Download or read book Evaluating Methods to Estimate the Effect of State Laws on Firearm Deaths written by Terry L. Schell and published by . This book was released on 2019-01-17 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As part of the RAND Corporation's Gun Policy in America initiative, the authors use simulations to assess the performance of a wide range of statistical models used to estimate the effects of state gun policies on firearm deaths.

Download or read book Evaluating Methods and Findings from a Study of State Gun Policies written by Terry L. Schell and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 9 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This brief technical report is part of RAND's ongoing Gun Policy in America research initiative. That project's review of the research on firearm policies included an article published in the journal The Lancet titled 'Firearm Legislation and Firearm Mortality in the USA: A Cross-Sectional, State-Level Study,' which examined the effects of 25 state laws on gun deaths. Given the relevance to RAND's ongoing research, the study team carefully reviewed the article and found several problems in the statistical methods and conclusions. The article's findings appeared likely to support bad gun policies and to hurt future research efforts that could treat them as valid. After reconstructing the data set and reanalyzing the article's models, RAND study team submitted a comment to The Lancet pointing out the significant problems in the article. Because the comment was limited to 250 words, this report provides technical background on the assessment, a detailed account of the errors detected, and statistical support for the RAND study team's conclusions. Gun Policy in America aims to create a resource for policymakers and the general public to access unbiased information that informs and enables the development of fair and effective firearm policies. The initiative's mixed-methods approach incorporates statistical modeling, expert elicitation, a systematic review and synthesis of the research literature, and other techniques that draw on RAND's expertise in objectively analyzing complex policy challenges"--Publisher's description.

Download or read book Firearms and Violence written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2005-01-13 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For years proposals for gun control and the ownership of firearms have been among the most contentious issues in American politics. For public authorities to make reasonable decisions on these matters, they must take into account facts about the relationship between guns and violence as well as conflicting constitutional claims and divided public opinion. In performing these tasks, legislators need adequate data and research to judge both the effects of firearms on violence and the effects of different violence control policies. Readers of the research literature on firearms may sometimes find themselves unable to distinguish scholarship from advocacy. Given the importance of this issue, there is a pressing need for a clear and unbiased assessment of the existing portfolio of data and research. Firearms and Violence uses conventional standards of science to examine three major themes - firearms and violence, the quality of research, and the quality of data available. The book assesses the strengths and limitations of current databases, examining current research studies on firearm use and the efforts to reduce unjustified firearm use and suggests ways in which they can be improved.

Download or read book Evaluating Gun Policy written by Jens Ludwig and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2004-05-13 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Compared with other developed nations, the United States is unique in its high rates of both gun ownership and murder. Although widespread gun ownership does not have much effect on the overall crime rate, gun use does make criminal violence more lethal and has a unique capacity to terrorize the public. Gun crime accounts for most of the costs of gun violence in the United States, which are on the order of $100 billion per year. But that is not the whole story. Guns also provide recreational benefits and sometimes are used virtuously in fending off or forestalling criminal attacks. Given that guns may be used for both good and ill, the goal of gun policy in the United States has been to reduce the flow of guns to the highest-risk groups while preserving access for most people. There is no lack of opinions on policies to regulate gun commerce, possession, and use, and most policy proposals spark intense controversy. Whether the current system achieves the proper balance between preserving access and preventing misuse remains the subject of considerable debate. Evaluating Gun Policy provides guidance for a pragmatic approach to gun policy using good empirical research to help resolve conflicting assertions about the effects of guns, gun control, and law enforcement. The chapters in this volume do not conform neatly to the claims of any one political position. The book is divided into five parts. In the first section, contributors analyze the connections between rates of gun ownership and two outcomes of particular interest to society—suicide and burglary. Regulating ownership is the focus of the second section, where contributors investigate the consequences a large-scale combined gun ban and buy-back program in Australia, as well as the impact of state laws that prohibit gun ownership to those with histories of domestic violence. The third section focuses on efforts to restrict gun carrying and includes a critical examination of efforts in Pittsburgh to patrol illegal gun traffic and a re-examination of the effects of permissive state gun-carrying laws. This section also features the first rigorous—and critical—analysis of Richmond's Project Exile, which serves as one model for the national Project Safe Neighborhoods program. The fourth section focuses on efforts to facilitate research on gun violence, including a database on state gun laws and the ongoing development of a nationwide violent-death reporting system. The book concludes with an examination of the policy process. Differences in opinion about gun policy flourish partly because of the lack of sound evidence in this area. The contributors to this volume demonstrate that skilled and dispassionate analysis of the evidence is attainable, even in an area as contentious as firearm policy. For pragmatists who wish to reduce the social burden of gun violence, there is no acceptable alternative.

