Brady Campaign Facts Update
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This regular update is prepared by the Research Department of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. This issue has three sections: Gun Violence Prevention Studies, Research Resources, and Upcoming Research/Research in Progress.
The report is informational and is not meant for publication. Selected research summaries are posted to the Brady website. All the studies have links to the abstract or full text version of the article, where available.
For past studies and all kinds of useful factual information, go to: http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts
Questions or comments can be directed to Becca Knox at bknox@bradymail.org.
Gun Violence Prevention Studies
Title: Women with Protective Orders Report Failure to Remove Firearms from Their Abusive Partners: Results from an Exploratory Study
Brady URL: http://www.bradycampaign.org/studies/view/161
Publication Date: January 20, 2010
What Does It Say? Researchers interviewed 782 victims of intimate partner violence about: 1) their experiences seeking protection orders from courts, 2) judges ordering the removal of firearms from defendants and 3) if firearms were actually surrendered or confiscated. All of the women lived in either New York City or Los Angeles, states that allow or mandate that judges issuing protective orders require abusers to surrender their firearms.
Of the 82 victims who obtained a protection order and knew if their abuser owned a firearm, only 12 percent (10/82) reported that their abuser had either surrendered all of his firearms or had the firearms seized. This finding is consistent with other studies showing significant gaps in the enforcement of laws to disarm batterers. In addition to the main findings, this study provides a helpful overview of the myriad ways that enforcement breaks down and therefore how it can be improved.
How Can I Use It? The information in this study can help to inform the work of domestic violence advocates, law enforcement, and legislators.
Citation: Webster, DW, Frattaroli, S, Vernick, JS, O’Sullivan C, Roehl J, Campbell, JC, “Women with Protective Orders Report Failure to Remove Firearms from Their Abusive Partners: Results from an Exploratory Study,” Journal of Women’s Health 19(1)(2010): 93-98
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Title: Attitudes and Beliefs of Adolescents and Parents Regarding Adolescent Suicide
URL: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/125/2/221
Publication Date: January 11, 2010
What Does It Say? Researchers convened focus groups with urban black, urban Hispanic, suburban white and rural white parents and teenagers from the Midwest to explore their beliefs and attitudes about adolescent suicide. Both the adolescents and the parents suggested that guns be secured or removed if an adolescent is known to be suicidal. However, parents in all groups acknowledged that they might not be able to identify a suicidal teen.
How Can I Use It? This exploratory study provides qualitative data consistent with previous quantitative research that the best way to protect teens from a potential suicide attempt with a gun is to remove guns from the home.
Citation: Schwartz, KA, Pyle, S, Dowd, D, and Sheehan, K, “Attitudes and Beliefs of Adolescents and Parents Regarding Adolescent Suicide,” Pediatrics 125(2) February 2010:221-227
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Title: Black Homicide Victimization in the United States: An Analysis of 2007 Homicide Data
Brady URL: http://www.bradycampaign.org/studies/view/164/
Publication Date: January 2010
What Does It Say? The Violence Policy Center analyzed detailed police reports (known as the Supplementary Homicide Reports of the Uniform Crime Report system) to document black homicide victimization for the most recent year available (2007). The detailed police reports allow analysis, by race, of the relationships between victim and offender and by circumstances.
VPC ranked states by black homicide victimization rates and provided detailed statistics for the worst five states: Pennsylvania, Missouri, Indiana, Nevada, and Wisconsin.
For the year 2007, blacks represented 13 percent of the population yet accounted for 49 percent of all homicide victims. Eighty-two percent of the 7,387 black homicide victims were killed with guns. The homicide rate among black male victims is 37.59 per 100,000, while the rate for white male homicide victims is 4.63 per 100,000.
How Can I Use It? The Obama Administration has declined to take action to curb gun access by dangerous people ostensibly because national violent crime is at historically low levels. Use this study to document that gun crime remains a crisis in the black community.
Citation: Langley, Marty, Black Homicide Victimization in the United States: An Analysis of 2007 Homicide Data, Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, January 2010
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Title: Federal Firearms Cases, FY2008
URL: http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/229420.pdf
Publication Date: January 2010
What Does It Say? This is the third annual report from the Regional Justice Information Service summarizing prosecutions under federal firearms laws. A total of 8,595 defendants were charged with federal firearms offenses in fiscal year 2008, compared to 8,935 defendants in 2007 and 9,238 in 2006.
