National Acdemy of Sciences: Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review

[Viking12]

Date: Dec. 16, 2004
Contacts: Vanee Vines, Senior Media Relations Officer
Heather McDonald, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail <[e-mail]>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Data on Firearms and Violence Too Weak to Settle Policy Debates;
Comprehensive Research Effort Needed

WASHINGTON -- The role of guns in U.S. society is a subject of intense policy debate and disagreement. However, current research and data on firearms and violent crime are too weak to support strong conclusions about the effects of various measures to prevent and control gun violence, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. A comprehensive research program on firearms is needed if criminal-justice and crime-prevention policy is to have a sound basis.

Some of today's most pressing policy issues in this area cannot be tackled with existing data and research methods, which are weak, the report says. For example:

-- There is no credible evidence that "right-to-carry" laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime. To date, 34 states have enacted these laws.

-- There is almost no evidence that violence-prevention programs intended to steer children away from guns have had any effects on their behavior, knowledge, or attitudes regarding firearms. More than 80 such programs exist.

-- Research has found associations between gun availability and suicide with guns, but it does not show whether such associations reveal genuine patterns of cause and effect.

"Policy questions related to gun ownership and proposals for gun control touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics: Should regulations restrict who may possess firearms? Should there be restrictions on the number or types of guns that can be purchased? Should safety locks be required? These and many related policy questions cannot be answered definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," said Charles F. Wellford, professor, department of criminology and criminal justice, University of Maryland, College Park, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. "However, we do know what kind of data and research are needed to fill those gaps and, in turn, inform policy debates in a more meaningful way."

The study committee was not asked to address any issues of policy and did not do so. Rather, the committee evaluated the research base on firearms violence and on prevention, intervention, and control strategies. It also explored how new methods of merging scientific findings and data could inform strategies for reducing gun-related crime, suicide, and accidental fatalities. The federal government should support a robust research program in this area, concluded the committee.

Firearms, Criminal Violence, and Privacy Issues

Research linking firearms to criminal violence and suicide is seriously limited by a lack of credible information on who owns firearms and on individuals' encounters with violence, the report says. Moreover, many studies have methodological flaws or provide contradictory evidence; others do not determine whether gun ownership itself causes certain outcomes.

Assessing the potential of several ongoing national surveys to provide useful data on firearms should be a starting point, the report says. For instance, questions about gun use and access could be added to or fine-tuned in the Monitoring the Future project or the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. For research purposes, scientists also need appropriate access to federal and state data on gun use, manufacturing, and sales.

One of the largest barriers to better understanding gun violence is the lack of high-quality and extensive data on gun ownership and use. Some people have expressed concerns about expanding the government's data on gun ownership. Others have noted that some individuals -- especially those who use guns illegally -- will always be reluctant to disclose ownership information. Yet scientists in other fields, such as health care, have found effective ways to collect individual data on sensitive topics while protecting privacy. Research is needed -- and can indeed be done -- to determine whether ownership data can be accurately collected with minimal risk to legitimate privacy concerns, the report says.

Do Firearms Deter Crime?

Many Americans keep firearms to defend themselves against criminals, but research devoted to understanding the defensive and deterrent effects of guns has resulted in mixed and sometimes widely divergent findings, the report says. In addition, the accuracy of responses in gun-use surveys is a topic that has not been thoroughly investigated. The committee called for systematic research to define what is being measured in studies of defensive and deterrent effects of guns, to reduce reporting errors in national gun-use surveys, and to explore ways that different data sets may be linked to answer complex questions.

Likewise, new research tools are needed to evaluate right-to-carry laws. Existing studies that use similar methods and data yield very dissimilar findings. Some studies indicate that the laws reduce violent crime. Other studies show negligible effects, while still others suggest that they increase violent crime. It is impossible to draw any strong conclusions about their effects from these studies, the report says.

A Look at Interventions

Firearms are bought and sold in both formal markets, such as gun shops, and informal ones, such as the underground economy. Market-based interventions aimed at reducing criminals' access to guns include taxes on weapons and ammunition, limits on the number of firearms that can be purchased in a given time period, and gun "buy back" initiatives. Arguments for and against these approaches are largely based on speculation rather than scientific evidence. Data on gun markets -- on how many guns are sold through various channels, or how systematically background checks are performed, for instance -- are virtually nonexistent. Greater attention should be paid to research design and data needs regarding gun markets, the report says. More studies also should be conducted on potential links between firearms policies and suicide rates.