Download or read book Injury Research written by Guohua Li and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-01-06 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Injury is recognized as a major public health issue worldwide. In most countries, injury is the leading cause of death and disability for children and young adults age 1 to 39 years. Each year in the United States, injury claims about 170,000 lives and results in over 30 million emergency room visits and 2.5 million hospitalizations. Injury is medically defined as organ/tissue damages inflicted upon oneself or by an external agent either accidentally or deliberately. Injury encompasses the undesirable consequences of a wide array of events, such as motor vehicle crashes, poisoning, burns, falls, and drowning, medical error, adverse effects of drugs, suicide and homicide. The past two decades have witnessed a remarkable growth in injury research, both in scope and in depth. To address the tremendous health burden of injury morbidity and mortality at the global level, the World Health Organization in 2000 created the Department of Injury and Violence Prevention, which has produced several influential reports on violence, traffic injury, and childhood injury. The biennial World Conference on Injury Control and Safety Promotion attracts a large international audience and has been successfully convened nine times in different countries. In the United States, the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control became an independent program of the federal Centers for Disease Prevention and Control in 1997. Since then, each state health department has created an office in charge of injury prevention activities and over a dozen universities have established injury control research centers. This volume will fill an important gap in the scientific literature by providing a comprehensive and up-to-date reference resource to researchers, practitioners, and students working on different aspects of the injury problem and in different practice settings and academic fields.

Download or read book Gun Violence and Mental Illness written by Liza H. Gold, M.D. and published by American Psychiatric Pub. This book was released on 2015-11-17 with total page 482 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Perhaps never before has an objective, evidence-based review of the intersection between gun violence and mental illness been more sorely needed or more timely. Gun Violence and Mental Illness, written by a multidisciplinary roster of authors who are leaders in the fields of mental health, public health, and public policy, is a practical guide to the issues surrounding the relation between firearms deaths and mental illness. Tragic mass shootings that capture headlines reinforce the mistaken beliefs that people with mental illness are violent and responsible for much of the gun violence in the United States. This misconception stigmatizes individuals with mental illness and distracts us from the awareness that approximately 65% of all firearm deaths each year are suicides. This book is an apolitical exploration of the misperceptions and realities that attend gun violence and mental illness. The authors frame both pressing social issues as public health problems subject to a variety of interventions on individual and collective levels, including utilization of a novel perspective: evidence-based interventions focusing on assessments and indicators of dangerousness, with or without indications of mental illness. Reader-friendly, well-structured, and accessible to professional and lay audiences, the book: * Reviews the epidemiology of gun violence and its relationship to mental illness, exploring what we know about those who perpetrate mass shootings and school shootings. * Examines the current legal provisions for prohibiting access to firearms for those with mental illness and whether these provisions and new mandated reporting interventions are effective or whether they reinforce negative stereotypes associated with mental illness. * Discusses the issues raised in accessing mental health treatment in regard to diminished treatment resources, barriers to access, and involuntary commitment.* Explores novel interventions for addressing these issues from a multilevel and multidisciplinary public health perspective that does not stigmatize people with mental illness. This includes reviews of suicide risk assessment; increasing treatment engagement; legal, social, and psychiatric means of restricting access to firearms when people are in crisis; and, when appropriate, restoration of firearm rights. Mental health clinicians and trainees will especially appreciate the risk assessment strategies presented here, and mental health, public health, and public policy researchers will find Gun Violence and Mental Illness a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume that eschews sensationalism and embraces serious scholarship.

