb in the infinitive. English, a language with scarcely any inflection, can be prone to confusion where that kind of absolute phrase is used.
Finally, since a militia is not a standing army, it should go without saying that its fighting effectiveness, or the speed in which it can be made effective, must depend on the habituation of the citizens to the possession and handling of the weapons of war, and to their skill and confidence in the use of such arms.
It brings to my mind Orwell’s recounting of the ordeals of the Catalan militia in the Spanish Civil War, guys who had never touched a rifle, and who now needed to do battle. You don’t want your people to be like that, if you want to be free, and them, too.
Now, I happen to be a Canadian. My country has its own heritage of civil rights (and its own record of wrongdoing). But the “2A” is one thing, maybe the only thing, that the Americans have, for which I envy them. During my life, I have seen the Canadian people being deliberately and cynically disarmed by their government, in a way that would have alarmed those of a generation or two before, in a way in which I myself would have not have believed possible, had I not seen it happen before my eyes.
So, you seem to be advocating for a financial means test for gun ownership.
But that didn’t work out too well for health care.
You really trust that insurance will ameliorate the situation? The insurance mafia must be lobbying heavily for such insurance mandates. Insurance companies will rake in even more billions, but the gun problem will not get better, it will get worse. Just like the Romney/Obama Care BS – it is a giant subsidy for the insurance oligopoly (a form of kleptocracy). Yet, despite more health “insurance”, life expectancy and health outcomes are DECLINING. Don’t get fooled again.
Absolutely correct about licensing and requiring minimum education. We require a license and insurance to drive an automobile; we require a license to get married; we require a license to dip a fishing-hook in the water, we require a license to prepare food for strangers. None of these activities is forbidden, but they are regulated.
There is no such thing as an “accidental shooting” any more than automobiles start themselves up and crash into things all by themselves or pregnancies result from anything other than a series of very deliberate actions on the part of two (or more) people. Anyone with even the most rudimentary firearms training knows that dropping the hammer on a live round is going to result with near absolute certainty in a very dangerous projectile rocketing with laser-like precision until it hits something in the exact direction the barrel is pointing. Just as in the case of an automobile or a gamete, that hammer cannot ignite the charge of a chambered cartridge without several steps of human interaction, however intentional or negligent.
Sadly, our federal system of government delegates the power to regulate activities such as driving, marrying, fishing, and gun ownership to 50 disparate and oftentimes chaotic states. The public health crisis that has lead to the fetishization of gun possession is a culture driven by hatred, fear, and narcissism — and a comprehensive refusal by individuals to take personal responsibility or accountability for their conduct.
Whoa. That’s an awfully broad brush you’re wielding there.
> We require … we require … we require … we require a license …
You say this like it’s a good thing.
> None of these activities is forbidden, but they are regulated.
If you look at the unbelievably long (and ever growing) list of professions, activities, positions, etc. that require a licence from the state nowadays, you’ll see that a remarkably small percentage of them actually have need of such governmental micro-managing. No; for the most part, it’s not about regulating, but rather about the revenue that is generated. It’s all about the Benjamins, baby.
> There is no such thing as … pregnancies result from anything other than a series of very
> deliberate actions on the part of two (or more) people.
This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. Free clue: there is a horrible thing in this world called rape, and it can result in pregnancy.
> Sadly, our federal system of government delegates the power … to 50 disparate and
> oftentimes chaotic states.
Again, your bias is showing. ‘All hail Big Brother!’ Is that what you want? Thank luck that for the moment at least every single person, and all the several states, are not yet completely shackled into the DC lockstep.
The fix for the lack of Benjamins is for each state to issue its own currency. Then they can print as much money as their productive capacity allows. States’ rights and all that. #MMT
Radical, I know. The corollary is that no matter how much we talk about them, some problems as a society we just don’t want to fix.
Sure there is. If an idiot leaves a semiautomatic with a round chambered in a drawer, and a 5 years old finds it and fires it, that’s not a pre-planned scenario. There’s criminal irresponsibility, sure.
I worked as a prosecutor for 32 years and I’ve seen hundreds more gunshot wounds than most people would ever care to. Real ones. I’ve also been a responsible gun owner for even longer.
We require building permits, licensed structural engineers, licensed electricians, licensed aircraft mechanics, licensed nurses and physicians, health inspections and permits for restaurants, meat-packing plants, water works — and driver’s licenses. These are hardly fee scams. Lives depend that only licensed and qualified people engage in these activities. Why is owning and operating an inherently dangerous tool that is expressly designed to harm people and animals, such as a firearm, any different?
Back in the day when my first driver’s license was a clay tablet in cuneiform, they made us watch “Red Asphalt” in drivers-ed class. It gave most of us risk-taking teenagers pause before we got behind the wheel. Back in the Stone Age before the NRA became a money-printing scam they taught gun safety. People ought to have to look at a few autopsy photos in order to obtain a firearm.
The casual disregard for firearms safety shown above is incomprehensible to me.
This statement is merging and conflating two distinct actions.
Leaving a ready-to-fire weapon in a bedroom for self protection is not an accident.
A kid picking it up and deliberately firing it at someone/thing is not an accident.
A kid picking it up and firing it it in pretty much every other circumstances is an accident.
“Every rape victim who I’ve ever sat with and listened to made a deliberate decision whether they were going to resist or submit. That isn’t stupid, it is the ugly trauma of rape.”
WTH is submission in this twisted context.
Is submission anything less than a fight to the death?
Is failure to escape equal to submission?
And see the problem with the statement.
Once again making everything about the victim controlling and complete responsibility for their behavior. Meanwhile, rapist is viewed as at the mercy of the awesome powers of the victim.
