tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/firearms-15358/articlesFirearms – The Conversation2024-03-26T16:36:32Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2259942024-03-26T16:36:32Z2024-03-26T16:36:32ZN.S. Mass Casualty Commission a year later: What recommendations have been implemented?<p>March 30 marks the first anniversary of the release of the <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/final-report/">Mass Casualty Commission’s final report</a> into the April 2020 <a href="https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/a-look-at-the-22-nova-scotians-killed-in-canada-s-worst-mass-shooting-1.6335839">mass shooting in Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead.</a> It was the most <a href="https://theconversation.com/nova-scotias-mass-casualty-commission-calls-for-stricter-gun-control-laws-202808">thorough study</a> of a mass shooting in Canadian history. </p>
<p>The non-partisan commission’s <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Turning-the-Tide-Together-List-of-Recommendations.pdf">130 recommendations</a> included several focused on gun laws. </p>
<p>Over the past year, the federal government has had a mixed record in implementing the commission’s firearms policy recommendations. Some provincial governments, however, have sought to limit implementation, and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has provided little indication that he will follow the commission’s recommendations if he becomes prime minister.</p>
<h2>Firearm recommendations</h2>
<p>Among the commission’s recommendations:</p>
<ol>
<li>The federal government should “amend the Criminal Code to prohibit all semi-automatic handguns and all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that discharge centre-fire ammunition and that are designed to accept detachable magazines with capacities of more than five rounds.” </li>
<li>Ottawa must “take steps to rapidly reduce the number of prohibited semi-automatic firearms in circulation in Canada.”</li>
<li>The federal government must <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-three-years-ago-loopholes-in-canadas-gun-laws-paved-the-way-for-a/">close loopholes</a> that allow gun owners to use large-capacity ammunition magazines.</li>
<li>Purchasers of ammunition and magazines should possess a firearms license. </li>
<li>Stronger measures need to be put in place to prevent gun possession by people involved in domestic or gender-based violence.</li>
<li>Governments should adopt a public-health approach to firearms policy.</li>
<li>Governments should improve efforts to combat gun smuggling.</li>
</ol>
<h2>Ottawa’s efforts</h2>
<p>The federal government has implemented some of the Mass Casualty Commission’s recommendations with its most recent gun control legislation, <a href="https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/bill/C-21/royal-assent">Bill C-21</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, the government <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-safety-canada/news/2023/05/government-announces-strengthened-measures-to-prevent-gun-violence-and-ban-new-assault-style-firearms.html">described this law</a> as being designed to “align with recommendations put forward by the Mass Casualty Commission.” </p>
<p>To help address intimate partner and gender-based violence, the act enhances measures allowing for <a href="https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/cntrng-crm/frrms/c21-en.aspx">emergency prohibition orders</a> to remove firearms in situations in which gun owners pose dangers. </p>
<p>Bill C-21 also statutorily enacted a freeze on handgun purchases and transfers. In addition, the Liberals amended the definition of prohibited firearms to include models of <a href="https://digitalcommons.schulichlaw.dal.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2226&context=dlj">assault-style rifles</a> “designed and manufactured” after the legislation came into force.</p>
<p>Most gun control advocates supported the final version of C-21, <a href="https://polysesouvient.ca/Documents_2023/PRSS_23_05_01_NewAmendment_AssW.pdf">but some noted</a> that the legislation did <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9665478/liberal-gun-amendment-assault-style-firearm/">not fully implement</a> the commission’s recommendations. </p>
<p>For example, it doesn’t require current owners to dispose of handguns, and thus does not address the commission’s goal of rapidly reducing the number of semi-automatic firearms in circulation. </p>
<p>As well, the new definition of prohibited weapons left many models of semi-automatic rifles in the Canadian market. If models of such rifles were not previously prohibited, and have already been designed and manufactured, then they remain legal.</p>
<p>Other aspects of C-21 have yet to be implemented through regulation. This includes new limits on ammunition magazines. </p>
<p>The federal government has also <a href="https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/ottawa-extending-amnesty-for-assault-style-firearms-again-until-october-2025">delayed its buyback</a> of assault-style rifles like the AR-15 prohibited by <a href="https://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p2/2020/2020-05-01-x3/html/sor-dors96-eng.html">order-in-council</a> after the Nova Scotia mass shooting. This again means that Ottawa is not following the commission’s recommendation to rapidly reduce the number of semi-automatic firearms in Canada.</p>
<h2>Opposition to the recommendations</h2>
<p>While the federal government has taken significant but incomplete steps, some provincial governments oppose the commission’s recommendations. </p>
<p><a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/alberta-granted-permission-to-intervene-in-gun-lawsuits-against-canada-1.6228294">Alberta</a> and <a href="https://regina.ctvnews.ca/saskatchewan-applies-to-intervene-in-legal-challenges-against-federal-firearms-legislation-1.6757210">Saskatchewan</a> are supporting a <a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2023/2023fc1419/2023fc1419.html">Federal Court case</a> challenging the prohibition of some assault-style rifles. </p>
<p>Several provinces, <a href="https://edmonton.ctvnews.ca/alberta-introduces-firearms-act-to-counter-federal-legislation-1.6303172">including Alberta</a> <a href="https://leaderpost.com/news/saskatchewan/new-sask-firearms-act-aims-to-balance-gun-rights-with-public-safety">and Saskatchewan</a>, want to make it more difficult for Ottawa to carry out its planned gun buyback strategy.</p>
<p>Poilievre is critical of the Mass Casualty Commission’s work. In <a href="https://www.cpac.ca/headline-politics/episode/conservative-leader-on-federal-bail-policies-carbon-pricing?id=978a1314-9e80-47d6-b108-0ef0ba842d85">April 2023</a>, he complained that the “commission is really an outrage.” In his view, the commission had “ignored the victims of crime” and “the facts on the ground.” Poilievre went on to criticize the federal government’s effort to prohibit some firearms.</p>
<p>Poilievre, however, is vague about his own firearm policies. His <a href="https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/1750947088181956795?s=20">social media</a> simply speaks of a desire to “stop Trudeau’s hunting rifle ban.” Some Conservative MPs, however, have promised to repeal the Liberal government’s gun control measures. </p>
<p>For example, Conservative shadow minister Rachael Thomas said on <a href="https://x.com/RachaelThomasMP/status/1735798525336633801?s=20">X (formerly Twitter)</a> that a “Conservative government will repeal Bill C-21 and take real action to tackle crime and put criminals behind bars!”</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1735798525336633801"}"></div></p>
<h2>Previous Tory stances</h2>
<p>The Conservatives’ stance is at odds with some steps taken by previous <a href="https://vancouversun.com/opinion/op-ed/blake-brown-conservatives-should-take-lessons-from-progressive-conservatives-on-gun-control">Conservative governments and prime ministers</a>.</p>