Programs created to prevent gun violence are common in the nation's public schools. However, the actual effects of particular programs on violence and injury rates are difficult to predict, the report says. Some studies suggest that children's curiosity and teenagers' attraction to risk make them resistant to the programs or that the projects actually increase the appeal of guns. But few programs have been adequately evaluated. Gun-safety technologies, such as trigger locks, also have been proposed as a way to prevent injuries. Yet how these technologies affect injury rates remains unknown. Government programs for prevention of firearm violence should include evaluation.

Available scientific evidence on how policing interventions and tougher sentencing policies affect firearms violence is both limited and mixed, the report adds. Several cities, including Boston and Richmond, Va., have implemented highly publicized programs designed to suppress crime and gun offenses. It is difficult to gauge the value of the measures because social and economic factors behind criminal acts are often complex and interwoven, and the efforts are narrow in scope. Without much better research, the benefits and costs of policing and sentencing interventions remain largely unknown.

Data limitations are immense in the study of firearms and violence, the committee emphasized. The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System. No single data system can answer all questions about violent events, but it is important to start collecting accurate and reliable information that describes basic facts about violent injuries and deaths.

The report includes a dissenting opinion written by one committee member regarding the effects of right-to-carry laws on homicide rates, and a response by the committee.

The study was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.

http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309091241?OpenDocument

Full Report:

http://www.nap.edu/catalog/10881.html?onpi_newsdoc12162004

[billbuckhead]

1. Sounds like our voting system. Suppress, suppress, suppress

They don't want us to know how much damage guns do.

[Columbia]

2. Or how much damage gun control does

[Viking12]

3. You're both wrong.. "It is impossible to draw any strong conclusions"

That's why I posted this. There is NO evidence to support either side on this issue.

[Columbia]

7. Precisely

Which is why I said to MrBuckhead that it could be the opposite just as well.

BTW, you should probably edit down the text to comply with DU rules of 3 or 4 paragraphs. Also, I already started this topic here - http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=118x96095

[Viking12]

15. It's a press release, there is no copyright problem

... and thanks for the clarification on your position. :)

[iverglas]

17. "It is impossible to draw any strong conclusions"

And that's why you are wrong when you say "you're both wrong".

The first statement was They don't want us to know how much damage guns do. The second amounted to Or They don't want us to know how much damage gun control does.

The first statement was directed at the actual finding of the report, which was that the data available are insufficient for analysis that might permit conclusions about the harm/good done by either restrictive or permissive firearms rules.

It asserted that the reason for the lack of data is that "they" don't want a particular conclusion to be possible, and that the conclusion in question -- how much damage guns do -- is what would be reached if the data were available.

We don't know that this statement is false. We don't know that the reason "they" don't want the data available is *not* so that we do not know how much damage guns do.

Once again (this report was discussed at length in this forum within the last few days), that is the entire point. The (implied) claims "guns do much damage" and "gun control does much damage" may be true. There simply is not sufficient relevant data available to assess them.

The actual statement that "they" don't want us to know how much damage guns (or gun control) do can't be called right or wrong, because we don't know whether guns (or gun control) cause damage, or how much, and we don't know whether, if that is the case, this is the reason that "they" have prevented the data from being collected.

"There is NO evidence to support either side on this issue."

And that, too, is inaccurate. There IS evidence; there is not SUFFICIENT KNOWLEDGE of the evidence, in the form of data, to found conclusions that would normally be regarded as valid.

Evidence exists whether we are aware of it or not. Evidence is imply facts. It is the knowledge of the facts that is lacking.

[vpigrad]

4. Why are you here...

if you're so pro-violence?

[NorthernSpy]

6. "pro-violence"?

Isn't that rather like saying that gun-controllers are pro-criminal and anti- self-defense?

As to why Columbia is here, well... I'm under the impression that the majority of those who frequent this board are not in favor of more gun control. A pro-rkbaer is by no means a rara avis in these parts.

[billbuckhead]

12. Like most of America, most DUers are for gun regulation

America has the highest gun homicide rate of advanced nations even though it's one of the wealthiest, so wealth has little to with it. The real problem is that an evil money and violence driven gun culture wages terrorism on non gun owners and progressive society in general. It's no accident the NRA is so proud of George W Bush, Dick Cheney, John AssKKKroft and Tom deLay, easily the most evil government in American history.

[NorthernSpy]

14. not "wealth" in the absolute, necessarily...

... at least, not above a certain basic level, but distribution of wealth probably does play some role in the homicide rate, if only indirectly via its effect on social structure. Egalitarian societies tend to be peaceful, while the more hierarchical societies tend to be violent. Maine is more egalitarian -- and has a 'flatter' social structure -- than Mississippi, and Maine's murder rate is much, much lower than Mississippi's. But both states have a lot of guns, and neither state is particularly rich.