Why not just teach gun handling and safety as part of the ordinary public high school curriculum, irrespective of whether the students go on to become gun owners or not? Indeed, it’s good for the gunless to know about guns, when they live among others who have them.
That way, there is no intrusion in the rights of citizens, no implied means test, and no reaching tentacles of big insurance companies. Both gun owners and their gunless peers could be more knowledgeable about gun safety issues, possessed of a common education in the matter.
As a socialist, I advocate for social knowledge–and the arming of the whole people.
I am suspicious of those who would want to take guns away from people who are depressed. Half the people in America must suffer depression or other form of mental illness, at one time or another. Is this to be a pretext to disarm them, and deprive them of a constitutional right? Would this not tend to discourage some people from seeking mental health treatment, if they feared that they could be interfered with in this way?
I also agree that more training and licensing for handguns is needed, that seems clear.
The article states that one of the two political parties is aligned with the gun lobby. But the other party is also extreme: they would like to drastically limit or ban firearms altogether. The Ds and Rs play “good cop, bad cop” to manipulate people with this highly emotional issue. Every election cycle the Rs say the Ds are going to take your guns, the Ds accuse the Rs of encouraging gun murders and mass shootings. As usual, both sides of the D/R duopoly cynically manipulate the issue for political gain. Meanwhile the situation worsens.
Also, few want to talk about the psycho-social context and what drives people to shoot one another or themselves? In a country with declining average life expectancy, declining living standards, declining health outcomes, crumbling infrastructure, increasing poverty, and declining outlook for the future etc. might have something to do with gun violence as well. The chronic lack of mental health care is also part of this context.
US popular culture glorifies guns and violence as well. The MassMediaCartel glorifies war and violence. Politicians of both factions support bombing countries into the Stone Age, mass murder, starving people to death through “sanctions” etc. The D faction is particularly hypocritical in this regard, they love WMDs, nuclear weapons, free weapons for Israel, Ukraine etc. but say they don’t like guns. WTF?
Public health? The US is the only country in the OECD that does not have a comprehensive health care system. This is a complex issue to say the least.
Seems that, after their stellar handling of the Covid crisis as a “public heath” issue, the Feds are now aiming to resolve the fire-arms based heath crisis in a jiffy and under budget. Once that is done,
“The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard will lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the yearling together;
and a little child will lead them.”
Retired Carpenter
There are towns in Indiana with a population of around 35,000 that have more ARs than Chicago. Only the sound of crickets after 9 pm. One of these things is not like the other.
But ‘never let a good crisis go to waste’ – Rahmy Baby, former mayor of Chicago.
Everything in the piece is an opinion, by my guess, by non gun owners,(mr. Harvard)
Gun misuse has little to do with gun ownership, type, caliber or number of shots and everything to do
the mental state of the hand that holds the gun.
I’m 85 yrs. had a bb gun @ 7, several others since then, some semi- auto, I’ve never shot anyone, held up a store, sheriffs are few and far between, if someone brings danger to my door, I am prepared to stop them.
At times cougars, bears etc.run down live stock, they must be taken out, sometimes, it may be at stray
dog, or a pack of dog running at night, that normally just lay in the shade all day, they must be taken out.
Not so long ago in the old west, there were young men the made their way in life with violence and a gun, they were taken out with a gun or a rope, no consideration was given as to how they were raised.
This is where we are today, with sadly, with many young men (boys) being raised with little or no
guidance,or hope, they must also must be stopped, not sent to counseling, they have tasted blood, sad.
This is where we are today, the second amendment, was to protect us from a rogue government, period
Today, we must protect ourselves, from that government, and the violence it has created in the ghettos.
(Somebody’s) working hard to change this, every country that ever restricted gun ownership, became an authoritarian govt., please think about this, all this talk of registration, training etc. might impose on me, the good guy, but would not restrict the bad guy, who doesn’t give a fu about the government/law.
Mr. Harvard might take note of the fact that when that authoritarian Govt. is in place the intellectuals
are one of the first to go. They don’t need anyone with brainy ideas. They ARE in charge.
It can’t happen here!, is happening here, gun ownership by the true believers, is what is keeping the wolf from the door.
They want the gun out of your hands, many who have engaged in halls of higher learning have come to
accept this as progress, it is propaganda.
An observation from Georgia from the 2020 – 2022 rush period of firearms purchasing by likely non-traditional/non-stereotypical firearms owners (many first time owners), many voluntarily sought out training and for a long time training classes were full.
The punchline may be that the wry family example in the 1967 movie The President’s Analyst may be spreading across the US.
*Gun violence* is a conflation created to advance an agenda. Guns are inanimate technology, that can be used for good or evil. Perhaps something should be done about bad brains. That’s where the problem lies.
Maybe if we refer to criminal deaths via firearms as *post birth abortions* there will be less concern. Why do the advocates of population reduction have a problem with this type of population reduction? Makes me wonder….
You are saying that Americans have many times worse brains than people in similarly developed economies. How anti-American.
To me, the US has a history of solving problems through violence and that seems to mean shooting someone to solve a problem. If I watch TV or a movie and there is a problem between people, usually both sides are armed and they shoot it out. Not much chatting it out going on. Isn’t that the point of the NRA? Get armed and protect yourself by shooting your adversary. When people are upset or mentally ill, it is a short stretch to going postal at work or shooting yourself – btw something like 62% of gun deaths are suicides. I would love to see a movie where someone is a victim of a crime and then calls the police and they investigate and arrest the perpetrator – instead of the victim getting a gun and getting some justice. On TV, even the police are using guns to mete out justice – forget about that arrest BS.