<p>Brian Mulroney <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/history-firearms-canada#s2">tightened access</a> to assault-style weapons, <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-ar-15-in-canada-123959">including the AR-15</a>, after the 1989 Montréal Massacre. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/a-short-history-of-the-ar-15-in-canada-123959">A short history of the AR-15 in Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2012, Stephen Harper rejected calls to make some high-powered weapons more available, <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/no-plans-to-end-restrictions-on-prohibited-guns-harper-says-1.1151923">saying that “prohibited weapons exist as a category under the law for essential reasons of public security</a>.” He said his government had “absolutely no intention of weakening that category of protections.” </p>
<p>These wise words should be kept in mind by politicians of all stripes as they face the important task of implementing the Mass Casualty Commission’s final report.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225994/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Blake Brown does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the past year, Ottawa has had a mixed record in implementing the Mass Casualty Commission’s firearm recommendations. Some provinces, however, have sought to limit implementation.R. Blake Brown, Professor, History, Saint Mary’s UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2263822024-03-25T12:39:35Z2024-03-25T12:39:35ZGary, Indiana’s lawsuit against gunmakers is shot down by a new law, after surviving 25 years of appeals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583573/original/file-20240321-28-lcwl0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C26%2C5964%2C3961&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Indianapolis hosted the National Rifle Association's national convention in 2023.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NRAConvention/ce35a00799704e60b2b10016b1af0168/photo">AP Photo/Darron Cummings</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>After 25 years of legal wrangling, a lawsuit described as “<a href="https://indianacapitalchronicle.com/2024/03/15/holcomb-signs-bill-killing-garys-gunmaker-lawsuit-but-two-others-hang-in-the-balance/">the most consequential legal case</a> against the gun industry in this country” appears to have met its end – but the industry isn’t out of the legal woods just yet.</p>
<p>Back in 1999, the city of Gary, Indiana, filed a lawsuit attempting to hold firearm manufacturers responsible for failing to prevent illegal gun sales. On March 15, 2024, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb <a href="https://iga.in.gov/legislative/2024/bills/house/1235/details">signed a law</a> aimed at extinguishing the suit.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://law.gsu.edu/profile/timothy-d-lytton/">legal scholar</a> who has <a href="https://press.umich.edu/Books/S/Suing-the-Gun-Industry2">followed the case</a> since it was <a href="https://www.bradyunited.org/legal-case/city-of-gary-v-smith-and-wesson-indiana-supreme-court-gun-lawsuit">first filed</a>, I believe that the now all-but-certain dismissal of this lawsuit represents a major setback for gun control advocates. </p>
<p>But it won’t stop other states from trying to use civil litigation to rein in the gun industry. To understand why, let’s take a closer look at how Gary’s lawsuit lasted so long in the Indiana courts, and how state lawmakers finally gunned it down.</p>
<h2>Blaming gunmakers for illegal retail sales</h2>
<p>In September 1999, Gary sued 11 leading handgun manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Beretta, Glock and Ruger. The suit alleged that <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/in-supreme-court/1437577.html">a small group of gun stores</a> was responsible for a large amount of illegal gun sales in the state. </p>
<p>Through a <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/sting-operations">sting operation</a>, the Gary Police Department discovered that certain retailers conducted <a href="https://www.nssf.org/articles/beware-the-straw-purchase/">straw sales</a>, failed to perform required <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2015/07/gun-background-check-nics-guide/">background checks</a> and intentionally sold guns directly to <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/922">ineligible buyers</a>. </p>
<p>The lawsuit further claimed that the gun manufacturers “intentionally ignored” these illegal practices to boost their profits, and so served as “knowing accomplices.”</p>
<p>Gary’s lawsuit demanded that the gunmakers compensate the city for the costs of emergency services, policing, lost tax revenues and lower property values caused by gun violence. Gary also asked the court to issue an order requiring the manufacturers to take reasonable measures to reduce the risk of illegal sales — for example, by cutting off the supply of weapons to gun stores with a record of illegal sales.</p>
<p>In 2001, a state trial court dismissed Gary’s lawsuit, but the city <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/court/in-supreme-court/1437577.html">successfully appealed</a> to the Indiana Supreme Court, which, in 2003, sent the case back to the lower court for trial.</p>
<h2>The gun industry’s federal immunity shield</h2>
<p>In 2005, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/chapter-105">Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act</a>, or PLCAA, which prohibits lawsuits against firearm manufacturers and sellers for injuries arising out of criminal misuse of a gun. Armed with this new federal immunity shield, the gunmakers in the Gary lawsuit moved to dismiss the case a second time.</p>
<p>However, both the trial court and an appellate court refused to dismiss the case. The appellate court explained in a 2007 <a href="https://casetext.com/case/wesson-corp-v-gary">opinion</a> that the federal immunity shield didn’t apply to Gary’s case.</p>
<p>Although sweeping, PLCAA immunity <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/15/7903">doesn’t protect</a> a manufacturer or seller who “knowingly violated a state or federal statute applicable to the sale or marketing” of a firearm. The court reasoned that because the gunmakers had served as knowing accomplices to the violation of state and federal laws governing the sale of firearms, PLCAA immunity <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2032628/smith-wesson-corp-v-city-of-gary/?q=cites:(769351)">didn’t protect them</a>. </p>
<p>The Indiana Supreme Court <a href="https://www.casemine.com/judgement/us/59146884add7b049342c67bc">refused the gunmakers’ resquest</a> to appeal the decision, and the case went back down to the trial court again.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="The governor of Indiana stands behind a podium during a presentation at an NRA event." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/583759/original/file-20240322-28-6wql6g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb speaks to guests at the 2023 NRA-ILA Leadership Forum in Indianapolis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/indiana-governor-eric-holcomb-speaks-to-guests-at-the-2023-news-photo/1251837109?adppopup=true">Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Indiana’s state immunity shield</h2>
<p>In 2001, four years before Congress passed PLCAA, Indiana passed its own <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/indiana/2017/title-34/article-12/chapter-3/section-34-12-3-3/">state law</a> granting firearm manufacturers and sellers immunity from civil lawsuits arising out of criminal misuse of weapons. In 2015, Indiana’s then-governor, Mike Pence, signed a law making the state’s immunity law retroactive to Aug. 26, 1999, four days before the city of Gary initially filed its lawsuit.</p>
<p>For a third time, the gunmakers moved to dismiss the lawsuit, and once again, the courts refused. </p>
<p>A 2019 <a href="https://casetext.com/case/city-of-gary-v-smith-wesson-corp-1">appellate court opinion</a> explained that the specific language of the state’s immunity statute did not cover the gunmakers’ alleged “willful blindness” to illegal retail sales of their weapons, making them accomplices to illegal activity.</p>
<p>The appellate court sent the case back to the trial court.</p>
<h2>The final blow</h2>