How Can I Use It? Prosecutions for federal firearm offenses appear to be going down. I don’t see an immediate way to use these facts, but I wanted to pass it along in case someone else does. Please let me know if you think of a good use.
Citation: Frandsen, Ronald J., and Bowling, M., Federal Firearms Cases, FY2008, St. Louis, MO: Regional Justice Information Service, January 2010
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Title: Do Guns Provide Safety? At What Cost?
URL: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20065902?log$=activity
Publication Date: February 2010
What Does It Say? Based on data from the Gun Shot Wound Registry at the University of Louisville’s School of Medicine, researchers were able to document local information about the insurance status of gun violence patients and the costs of treatment.
In Kentucky, 73 percent of gunshot victims were uninsured, 10 percent were covered by government plans, and 17 percent were insured. At a major Kentucky trauma center, medical care for gunshot victims in 2008 cost over $18 million and charges for those needing admission averaged $43,000 a patient. In Louisville, KY, expenses for the uninsured gun-injury victims alone exceeded the allotment of moneys allocated for all indigent care medical costs for the entire community.
How Can I Use It? This study shows the potential of a local gunshot registry to document the costs of gunshot injuries and deaths and provide powerful arguments for prevention in a time of tight state and local budgets.
Citation: Narang, Puneet, et al, “Do Guns Provide Safety? At What Cost?” Southern Medical Journal 103(2) February 2010:1-3
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Title: Clinical Psychologists’ Firearm Risk Management Perceptions and Practices
URL: http://springerlink.com/content/k43765185lp54p82/fulltext.pdf [open access]
Publication Date: February 2010
What Does It Say? Researchers generated a national random sample of 600 clinical psychologists from the membership of the American Psychological Association and surveyed them about how they handle the dangers of gun ownership with clients. The survey had a response rate of 62 percent. One quarter of the responding psychologists owned a firearm.
The majority of clinical psychologists (78.0 percent) did not have a routine system for identifying patients with firearms, despite 78.5 percent perceiving firearm safety issues as greater in those with mental health problems compared to the general population.
About half (51.6 percent) of the psychologists reported that they initiate firearm safety counseling with patients assessed as at risk for self-harm or harm to others. This compares with 38 percent of physicians and 15.7 percent of pediatricians. Thirty-seven percent never discussed with their patients the dangers of keeping loaded firearms in the home.
Only 16.5 percent of the psychologists reported counseling all or most of their alcohol/substance abuse patients about firearm safety issues even though substance abuse disorders increase the risk of suicide among attempters.
Only 12.1 percent of the respondents reported receiving graduate level training in providing anticipatory guidance on firearm safety.
How Can I Use It? Much work remains to institutionalize firearm risk assessment by clinical psychologists and other health and mental health providers to protect patient and public safety.
Citation: Traylor, Andrea, Price, J, Tell Johann, S, King, K, Thompson, A, “Clinical Psychologists’ Firearm Risk Management Perceptions and Practices,” Journal of Community Health (2010)35:60-67
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Title: Target: Law Enforcement, Assault Weapons in the News, March 1, 2005 -February 28, 2007
Brady URL: http://www.bradycampaign.org/studies/view/165/
Publication Date: February 2010
What Does It Say? Based on an analysis of media reports of assault weapons incidents from March 1, 2005 to February 28, 2007, this researcher documented that more than one out of four (27.2 percent) assault weapons incidents involved police.
While the number of assault weapon incidents stayed roughly the same from 2005/6 to 2006/7, the percent of incidents involving law enforcement increased by 20.7 percent. The report also documents at least one law enforcement non-fatal injury in 12 of the 64 law enforcement cases and one fatal injury in 4 of the 64 reported incidents involving law enforcement.
The study also provides a brief overview of the history of assault weapon regulation in the U.S.
How Can I Use It? Use the data in this report to advocate that the Obama Administration once again prohibit the importation of assault weapons via application of the “sporting purposes” test and that Congress enact a federal assault weapon ban modeled on the California assault weapon ban.
Citation: Diaz, Tom, Target: Law Enforcement, Assault Weapons in the News, March 1, 2005 -February 28, 2007, Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, February 2010
Research Resources
* The Harvard School of Public Health, with Joyce Foundation funding, has launched its Firearms Research Digest (see: http://www.firearmsresearch.org/). This searchable database provides summaries of studies from social science and economics, criminology, medicine, public health, and public policy.