Download or read book Private Guns Public Health written by David Hemenway and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2006-12-29 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In this small book David Hemenway has produced a masterwork. He has dissected the various aspects of the gun violence epidemic in the United States into its component parts and considered them separately. He has produced a scientifically based analysis of the data and indeed the microdata of the over 30,000 deaths and 75,000 injuries which occur each year. Consideration and adoption of the policy lessons he recommends would strengthen the Constitutional protections that all of our citizens have to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." -Richard F. Corlin, Past President, American Medical Association "This lucid and penetrating study is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the tragedy of gun violence in America and-even more important-what we can do to stop it. David Hemenway cuts through the cant and rhetoric in a way that no fair-minded person can dismiss, and no sane society can afford to ignore." -Richard North Patterson, novelist "The rate of gun-related homicide, suicide, and accidental injury has reached epidemic proportions in American society. Diagnosing and treating the gun violence epidemic demands the development of public health solutions in conjunction with legislative and law enforcement strategies." -Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO of NAACP "In scholarly, sober analytic assessments, including rigorous critiques of NRA-popularized pseudoscience, David Hemenway constructs a convincing case that firearm availability is a critical and proximal cause of unparalleled carnage. By formulating such violence as a public health issue, he proposes workable policies analogous to ones that reduced injuries from tobacco, alcohol, and automobiles." -Jerome P. Kassirer, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, New England Journal of Medicine, and Distinguished Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine "As a former District Attorney and Attorney General, I know the urgency of providing safe homes, schools and neighborhoods for all. This remarkable tour-de-force is a powerful study of one promising solution: a data-rich, eminently readable demonstration of why we should treat gun violence as an American epidemic." -Scott Harshbarger, Former Attorney General of Massachusetts, President and CEO of Common Cause On an average day in the United States, guns are used to kill almost eighty people, and to wound nearly three hundred more. If any other consumer product had this sort of disastrous effect, the public outcry would be deafening; yet when it comes to guns such facts are accepted as a natural consequence of supposedly high American rates of violence. Private Guns, Public Health explodes that myth and many more, revealing the advantages of treating gun violence as a consumer safety and public health problem. David Hemenway fair-mindedly and authoritatively demonstrates how a public-health approach-which emphasizes prevention over punishment, and which has been so successful in reducing the rates of injury and death from infectious disease, car accidents, and tobacco consumption-can be applied to gun violence. Hemenway uncovers the complex connections between guns and self-defense, gun violence and schools, gun prevalence and homicide, and more. Finally, he outlines a policy course that would significantly reduce gun-related injury and death. With its bold new public-health approach to guns, Private Guns, Public Health marks a shift in our understanding of guns that will-finally-point us toward a solution.

Download or read book Regulating Gun Sales written by Daniel W Webster and published by Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM. This book was released on 2013-03-26 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This excerpt from the “masterful, timely, data-driven” study of the gun control debate examines the potential of stronger purchasing laws (Choice). As the debate on gun control continues, evidence-based research is needed to answer a crucial question: How do we reduce gun violence? One of the biggest gun policy reforms under consideration is the regulation of firearm sales and stopping the diversion of guns to criminals. This selection from the major anthology of studies Reducing Gun Violence in America presents compelling evidence that stronger purchasing laws and better enforcement of these laws result in lower gun violence. Additional material for this edition includes an introduction by Michael R. Bloomberg and Consensus Recommendations for Reforms to Federal Gun Policies from the Johns Hopkins University.

Download or read book The Science of Gun Policy written by Rosanna Smart and published by . This book was released on 2020-08-30 with total page 412 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this report, part of the RAND Corporation's Gun Policy in America initiative, researchers seek objective information about what the scientific literature reveals about the likely effects of various gun laws. In this second edition of an earlier work, the authors add five gun policies to the 13 examined in the original analysis and expand the study time frame to incorporate a larger body of research. With those adjustments, the authors synthesize the available scientific data on the effects of 18 policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. By highlighting where scientific evidence is accumulating, the authors hope to build consensus around a shared set of facts that have been established through a transparent, nonpartisan, and impartial review process. In so doing, they also illuminate areas where more and better information could make important contributions to establishing fair and effective gun policies.