<p>In June 2023, the trial court allowed <a href="https://www.americanbar.org/groups/public_education/resources/law_related_education_network/how_courts_work/discovery">discovery</a> in the case to <a href="https://www.pressreader.com/usa/chicago-tribune/20240119/281552295720347">go forward</a>. During discovery, opposing parties in a lawsuit share information that may be later used as evidence in a trial. Amid wrangling over discovery requests, lawyers for Gary hoped to force the gunmakers to turn over any <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/indiana-guns-gary-lawsuit-gunmakers-hb1235">internal documents</a> that would show if they knew about illegal activity among retailers who sell their products.</p>
<p>However, with the new law signed by the current governor, Holcomb, the discovery process has been preempted, and the case is all but certain to be dismissed — this time, for good.</p>
<p>The dismissal of Gary’s lawsuit means that gun control advocates have lost the most promising means of finding a <a href="https://smokinggun.org/">smoking gun</a> that they have long hoped would prove that gun manufacturers knowingly facilitate illegal sales.</p>
<p>In its defense, the gun industry has denounced lawsuits attempting to hold it responsible for firearm-related violence as <a href="https://www.nssf.org/articles/city-of-gary-25-years-of-discovery-abuse-of-legal-system-must-end/">frivolous fishing expeditions</a>. </p>
<p>The National Shooting Sports Foundation — the industry’s leading trade association — insists that industry defendants <a href="https://www.nssf.org/articles/city-of-gary-25-years-of-discovery-abuse-of-legal-system-must-end">have readily complied</a> with discovery requests in the Gary case to turn over sales records and to depose industry executives.</p>
<p>The group has also argued that holding gun manufacturers liable for the misuse of their products would be as absurd as holding car and beer companies <a href="https://www.nssf.org/articles/city-of-gary-25-years-of-discovery-abuse-of-legal-system-must-end/">liable for drunk driving</a>.</p>
<p>In my view, the industry’s <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/indiana-guns-gary-lawsuit-gunmakers-hb1235">intensive lobbying efforts</a> in the state legislature to quash the lawsuit suggest it isn’t confident that it would ultimately prevail in court. The recent success of <a href="https://www.naag.org/issues/opioids/">lawsuits against opioid manufacturers</a> for enabling misuse of their products gives gunmakers good reason to seek legislative protection from lawsuits. </p>
<h2>What’s next?</h2>
<p>Not all state legislatures have been as eager as Indiana’s to shield the firearms industry from civil lawsuits. A growing number of states — including <a href="https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/GBS/898-B">New York</a>, <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/california-civil-code/division-3-obligations/part-4-obligations-arising-from-particular-transactions/title-20-firearm-industry-responsibility-act/section-327350-definitions">California</a>, <a href="https://legiscan.com/IL/comments/HB0218/2023">Illinois</a>, <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/new-jersey-statutes/title-2c-the-new-jersey-code-of-criminal-justice/chapter-2c58-registration-of-manufacturers-and-wholesale-dealers-of-firearms/section-2c58-35-gun-industry-member-engage-in-public-nuisance-prohibited-consequences-reasonable-controls">New Jersey</a>, <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/delaware-code/title-10-courts-and-judicial-procedures/part-iii-procedure/chapter-39-pleading-and-practice/section-3930-civil-action-for-public-nuisance-by-firearm-industry-member">Delaware</a>, <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb23-168">Colorado</a>, <a href="https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=7.48.330">Washington</a> and <a href="https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session/archives/measure_indiv_Archives.aspx?billtype=HB&billnumber=426&year=2023">Hawaii</a> — have recently passed laws that make gunmakers liable for selling weapons without implementing “reasonable controls” to prevent illegal sales by retailers.</p>
<p>In these states, legislatures appear to be fanning the flames of civil litigation against the gun industry instead of trying to extinguish it.</p>
<p>What this means for the industry remains to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/226382/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Timothy D. Lytton has provided expert consulting services to law firms representing gun violence victims.</span></em></p>Expect other states to pick up the civil-litigation torch.Timothy D. Lytton, Regents' Professor & Professor of Law, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2231612024-03-08T13:37:29Z2024-03-08T13:37:29ZWhat families need to know about how to safely store firearms at home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579045/original/file-20240229-20-8z3by2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=42%2C0%2C3430%2C2404&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Guns are the leading cause of death of children in the U.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/child-holding-gun-mid-section-b-w-royalty-free-image/pha184000035?phrase=kids+guns&adppopup=true">Laurent Hamels via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For the past few years, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-children-data-statistics.html">guns have been identified</a> as the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/14/magazine/gun-violence-children-data-statistics.html">leading cause of death</a> for children in the United States.</p>
<p>There were <a href="https://www.kff.org/mental-health/issue-brief/child-and-teen-firearm-mortality-in-the-u-s-and-peer-countries/">2,571 children age 1 to 17 who died in shootings</a> in the U.S. in 2021, 68% more than the 1,531 that occurred in 2000.</p>
<p>To help reduce the number of firearm-related deaths and injuries among children, Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona in January 2024 <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/secletter/012524.html">called upon school and district administrators</a> to talk with parents and guardians about safe firearm storage practices.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6kAiow8AAAAJ&hl=en">experts</a> on the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=r9lbnH0AAAAJ">safe storage of firearms</a> – and as leaders of the University of Connecticut’s <a href="https://arms.chip.uconn.edu/">ARMS Center for Gun Injury Prevention</a> – we often get questions about the best ways to keep guns out of the hands of children. We offer the following tips:</p>
<h2>1. Safely store all of your firearms</h2>
<p>Nearly half of the households in the U.S. have at least one firearm, but only about 40% of firearm owners store all of their guns when not in use, according to data in a survey we recently fielded. Unsecured firearms have been linked to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0261-7">suicides, domestic homicides and accidental shootings</a>. They also heighten the risk of unauthorized use, which <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2017/11/stolen-guns-violent-crime-america/">includes theft</a>.</p>
<h2>2. Don’t assume you can hide your guns</h2>
<p>Kids generally know the hiding spots for the things their parents or caretakers do not want them to find, such as holiday gifts or Halloween candy. The same is true with firearms.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/13788?autologincheck=redirected">40% of gun-owning households</a> with children, adults said their children did not know where firearms were stored, a 2017 study found. However, many of the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/hpeds.2016-0146">children reported knowing</a> and being able to access the firearms.</p>
<p>Researchers estimate that <a href="https://www.nationwidechildrens.org/research/areas-of-research/center-for-injury-research-and-policy/injury-topics/general/gun-safety">75% of children</a> who live in homes with guns know where they are stored.</p>
<p>Adults may think they can instruct children to leave firearms alone, but the 2017 study also found that <a href="https://publications.aap.org/aapnews/news/13788?autologincheck=redirected">22% of parents</a> wrongly believed that their children had never handled their gun.</p>
<h2>3. Store ammunition separately</h2>