* The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has created a mapping tool for mortality statistics. You can create maps of firearm death rates by state, with county information. The maps include data on medical costs and work loss costs. Check it out at: http://wisqars.cdc.gov:8080/cdcMapFramework/
* ATF has posted lists of federally licensed dealers by state, updated monthly. You can find the lists here: http://www.atf.gov/statistics/ffl-list.html or on the Brady website under Guns in America here: http://www.bradycampaign.org/facts/researchresources?s=1
* CDC death data for 2007 is scheduled to be released in April. The most recent data available as of March 12, 2010 is: CDC deaths – 2006; CDC injuries – 2008; FBI police reports – 2008.
Upcoming Research/Research in Progress
* Opposition research: John Lott’s book More Guns, Less Crime is coming out in its third edition May 15, 2010, see: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226493660/ref=nosim/?tag=johnrlotttrip-20
Opposition Research
Title: The State of the Castle: An Overview of Recent Trends in State Castle Doctrine Legislation and Public Policy
URL: http://cjr.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/34/4/515
Publication Date: December 1, 2009
What Does It Say? Under the guise of conducting research, the authors essentially have written and published a piece of NRA propaganda on expanded castle doctrine bills. Expanded castle doctrine laws eliminate the duty to retreat in your home, and sometimes your vehicle, business, or other places.
The authors claim, based on a poorly defined search and a muddy analysis, that the passage of expanded castle doctrine laws in 23 of the 50 states from 2005 to 2008 signals a bipartisan interest in gun rights, resulted from the ability of the NRA to use consensus-building strategies in state legislatures, and indicates that state legislatures were focused on a crime control agenda in the 1990s.
The authors applaud the inclusion of civil immunity for gun owners in these bills, characterizing them this way: “These civil immunity provisions nestled within statutes provide vast civil liability protections and are a key legislative component sought after in the NRA’s national lobbying efforts.”
How Can I Use It? Take note of the names of the researchers and their affiliations, as you can expect them to toe the NRA line in testimony and in the media. All three are from the University of Texas at Dallas.
Citation: Boots, Denise Paquette, Bihari, Jayshree, and Elliott, Euel, ” The State of the Castle: An Overview of Recent Trends in State Castle Doctrine Legislation and Public Policy,” Criminal Justice Review 34(4), December 2009: 515-535
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Title: “Gun Ownership As Disease” Reaches Fever Pitch/How Your Tax Dollars Are Used to Demonize Your Guns
Publication Date: January 2010
What Does It Say? The January edition of the NRA’s newsletter attacks a recent study on the risks of gun possession (Branas et al, “Investigating the Link Between Gun Possession and Gun Assault,” American Journal of Public Health 99(11)(2009)). Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre pens a column, and gun rights think-tanker Dave Kopel writes an article.
Perhaps most obnoxiously, Kopel insinuates that gun owners should be concerned about the study because it might convince a spouse to veto a gun purchase. Those pesky spouses and their safety concerns.
Kopel attacks the study in part by using quotes from a Philadelphia Inquirer story of researchers questioning the methodology. Kopel fails to include a quote from the same article by criminologist Charles Wellford, the chairman of the panel that wrote the 2004 review of gun violence research.
Wellford commends the study and states, “This is a good paper. [T]his is the kind of work we were hoping…would be done. This is a good first step to try to understand better what role guns play in self-defense.”
How Can I Use It? This study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which Kopel points out very prominently in his article. We can expect attacks on the NIH’s funding of gun research.
Citation: National Rifle Association, “’Gun Ownership As Disease’ Reaches Fever Pitch/How Your Tax Dollars Are Used to Demonize Your Guns,” America’s First Freedom, January 2010
New National Study Says Background Checks on All Gun Sales Will Prevent Gun Violence
A landmark study released today by the UC Davis, Violence Prevention Research Program adds to the growing body of research that concludes that requiring regulation of all gun sales will prevent gun violence. According to Garen Wintemute, MD, MPH, the author of the national report, Inside Gun Shows: What Goes on When Everybody Thinks Nobody’s Looking, “the leading proximate source of crime guns is the private sales market. More than 85% of recovered crime guns have gone through at least one private party transaction following their initial sale by a licensed retailer.”
Use the following link to see the full report :
http://www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu/vprp
The comprehensive study includes observations from 78 gun shows in 19 states between 2005 and 2008.)
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