Download or read book Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm Related Violence written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-10-03 with total page 121 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened the American public's interest in protecting our children and communities from the harmful effects of firearm violence. While many Americans legally use firearms for a variety of activities, fatal and nonfatal firearm violence poses a serious threat to public safety and welfare. In January 2013, President Barack Obama issued 23 executive orders directing federal agencies to improve knowledge of the causes of firearm violence, what might help prevent it, and how to minimize its burden on public health. One of these orders directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to, along with other federal agencies, immediately begin identifying the most pressing problems in firearm violence research. The CDC and the CDC Foundation asked the IOM, in collaboration with the National Research Council, to convene a committee tasked with developing a potential research agenda that focuses on the causes of, possible interventions to, and strategies to minimize the burden of firearm-related violence. Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence focuses on the characteristics of firearm violence, risk and protective factors, interventions and strategies, the impact of gun safety technology, and the influence of video games and other media.

Download or read book Gun Facts written by Guy Smith and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-10-02 with total page 140 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gun Facts debunks common myths about gun control. It is intended as a reference guide for journalists, activists, politicians, and other people interested in restoring honesty to the debate about guns, crime, and the 2nd Amendment. Divided into chapters based on gun control topics (assault weapons, ballistic finger printing, firearm availability, etc.), finding information is quick and easy. Each chapter lists common gun control myths, then lists a number of documented and cited facts (with nearly 500 detailed footnotes). Thus when a neighbor, editor or politician repeats some sound bite about firearm control policy, you can quickly find that myth then rebuke with real information.

Download or read book Gun Control written by DIANE Publishing Company and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 1996-05 with total page 96 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents information on the implementation on phase I of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (P.L. 103-159), which went into effect Feb. 28, 1994. Focuses on the number of & reasons for handgun purchase denials in selected jurisdictions. Addresses the extent of federal agency follow-up enforcement action regarding convicted felons & others who falsify their status on handgun purchase application forms. Discusses the effects of court cases challenging the constitutionality of the act. 26 charts, tables & graphs.

Download or read book Gun Studies written by Jennifer Carlson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2018-12-07 with total page 344 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As cultural, social, political, and historical objects, guns are rich with complex and contested significance. What guns mean, why they matter, and what policies should be undertaken to regulate guns remain issues of vigorous scholarly and public debate. Gun Studies offers fresh research and original perspectives on the contentious issue of firearms in public life. Comprising global, interdisciplinary contributions, this insightful volume examines difficult and timely questions through the lens of: Social practice Marketing and commerce Critical theory Political conflict Public policy Criminology Questions explored include the evolution of American gun culture from recreation to self-protection; the changing dynamics of the pro-gun and pro-regulation movements; the deeply personal role of guns as sources of both injury and security; and the relationship between gun-wielding individuals, the state, and social order in the United States and abroad. In addition to introducing new research, Gun Studies presents reflections by senior scholars on what has been learned over the decades and how gun-related research has influenced public policy and everyday conversations. Offering provocative and often intimate perspectives on how guns influence individuals, social structures, and the state in both dramatic and nuanced ways, Gun Studies will appeal to students and researchers interested in fields such as sociology, political science, legal history, criminology, criminal justice, social policy, armaments industries, and violent crime. It will also appeal to policy makers and all others interested in and concerned about the use of guns.

Download or read book More Guns Less Crime written by John R Lott and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2000-06-15 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Does allowing people to own or carry guns deter violent crime? Or does it simply cause more citizens to harm each other? Directly challenging common perceptions about gun control, legal scholar John Lott presents the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever done on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws. This timely and provocative work comes to the startling conclusion: more guns mean less crime. In this paperback edition, Lott has expanded the research through 1996, incorporating new data available from states that passed right-to-carry and other gun laws since the book's publication as well as new city-level statistics. "Lott's pro-gun argument has to be examined on the merits, and its chief merit is lots of data. . . . If you still disagree with Lott, at least you will know what will be required to rebut a case that looks pretty near bulletproof."Peter Coy, Business Week "By providing strong empirical evidence that yet another liberal policy is a cause of the very evil it purports to cure, he has permanently changed the terms of debate on gun control. . . . Lott's book could hardly be more timely. . . . A model of the meticulous application of economics and statistics to law and policy."John O. McGinnis, National Review "His empirical analysis sets a standard that will be difficult to match. . . . This has got to be the most extensive empirical study of crime deterrence that has been done to date." Public Choice "For anyone with an open mind on either side of this subject this book will provide a thorough grounding. It is also likely to be the standard reference on the subject for years to come."Stan Liebowitz, Dallas Morning News "A compelling book with enough hard evidence that even politicians may have to stop and pay attention. More Guns, Less Crimeis an exhaustive analysis of the effect of gun possession on crime rates."James Bovard, Wall Street Journal "John Lott documents how far 'politically correct' vested interests are willing to go to denigrate anyone who dares disagree with them. Lott has done us all a service by his thorough, thoughtful, scholarly approach to a highly controversial issue."Milton Friedman