<p>Research shows that locking ammunition separately from firearms further <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.6.707">reduces the risk</a> of firearm injuries in homes with children and teenagers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Bullets are scattered about a table top." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/579044/original/file-20240229-20-yhh7th.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Storing ammunition separately from firearms can help reduce the risk of injury.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/war-bullets-pistol-9-mm-royalty-free-image/1940835204?phrase=guns+ammunition&adppopup=true">Olena Domanytska via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>While storing an unreadied weapon locked away may feel counterintuitive to those who own guns for personal protection, research shows that keeping firearms locked or unloaded, or both, can also <a href="https://doi.org/10.1136%2Fjech.2003.017343">reduce risk of injury</a>. </p>
<h2>4. Learn to talk about firearm safety</h2>
<p>While some families may not have firearms in their home, eventually children go to other homes and, as they get older, go unsupervised.</p>
<p>Keeping children safe from gun violence requires normalizing conversations on firearm storage, even for people in households where no gun is present. </p>
<p>Approximately <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7250a1.htm#T2_down">45% of all unintentional shooting deaths</a> of children under 17 occurred outside of their own homes. When children visit friends, we believe it’s important for their parents to know if guns are present in the home they are visiting and, if present, whether those firearms are being safely stored.</p>
<p>For more information about how to discuss firearm safety, parents can visit websites such as <a href="https://besmartforkids.org/">BeSMART</a>, <a href="https://www.endfamilyfire.org/about">End Family Fire</a> and <a href="https://www.sandyhookpromise.org/blog/advocacy/how-secure-storage-of-guns-makes-children-and-families-safer/">Secure Storage of Lethal Means</a>.</p>
<h2>5. Know the law</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/state-advocacy/safe-storage-of-firearms/">Twenty-seven states</a> have some version of <a href="https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/firearms-and-children-legislation/">secure storage laws</a>.</p>
<p>Based on our calculations <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/sosmap/firearm_mortality/firearm.htm">using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention</a>, states with child access prevention laws – known as <a href="https://www.countyhealthrankings.org/strategies-and-solutions/what-works-for-health/strategies/child-firearm-access-prevention-laws#">CAP laws</a> – have a gun death rate that is 65% lower than states that do not have CAP laws (12.33 vs. 20.38 per 100,000). Of course, states with and without CAP laws have many differences; therefore, the lower rates cannot be attributed to CAP laws alone. However, the presence of CAP laws is protective and reduces gun death.</p>
<p>In the absence of a federal secure storage law, the legal requirements around firearm storage and preventing unauthorized children from accessing weapons vary by state or municipality.</p>
<p>For example, Connecticut <a href="https://www.cga.ct.gov/2019/act/pa/pdf/2019PA-00005-R00HB-07218-PA.pdf">requires firearms be in a locked device</a> when not in use. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.legis.iowa.gov/docs/iac/rule/07-01-2020.441.113.7.pdf">Iowa prohibits</a> the storing or leaving a loaded firearm around children 14 and younger if it is not secured by a trigger lock or a securely locked container or some other secure location.</p>
<p>Further, while Michigan only recently added a safe storage law, Jennifer Crumbley, the mother of a boy who committed a mass school shooting with his parents’ unsecured firearm, <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/oxford-school-shooting-ethan-crumbley-parents.html">was recently convicted</a> of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the case. Her husband’s trial in the matter <a href="https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/james-crumbley-trial-date-lawyer-charges">began on March 5, 2024</a>.</p>
<h2>6. Invest in a quality safe and/or locking device</h2>
<p>There are various levels of locked gun storage, including <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/firearm-safety.html#">trigger locks</a>, <a href="https://health.ucdavis.edu/what-you-can-do/firearm-safety.html">metal cable locks</a>, <a href="https://www.atf.gov/firearms/qa/what-qualifies-secure-gun-storage-or-safety-device#">locked gun cases and gun safes</a>. While storing a firearm and the ammunition in a locked combination or biometric device <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62245-9_12">is safest</a>, all of these methods can reduce the risk of gun injury and death. These locking devices can be purchased online, through some gun sellers or at sporting goods stores.</p>
<p>A biometric safe for a handgun is about US$65, a gun lock runs $55 to $75 dollars, and combination safes for long guns range widely from a couple of hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.</p>
<p>Family-school-community partnerships allow America’s children to grow and thrive. By asking schools to share resources for secure firearm storage and communicate evidence-based safety practices, the Department of Education is helping schools address the leading cause of death among American children.</p>
<p>But families have to do their part, too. It begins by normalizing firearm safety conversations and storing firearms properly to keep children safe.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/223161/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerri Raissian is affiliated with the Niskanen Center (Sr. Fellow) and Arnold Ventures (paid consultant).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Necci Dineen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that more children have handled household guns than their parents think.Kerri Raissian, Associate Professor of Public Policy, University of ConnecticutJennifer Necci Dineen, Associate Director of the ARMS Center for Gun Injury Prevention, University of ConnecticutLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2215042024-02-20T14:27:38Z2024-02-20T14:27:38ZLagos: drugs, firearms and youth unemployment are creating a lethal cocktail in Nigeria’s commercial capital<p>Lagos is the <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1218259/largest-cities-in-africa/#:%7E:text=Lagos%2C%20in%20Nigeria%2C%20ranked%20as,living%20in%20the%20city%20proper.">most populous</a> city in Africa and a regional economic giant, having west Africa’s busiest seaport. It is the centre of commercial and economic activities in Nigeria.</p>
<p>The city’s <a href="https://www.un.org/africarenewal/magazine/april-2019-july-2019/africa%E2%80%99s-megacities-magnet-investors">population</a> is estimated to be 20 million people. The existence of informal settlements makes it difficult to come up with a more precise number.</p>
<p>Lagos has <a href="https://www.african-cities.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ACRC_Lagos_City-Scoping-Study.pdf">grown</a> rapidly since Nigerian independence in 1960, when its estimated population was 763,000 people. In the 1980s, its population reached 2.7 million. The government of Lagos state estimates that <a href="https://insidebusiness.ng/18245/rapid-urbanization-86-migrants-enter-lagos-every-hour-ambode/">86 young migrants</a> arrive every hour.</p>
<p>This rapid urbanisation has been poorly managed. The result is crumbling public infrastructure, poor sanitation, poverty, and shortages of employment opportunities, food, social services, housing and public transport. </p>
<p>These challenges combine to make the city susceptible to criminal activities. Organised crime and violent conflicts are a public safety and security challenge. </p>