[Columbia]

8. When did I say that?

If a person was pro-choice would you say they are pro-abortion?

That's what GOP hacks do, why are you using their tactics?

[billbuckhead]

5. Progun GOP has been in charge for quite awhile&they don't want us to know

What would be their motive for lack of information? Obviously if weak gun laws and lax enforcement due to lack of funding worked real well they would be shouting from the rooftops, but instead we have a daily barrage of gun mayhem on our evening news every night.

Luckily we have George Soros to help fund some research. BTW, Google Soros and guns for yourselves and see another way information is quashed by the weapons lobby. Endless wack job websites and articles defaming this patriot of democracy. They do this to clutter the landscape for people seeking honest answers. More anti-democratic GOP disinformation. Anyhow here are the results of the latest study.

Gun Laws Get Credit for Homicide Declines
3/24/2003

Feature Story
by Dick Dahl

Total gun deaths in the U.S. have been dropping steadily since 1993, when they peaked at nearly 40,000, to around 28,000 annually 1999 through 2001. Although firearm suicides have remained fairly constant at over 16,000 per year, the decrease in gun homicides has accounted for the bulk of the decline. A variety of explanations have been offered to account for the decline in gun homicides, but recent research has demonstrated that strong gun laws should be considered a leading reason.

An article published by the American Journal of Public Health last December showed that the six states with the highest rates of gun ownership--Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, West Virginia, and Wyoming--had homicide rates that were three times higher than the four states with the lowest rates of gun ownership--Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. The study's lead author, Matthew Miller of the Harvard School of Public Health, concluded that "guns, on balance, lethally imperil rather than protect Americans." Combined with a 2000 assessment of gun laws around the nation by the Soros Foundation, the data also show that lax gun laws imperil Americans. That's because the Soros scorecard listed each of the six high-homicide states among the bottom third of states with the weakest gun laws, and it listed the four low-homicide states among the top 10 states with the strongest gun laws.

According to Soros, the state with the strongest gun laws is Massachusetts, and according to 2000 data from the Centers for Disease Control, Massachusetts residents enjoy the lowest rates of gun violence in the nation. According to CDC, Massachusetts's overall death rate from guns in 2000 was 2.84 per 100,000 people, well ahead of second-place New Jersey's 4.16 and nearly one fourth of the national average, 10.41.

more< http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/features/reader/0,2061,562335,00.html>

[Columbia]

9. Weak gun laws?

We've had steadily increasing regulation since 1934 and if you look at the homicide timeline during the last century there is absolutely NO correlation, much less causation that can be found linking gun control to decreased homicide.

The study you link has attempts to show a weak correlation and then links it to causation without any justification, thorough statistical analysis or attempts to find a common cause.

[billbuckhead]

11. Gee those frontier liberals back in the 1800's wildwest should have never

Guns still an issue in modern-day Dodge City


By Bill Draper - Associated Press Writer


Sunday, March 7, 2004


Dodge City — In the days when Wyatt Earp was making his name as a lawman in Dodge City, he banned guns north of the railroad tracks that ran through the frontier town, where most families lived.

Cowboys had to check their weapons at a gate or saloon, and the city imposed a $100 fine for anyone caught with a gun north of the tracks.


That was 1878, and the identification of Dodge City with those Wild West times now pulls tens of thousands of tourists to the town in far western Kansas every year.

--------------snip-----------------------

<http://6news.ljworld.com/section/concealedweapons/story/163573>

[Columbia]

16. Did you have a point?

[MrSandman]

10. Wonder if there is any correlation...

With the economies of those states? West Virginia and Mississippi often vie for top honors in poverty, low educational achievement, et al.

Nahh, that would be a non-contributing coincidence.:eyes:

[NorthernSpy]

13. wait a sec...

Are they sure about their figures? I mean, I've read before that Maine was #2 in gun ownership (right behind Wyoming) and that Maine's murder rate is consistently the lowest (or near to lowest) in the nation.

Of course, # of guns per capita, % of households with firearms, average # of guns per household, and % of the citizenry who are gun owners are all different things. I wonder whether the people who conducted the study went with the measure of "gun ownership" that best suited their purpose -- and that would be whichever measure allowed them to exclude* as much northern New England data, and include as much Southern US data, as possible.



*I mean to say, their interest would be in an making an ad hoc selection of data that place the relatively peaceful (and well-armed) NNE states closer to the mean on "gun ownership", while at the same time isolating the less-peaceful Southern states at the highest possible level above the mean on the same measure.