Download or read book Reducing Gun Violence in America written by Daniel W. Webster and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2013-01-28 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The book includes an analysis of the constitutionality of many recommended policies and data from a national public opinion poll that reflects support among the majority of Americans—including gun owners—for stronger gun policies.

Download or read book Estimating the Effect of State level Gun Purchasing Policy on County level Firearm Suicide Mortality written by Timothy M Wolock and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although gun violence is one of the most widely discussed issues in American politics, research funding freezes have hindered the development of public health strategies for its prevention. A substantial majority (approximately two-thirds) of annual gun deaths in the United States are suicides, but most political efforts to prevent gun violence focus on homicide. In this study, I evaluated the effectiveness of handgun permit-to- purchase (PTP) laws at preventing firearm suicide. PTP requirements mandate that all potential handgun purchasers at certified sellers must present a permit or license issued by the state. I used a county-level Poisson model controlling for several relevant covariates to estimate the relative risk of firearm suicide one through 35 years after the passage of a state-level PTP requirement. I also tested the popular theory that prevented firearm suicides will manifest as suicides by other means by running the same model with non-firearm suicide as the dependent variable. I found that time since PTP passage was significantly associated with lower firearm suicide rates and that the relative risk by year-since-passage exhibited a pattern that was consistent with my theoretical expectations. Counterintuitively, I also found that PTP requirements had a significant protective effect against non-firearm suicide, a result that suggests that my analysis was subject to unaccounted-for confounding. I ran several sensitivity analyses, which were able substantially clarify the effect of PTP requirements on firearm suicide from the theoretically implausible effect on suicide by all other means I had identified. This study contributes relatively robust evidence to the growing body of literature supporting gun control as a means of suicide prevention, but it also underscores the need for the development of more rigorous data sources and methodologies in the field of gun violence prevention research.

Download or read book Gun Violence written by Philip J. Cook and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2000-10-26 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 100 billion dollars. That is the annual cost of gun violence in America according to the authors of this landmark study, a book destined to change the way Americans view the problem of gun-related violence. Until now researchers have assessed the burden imposed by gunshot injuries and deaths in terms of medical costs and lost productivity. Here, economists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig widen the lens, developing a framework to calculate the full costs borne by Americans in a society where both gun violence and its ever-present threat mandate responses that touch every aspect of our lives. All of us, no matter where we reside or how we live, share the costs of gun violence. Whether waiting in line to pass through airport security or paying taxes for the protection of public officials; whether buying a transparent book bag for our children to meet their school's post-Columbine regulations or subsidizing an urban trauma center, the steps we take are many and the expenditures enormous. Cook and Ludwig reveal that investments in prevention, avoidance, and harm reduction, both public and private, constitute a far greater share of the gun-violence burden than previously recognized. They also employ extensive survey data to measure the subjective costs of living in a society where there is risk of being shot or losing a loved one or neighbor to gunfire. At the same time, they demonstrate that the problem of gun violence is not intractable. Their review of the available evidence suggests that there are both additional gun regulations and targeted law enforcement measures that will help. This urgently needed book documents for the first time how gun violence diminishes the quality of life for everyone in America. In doing so, it will move the debate over gun violence past symbolic politics to a direct engagement with the costs and benefits of policies that hold promise for reducing gun violence and may even pay for themselves.