<p>The issue of crime has been with Lagos for years. In 1993, the Nigerian government <a href="https://ludi.org.ng/2023/07/10/crime-prevention-through-public-space-design-a-lagos-story/#:%7E:text=The%20rapid%20population%20growth%20without,leading%20to%20high%20crime%20rates.">described</a> Lagos as the “crime capital of the country” with the emergence of the “<a href="https://reliefweb.int/report/nigeria/nigeria-area-boys-growing-menace-streets-lagos">Area Boys</a>”, a group of social miscreants. </p>
<p>The 2017 <a href="https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/elibrary/read/786">statistics</a> on reported crime incidences in Nigeria by the <a href="https://www.nigerianstat.gov.ng/">National Bureau of Statistics</a> shows that Lagos has remained in a class of its own. Lagos State had the highest percentage share of total cases reported with <a href="https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/elibrary/read/786#:%7E:text=Lagos%20State%20has%20the%20highest,205(0.2%25)%20cases%20recorded.">50,975</a> (37.9%) cases recorded. </p>
<p>I have been <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jDncA6MAAAAJ&hl=en">researching</a> various aspects of crime and insecurity in Nigeria, particularly in the country’s south-west. I currently lead the <a href="https://www.african-cities.org/">African Cities Research Consortium</a> safety and security domain research in Lagos.</p>
<p>I contributed to a recent <a href="https://www.african-cities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ACRC_Working-Paper-7_February-2024.pdf#page=26">paper</a> about residents’ experiences and perceptions of safety in six African cities: Nairobi, Bukavu, Freetown, Mogadishu, Lagos and Maiduguri. </p>
<p>My research identified various drivers of insecurity in Lagos. They included youth migration and unemployment; inequality and poverty; the visible network of organised youth criminal groups; proliferation of small arms and drugs; inadequate preparedness of the city government; police corruption; the high rate of out-of-school children; and poor urban planning.</p>
<p>I argue that for residents to feel secure, the government needs to include these drivers in approaches to solving security challenges in Lagos. </p>
<h2>Unemployment, firearms and drugs</h2>
<p>In my African Cities Research Consortium safety and security domain research in Lagos, unemployment and the proliferation of small firearms and drugs stand out as trends. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://medium.com/@olaoyeleye09/navigating-unemployment-in-lagos-nigeria-1a55c2a5e0b5">survey</a> on Navigating Unemployment in Lagos, Nigeria revealed that 48.31% of the respondents were unemployed and the majority were between 25 and 34 years old.</p>
<p>In Lagos, youth of 18-40 years make up about half of the <a href="https://www.urbanet.info/youth-employment-in-lagos/#:%7E:text=In%20Lagos%2C%20youth%20are%20believed,equalling%20over%2010%20million%20people.">population</a>, equalling over ten million people facing high rates of unemployment. I do not have current unemployment data but in its fourth quarter 2020 nationwide survey, the National Bureau of Statistics <a href="https://mepb.lagosstate.gov.ng/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2022/02/MACRO-ECONS-FLYER-DECEMBER-2021-edition-1.pdf">estimated</a> a 37.14% unemployment rate in Lagos, and 4.52% underemployment rate.</p>
<p>According to my research participants, drug abuse and illicit arms have become serious issues. Some of the city precincts in communities such as Ikorodu, Somolu, Agege, Bariga, Ojo, Oshodi, Mushin and Badagry have become warehouses and destinations for firearms and drugs. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://enactafrica.org/research/ocwar-t/silencing-the-guns-in-cities-urbanisation-and-arms-trafficking-in-bamako-and-lagos">recent survey</a> published by <a href="https://enactafrica.org/research/organised-crime-index#:%7E:text=The%20ENACT%20Africa%20Organised%20Crime,organised%20crime%20across%20the%20continent.&text=The%20ENACT%20Index%20is%20a,organised%20crime%20on%20the%20continent.">ENACT Transnational</a> on organised crime in Africa has shown that between 2010 and 2017, the largest supply of live ammunition transported into Nigeria illegally was intercepted at Lagos. This was made up of 21,407,933 items of live ammunition and 1,100 pump action guns.</p>
<p>Most of the illegal weapons pass through ports in west Africa; some are imported over land borders. While the country’s <a href="https://omaplex.com.ng/an-overview-of-the-gun-regulations-in-nigeria-the-current-stance-and-the-way-forward/">law forbids</a> random possession of firearms, my research respondents say it is surprisingly common for young miscreants to carry firearms in Lagos.</p>
<p>The police have <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/ssouth-west/409520-blacksmith-two-others-arrested-for-illegal-firearms-fabrication.html">confirmed</a> that hooligans acquire illicit firearms from local blacksmiths who make them, and from corrupt security officers. </p>
<p>In 2022, the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2022/09/23/the-lagos-drug-bust">discovered</a> a warehouse in a residential estate in Ikorodu with 1.8 tonnes of cocaine. This was the largest single cocaine seizure in the country’s history.</p>
<p>In November 2023, security agents <a href="https://leadership.ng/navy-intercepts-boats-with-n200m-illicit-drugs-in-lagos/">intercepted</a> cannabis in Ibeshe, Iworoshoki and Badagry, and in January 2024, the drug law enforcement agency <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/top-news/656790-nigerian-authorities-intercept-hard-drugs-from-us-arrest-suspect-official.html">intercepted</a> cannabis at Ikeja.</p>
<h2>Impacts of unemployment, small arms and drugs in Lagos</h2>
<p>Findings from <a href="https://www.african-cities.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/ACRC_Working-Paper-7_February-2024.pdf#page=26">my research</a> in Lagos show respondents perceive high levels of violent crime in the city. Youth aged 13 to 40 are mostly the perpetrators.</p>
<p>While there are no accurate statistics of daily violent crime incidences, residents are <a href="https://punchng.com/daredevil-daylight-robbers-return-to-lagos-streets/">complaining</a>. </p>
<p>In 2022, the police <a href="https://securityandsafetymatters.wordpress.com/2022/11/24/lagos-police-says-over-three-hundred-people-brutally-murdered/">reported</a> that no fewer than 345 people were murdered in Lagos – the highest number in years. </p>
<p>Young people have formed themselves into street gangs. My research respondents spoke of violent encounters in which their assailants used firearms and were often under the influence of alcohol or drugs or both. This was the experience of 18 respondents, out of a sample of 50 randomly selected respondents.</p>
<p>Some respondents described street gangs in Lagos who are constantly high on drugs and have no regard for human life. Other respondents said drugs were accessible and affordable even for unemployed youth. Respondents believed that a combination of a large youth population, unemployment and easy access to drugs and illicit firearms was proving deadly.</p>
<h2>Preventing and treating the issues</h2>
<p>The crime triangle in Lagos – youth unemployment, drugs and illicit arms – requires urgent attention. </p>
<p>My study in Lagos shows that a widespread sense of economic hopelessness exacerbates the use of drug and firearms by young people in Lagos. Youth who embrace this culture of violence are those who feel that they have no stake in the city and no trust in the government to provide opportunities for them.</p>
<p>Thus, the state and communities must address the lack of opportunities and alternatives, reaching out to marginalised youth and providing them with an environment in which they can lead a fulfilling life. An effective strategy is one that provides legitimate activities and job opportunities for them. </p>
<p>Government action is required to ensure that opportunities exist for training in a trade or life skill. This would enable youth to make better choices and find productive employment. They could be socially responsible and play an active role in the city rather than becoming a threat in their communities.</p>
<p>Government has the authority to control the supply and use of firearms and drugs. </p>
<p>Special operations should be directed at drug addicts and unlicensed firearms carriers. The approach should be to disrupt the market for illicit arms and drugs. </p>
