Editorial: “A shot at the truth about gun violence“
“WE DON’T benefit from ignorance,” Barack Obama said last week after ending a de facto freeze on US government research into the public-health impact of guns.
With a stroke of his pen, the now re-inaugurated president directed the in Atlanta, Georgia, to scientifically assess existing strategies to reduce gun violence and identify pressing questions that should be answered.
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Researchers are optimistic that the president’s move will revitalise efforts to find ways to reduce the number of homicides (currently around 11,000) and suicides (19,000) committed in the US each year using guns – work that has long been suppressed by the powerful gun lobby.
“I think it’s a bold step, for him and the country,” says Garen Wintemute, who heads the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
Obama’s executive order to the CDC is part of a package of at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, last month.
Although the CDC should now be able to resume work on gun violence, its budget must be approved by Congress, which is why Obama has asked Congress to release $10 million for new research. This would be used to probe, for example, whether exposure to violent video games and movies makes people more likely to commit gun crime.
Given its huge death toll, gun violence ought to be near the top of the public health agenda, or so you might assume. So it was for a while, in the early 1990s, when CDC-backed research found, for instance, that .
But in 1996, after lobbying by the , Congress barred the CDC from using its funds to “advocate or promote gun control”. Simultaneously, it slashed $2.6 million from the agency’s budget – precisely the CDC’s annual funding for gun violence research.
CDC officials have since steered away from investigating the ramifications of gun ownership. “It’s incredible that the CDC has been so hampered in doing research on this terrible public health issue,” says David Hemenway of the Injury Control Research Center at Harvard University.
Noting that “research on gun violence is not advocacy”, Obama’s plan stresses that the rule Congress passed in the 1990s does not block the CDC from following his directions. It also specifies one initial priority: getting Congress to provide an additional $20 million to expand coverage of the CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) from 18 states to the entire nation. This will aid investigation of whether gun control laws are having the desired effect.
There is no shortage of questions that the CDC could now investigate. Wintemute, for example, wants to examine the value of California’s efforts to recover firearms from people who bought them legally, but subsequently became ineligible to own a gun because they were convicted of a serious crime. “We need to know whether that intervention – which is expensive and potentially risky – actually works,” he says.
“We need to know whether interventions that are expensive and risky actually work”
Another important question surrounds the degree of risk posed by allowing people with a history of alcohol abuse to own guns. That could be studied if the CDC restored questions about gun ownership to its , the main survey the agency uses to investigate how certain behaviours may lead to disease, injury or death.
“There is no shortage of questions, such as the degree of risk in letting alcohol abusers own guns”
, a leading gun violence researcher at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, hopes the new work will also include projects on suicide prevention.
At present, he notes, there is very little information on where guns used in suicides were obtained – limiting our ability to suggest controls that might help keep firearms out of the hands of vulnerable people.
The new research, the White House plan says, should include “investigating the relationship between video games, media images and violence”.
It is well established that playing violent video games causes a short-term rise in aggression – measured, for example, by testing volunteers’ willingness to subject others to unpleasant blasts of sound.
What is unclear is whether prolonged exposure to violent games translates into an increased risk of real-world violence. Getting a definitive answer would mean following the behaviour of thousands of children into adulthood so that any link between gaming and crime can be identified, says , who heads the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames.
Given the gun lobby’s in Congress, it is unclear whether the CDC will get additional funds for gun studies, or whether the work will have to compete with existing priorities.
Obama’s main proposals on gun control similarly hang in the balance, requiring congressional approval. The president wants to impose bans on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines (see “Are smart guns the clever option?“), and to close a loophole that allows individuals to sell guns privately without background checks on the buyer.
Bringing in those measures will require new legislation, which will be debated by Congress in the coming weeks and months.
Are smart guns the clever option?
The US government appears to be keeping an eye on emerging technologies that could have a big impact on the future landscape of gun control. Last week, US attorney general Eric Holder met with Robert McNamara, co-founder of a firm called , to discuss gun violence policy. The company, based in Limerick, Ireland, has developed guns that can only be fired by authorised users.
The guns have radio frequency ID tags embedded in their grips. The gun owner is issued with a transponder that can be located in a ring or wristband. When transponder and tag signal each other, the gun can be fired.
The technology identifies a gun owner much faster than biometric measures that recognise fingerprints or the way someone grips a weapon. TriggerSmart also has a system that allows guns to be wirelessly disabled within certain areas, like schools.
of Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, says there should be new research (see main story) into the impact that smart guns could have on crime rates, especially since a remote deactivation system could prevent mass shootings like the one at Sandy Hook school. “It would be a question worth asking right now,” Lang says. Pro-gun lobby groups like the National Rifle Association are against the use of smart guns, believing such regulation is aimed at hampering public access to weapons.
Another technology entering the debate is 3D printing. Obama proposes banning the sale of magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. However, online campaign group Defence Distributed recently created a 3D-printed magazine that holds 30 rounds, successfully .
Even though 3D printing is some way from allowing people to easily get hold of firearms components, Lang thinks its potential must come under scrutiny. “If 3D printing takes off and if it becomes a household norm, then we’ve got a problem.” Hal Hodson