<p>Security agencies can work with communities to discover new dealing locations and make buyers feel vulnerable and uncomfortable through sting operations – pretending to be dealers or users. </p>
<p>Urban planning approaches could also be applied such as inclusive planning of informal settlements, installation of security cameras and street lighting, limiting access to problematic streets through road changes, removal of transport stops used by drug and firearms users and their dealers, and improved signage.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221504/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adewumi I. Badiora does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Youth migration, unemployment, proliferation of small arms and drugs are some of the drivers of violent crimes in Lagos.Adewumi I. Badiora, Senior Lecturer, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Olabisi Onabanjo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2168142023-11-14T13:24:49Z2023-11-14T13:24:49ZMass shootings often put a spotlight on mental illness, but figuring out which conditions should keep someone from having a gun is no easy task<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/557887/original/file-20231106-23-j6y1eu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=34%2C8%2C5687%2C3791&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine -- the worst in the state's history -- was carried out by a gunman with a known history of mental illness.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MaineShooting/2b2097e7f3514fddb03d55ee1bd4db36/photo?hpSectionId=a91e5e04eacf4709a84586d6c00d3577&st=hpsection&mediaType=text,photo,video,graphic,audio&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=1758&currentItemNo=128">AP Photo/Matt York</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every time the country is shaken by a tragic mass shooting and the loss of innocent lives, mental illness and its role in the actions of the mass shooter come under scrutiny.</p>
<p>Mental illness again became a central theme after the mass shooting in Maine on Oct. 25, 2023, in which records suggest that the shooter had a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-robert-card-confirmed-details-maine-shooting-suspect-person-of-interest/">history of serious mental health issues</a>. Months before the tragedy, the family of gunman Robert Card, as well as Army Reserve staffers, had contacted law enforcement expressing high levels of concern about his mental health and noting his access to guns.</p>
<p>Since 1999, 19 states along with the District of Columbia have <a href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2022/19-states-have-red-flag-laws-but-they-are-rarely-used-to-stop-gun-violence/">passed legislation</a>, commonly known as <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/michigan-governor-signs-red-flag-gun-law-as-questions-linger-over-enforcement">red flag laws</a>, that allow law enforcement and other people in a person’s life to petition for removal of firearms when there are imminent safety concerns about a gun owner. However, <a href="https://www.poynter.org/reporting-editing/2022/19-states-have-red-flag-laws-but-they-are-rarely-used-to-stop-gun-violence/">reports suggest that this law is rarely used</a>.</p>
<p>Maine, though, has what’s known as a <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/yellow-red-flag-gun-laws-massachusetts-maine/">yellow flag law</a>. It requires reporting to local law enforcement that a person poses an imminent threat, but it then relies on the police to take the person into custody, order a mental health evaluation and request a court order to have that person’s guns removed. The yellow flag law <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/05/us/robert-card-lewiston-shooting-maine-yellow-flag-law/index.html">was not used</a> in Card’s case.</p>
<p>The relationship between mental illness and guns, and risk mitigation, is complicated. Specifically, there is no clear and uniform consensus on who should determine when to restrict access to firearms – should it be a psychiatrist, an independent forensic psychiatrist, a committee of psychiatrists or a judge? The majority of people with mental illness <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness">do not seek treatment</a>. </p>
<p>In that light, it might make sense to mandate a psychiatric examination into the background check process for purchasing a gun. As severe mental illness can start at any point in life, will gun owners need periodic psychiatric assessment, akin to a vision exam for renewing a driver’s license? If so, who will pay for the visits? </p>
<p>I am a <a href="https://www.starclab.org">trauma psychiatrist</a> who regularly deals with the outcome of gun violence, whether in victims or first responders. In my book “<a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781538170380/Afraid-Understanding-the-Purpose-of-Fear-and-Harnessing-the-Power-of-Anxiety">Afraid</a>: Understanding the Purpose of Fear and Harnessing the Power of Anxiety,” I have examined mental health issues related to gun violence and the social consequences of mass shootings.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/T93fbFGvRNI?wmode=transparent&start=59" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Maine has a ‘yellow flag’ law aimed at restricting access to firearms when a person is deemed potentially dangerous.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The complexity of defining mental illness</h2>
<p>The term <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/mental-illness">“mental illness”</a> covers a wide range of conditions, and there are more than 200 diagnoses listed in the most recent version of the <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/psychiatrists/practice/dsm">Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders</a>, which is the gold standard for psychiatric diagnosis in the U.S. Mental illness includes diverse conditions like phobias, <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/social-anxiety-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353561">social anxiety disorder</a>, <a href="https://adaa.org/learn-from-us/from-the-experts/blog-posts/consumer/what-trauma-what-ptsd-who-affected-and-how-get">post-traumatic stress disorder</a>, <a href="https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/trichotillomania/#">hair-picking disorder</a>, <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/gambling-disorder/what-is-gambling-disorder">gambling disorder</a>, <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/schizophrenia/what-is-schizophrenia#">schizophrenia</a>, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/aging/dementia/index.html#">dementia</a>, various forms of <a href="https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/depression/what-is-depression">depression</a> and personality disorders, such as antisocial personality disorder.</p>
<p>Mental illnesses are also very common: Nearly <a href="https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-by-the-numbers">1 in 5 people experience clinical depression</a> during their lives; 1 in 5 people experience an anxiety disorder; <a href="https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/schizophrenia.shtml">1 in 100 experience schizophrenia</a>; and <a href="http://www.ptsdunited.org/ptsd-statistics-2/">nearly 8 in 100</a> of the general population experiences PTSD. People with higher exposure to trauma, <a href="https://www.ptsd.va.gov/professional/PTSD-overview/epidemiological-facts-ptsd.asp">such as veterans</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-aching-blue-trauma-stress-and-invisible-wounds-of-those-in-law-enforcement-146539">first responders</a>, have higher rates of PTSD, up to about 30%. </p>
<p>So when suggesting that gun access should be restricted for people with mental illness, does that mean all of these conditions? Or just some, or some in defined circumstances? For example, should all veterans with PTSD or those with social anxiety disorder have their guns removed? Neither of these conditions is known to commonly impair judgment. </p>
<p>Defining the specific conditions that can impair judgment or significantly increase risk of harm to self or others is an important step in this process, which needs serious involvement of mental health professionals, stakeholders, law enforcement and policymakers. </p>
<h2>Knowing when a person could be a risk of harm</h2>
<p>The majority of mental illnesses <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686644/">do not pose a risk</a> to others. When there is a risk, in the majority of cases when someone is involuntarily admitted to a psychiatric inpatient unit, it is not because the person poses a risk to others. Rather, it is more often the case that the person is at <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686644/">risk of self-harm</a>, as in the case of a depressed, suicidal patient. Sadly, people with severe mental illness are <a href="https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyt.2020.563860">often the victims of violence and abuse</a>.</p>
<p>In psychiatric disorders, concerns typically arise in acutely psychotic patients with paranoid delusions that convince them to harm others. This may happen in – but is not limited to – schizophrenia, dementia, severe <a href="https://www.webmd.com/depression/psychotic-depression">psychotic depression</a> or <a href="https://www.healthline.com/health/bipolar-disorder/bipolar-psychosis">psychotic bipolar illness</a>.</p>
<p>These conditions are rather strongly associated with <a href="https://psychiatryonline.org/doi/pdf/10.5555/appi.books.9781615371099">increased risk of suicide</a>, not homicide. Therefore, more realistic gun laws in regards to mental illness could also save many lives from suicide.</p>
<p>Substance use is a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093%2Fepirev%2Fmxaa006">major contributor to violence</a> in mental illness, and it needs to be included in the calculations when it comes to gun restriction. Other situations with increased risk of harm to others are personality disorders with a high level of impulsivity or lack of remorse, such as <a href="https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/antisocial-personality-disorder/symptoms-causes/syc-20353928">antisocial personality disorder</a>. </p>
<p>But the reality is that most people with personality disorders do not seek treatment and are not known to mental health providers. </p>
<p>It is also worth noting that most countries have a similar prevalence of severe mental illness compared with the U.S., yet they have <a href="https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/mental-disorders#">much lower rates of mass murder</a> than the U.S.</p>
<h2>The harms of using ‘mental illness’ so vaguely</h2>
<p>Every time <a href="http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2017/10/06/doctors-need-to-speak-up-against-the-use-of-mental-illness-as-an-insult/">mental illness is linked by the media or politicians to acts of violence</a>, the highly charged emotions of the moment can affect those with mental illness and their families, and that can perpetuate stigma.</p>
<p>When “mental illness” is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/18/health/a-misguided-focus-on-mental-illness-in-gun-control-debate.html">vaguely addressed in gun debates</a>, those with a psychiatric condition such as anxiety or phobia but without an increased risk of violence or impairment in judgment may avoid seeking treatment.</p>
<h2>Mental illness gun laws that can have real preventive impact</h2>
<p>In my view, to turn the focus on the role of mental illness in gun violence into meaningful actions, the following steps are needed:</p>
<p>– Clear, uniform criteria need to be established on when mental illness justifies restriction of access to firearms. Would this be specific mental disorders or specific mental disorders in crises? This requires defining signs of imminent threat to self or others, and also defining how and when a person is relieved of that status. A great deal of discussion and coordination will be needed between mental health, legal and law enforcement experts.</p>
<p>– As it was noted before, the majority of patients with mental illness do not seek care. A comprehensive preventive plan would necessitate screening everybody who applies to purchase a firearm. This step ensures meaningful screening, as well as avoiding discrimination. Other countries such as Japan, Canada, New Zealand and Austria <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/03/02/world/international-gun-laws.html">have such requirements</a>.</p>
<p>– Since potentially dangerous psychiatric conditions can begin at any age in an otherwise healthy person, regular mental health screening for gun owners would be justified, similar to eye exams for drivers.</p>
<p>– There should be clear mechanisms for determining lack of mental fitness for access to firearms when concerns are raised by those who know the person or by law enforcement. Red flag gun laws are a good beginning for this path.</p>
<p>The bottom line is that determining who may or may not have access to firearms based on mental illness, as outlined, is indeed very challenging and requires more serious work. And the common denominator in all these tragedies still is the access to assault rifles.</p>
<p><em>This is an updated version of <a href="https://theconversation.com/mental-illness-and-gun-laws-what-you-may-not-know-about-the-complexities-92337">an article</a> that was originally published on Feb. 26, 2018.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/216814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arash Javanbakht does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Red flag laws are an important step in the right direction, but much more work is needed to determine the role of mental health in the lead-up to and aftermath of mass shootings.Arash Javanbakht, Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Wayne State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2151332023-10-16T12:31:43Z2023-10-16T12:31:43ZGun deaths among children and teens have soared – but there are ways to reverse the trend<p>Firearm injuries are now <a href="https://doi.org//10.1056/NEJMc2201761">the leading cause of death</a> among U.S. children and teens following a huge decadelong rise.</p>
<p>Analyses published on Oct. 5, 2023, by a research team in Boston found an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2023-063411">87% increase in firearm-involved fatalities</a> among Americans under the age of 18 from 2011 to 2021.</p>
<p>Such an increase is obviously very concerning. But <a href="https://ssw.umich.edu/faculty/profiles/tenure-track/rlsokol">as scholars</a> <a href="https://sph.umich.edu/faculty-profiles/zimmerman-marc.html">of adolescent health</a> <a href="https://medicine.umich.edu/dept/emergency-medicine/patrick-carter-md">and firearm violence</a>, we know there are many evidence-based steps that elected officials, health care professionals, community leaders, school administrators and parents can implement to help reverse this trend.</p>
<h2>Trends in firearm deaths</h2>
<p>The latest study is based on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This data also provides information on whether firearm deaths were the result of homicide, suicide or unintentional shootings.</p>
<p>We have seen <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/06/gun-deaths-among-us-kids-rose-50-percent-in-two-years/">increases over time</a> in all three areas. The steepest increase has been in the rate of firearm homicides, which <a href="https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/">doubled over the decade</a> to 2021, reaching 2.1 deaths per 100,000 children and teens, or about 1,500 fatalities annually. Firearm-involved suicides have also increased steadily to 1.1 deaths per 100,000 children and teens in 2021.</p>
<p>Whereas the proportion of youth firearm-involved deaths due to unintentional shootings is typically highest during childhood, the <a href="https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/">share of gun deaths</a> due to suicide peaks in adolescence.</p>
<p>In 2021, homicide was the most common form of firearm-involved deaths in almost every age group under the age of 18, with an exception of 12- and 13-year-olds, in which suicide was the leading cause of firearm fatalities.</p>
<p>Racial disparities in firearm deaths, which have been present for multiple generations, are <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/firearm-deaths/index.html">also expanding</a>, research shows.</p>
<p>Black children and teens are now dying from firearms at around <a href="https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/">4.5 times the rate</a> of their white peers. </p>
<p>This disparity is the consequence of structural factors, including the effects of systemic racism and economic disinvestment within many communities. Addressing racial disparities in firearm-involved deaths will require supporting communities and <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.12425">disrupting inequity by</a> addressing long-term underfunding in Black communities and punitive policymaking.</p>
<p>More research is needed to fully understand why firearm-involved deaths are universally increasing across homicide, suicide and unintentional deaths. The COVID-19 pandemic and its <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2021.08.026">exacerbation of social inequities and vulnerabilities</a> likely explain some of these increases. </p>
<h2>How to reduce gun fatalities</h2>
<p>Reducing young people’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-easy-access-to-guns-at-home-contributes-to-americas-youth-suicide-problem-187744">access to unsecured and loaded firearms</a> can prevent firearm-involved deaths across all intents — including suicide, homicide and unintentional shootings.</p>
<p>Gun-owning parents <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1078">can help</a> by storing all firearms in a secure manner – such as in a locked gun safe or with a trigger or cable lock – and unloaded so they are not accessible to children or teens within the household.</p>
<p>Data shows that only one-third of firearm-owning households with teens in the U.S. currently <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10865-021-00242-w">store all their firearms unloaded and locked</a>.</p>
<p>In addition to locking household firearms, parents should consider storing a firearm away from the home, such as in a gun shop or shooting range, or temporarily transferring ownership to a family member if they have a teen experiencing a mental health crisis.</p>
<p>Families, including those that don’t own firearms, should also consider how firearms are stored in homes where their children or teens may spend time, such as a grandparent’s or neighbor’s house.</p>
<p>Community-based and clinical programs that provide counseling on the importance of locked storage and provide free devices are effective in improving the ways people store their firearms. In addition, researchers have found that states with <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/secure-storage-or-child-access-prevention-required/">child access prevention laws</a>, which impose criminal liability on adults for negligently stored firearms, are associated with <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.6227">lower rates of child and teen firearm deaths</a>.</p>
<p>Reducing the number of young people who carry and use firearms in risky ways is another key step to prevent firearm deaths among children and teens. Existing hospital- and community-based prevention services support this work by identifying and enrolling youth at risk in programs that reduce violence involvement, the carrying of firearms and risky firearm behaviors. </p>
<p>While researchers are currently testing such programs to understand how well they work, early findings suggest that the most promising programs include a combination of reducing risky behaviors – through, for example, nonviolent conflict resolution; enhancing youth engagement in pro-social activities and with positive mentors; and supporting youth mental health.</p>
<h2>Support structures</h2>
<p>In addition to ongoing focused prevention efforts, hospital-, school- and community-based interventions that support youth in advancing social, emotional, mental, physical and financial health can reduce the risk of firearm deaths. Such measures include both <a href="http://doi.org//10.2105/AJPH.2021.306311">creating opportunities for children and teens</a> – building playgrounds, establishing youth programs and providing access to the arts and green spaces – and <a href="https://doi.org//10.2105/AJPH.2016.303434">community-level improvements</a>, such as improved public transportation, economic opportunities, environmental safety conditions and affordable and quality housing. Allocating resources toward these initiatives is an investment in every community member’s safety.</p>
<p>Over the past decade, we have seen an 87% increase in firearm-involved fatalities among children and teens in the United States. But we also have the strategies and tools to stop and reverse this troubling trend.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/215133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebeccah Sokol receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to conduct research to prevent violence.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc A. Zimmerman receives funding from NIH, CDC, BJA, & foundations. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Carter receives funding from NIH and CDC for conducting firearm-related prevention research. </span></em></p>Fatalities from gun homicides, suicides and accidents are all up for Americans ages 18 and under.Rebeccah Sokol, Assistant Professor of Social Work, University of MichiganMarc A. Zimmerman, Professor of Public Health, University of MichiganPatrick Carter, Co-Director, Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention; Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine, University of MichiganLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2074042023-07-17T15:04:00Z2023-07-17T15:04:00ZA 1-minute gun safety video helped preteen children be more careful around real guns – new research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/537385/original/file-20230713-29-yv0v92.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=133%2C0%2C3420%2C2423&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A little training helped kids make safer choices when they stumbled across a gun.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/child-found-pistol-in-drawer-at-home-royalty-free-image/940915496">M-Production/iStock via Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/research-brief-83231">Research Brief</a> is a short take about interesting academic work.</em> </p>
<h2>The big idea</h2>
<p>Children who watched a 1-minute-long gun safety video were more cautious when they found a real handgun hidden in a drawer in our lab compared to children who watched a car safety video, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2023.2397">according to our randomized clinical trial</a> published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LUrHrxcAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">We</a> <a href="https://sophiekja.com">observed</a> this difference even though children saw the gun safety video a week earlier at home and even after they had watched scenes from a violent movie in our lab.</p>
<p>We tested 226 children ages 8 to 12. By the flip of a coin, children watched either a gun safety video or car safety video alone at home. Both safety videos featured The Ohio State University Chief of Police in full uniform. Younger children tend to respect authority figures, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1348/135532500167967">especially those in uniform</a>.</p>
<p>Then a week later, pairs of kids – who were friends or siblings, for example – came to our lab at Ohio State to participate in what we told them was a study about what children do for entertainment.</p>
<p>First, the child volunteers watched scenes from a PG-rated violent movie. After 20 minutes, they went to a playroom furnished with toys and games like Lego and checkers. The room also contained a file cabinet with two disabled 9 mm handguns hidden in the bottom drawer. We told the kids they could play with any of the toys and games in the room and then left them alone. A hidden camera videotaped the children’s behavior.</p>
<p>By the end of 20 minutes, 96% of the children had found the guns. Children are naturally curious, and <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/09/health/gun-safety-tips-for-home-parents-children-wellness/index.html">adults often underestimate their ability</a> to find guns hidden in the home.</p>
<p><iframe id="UtRqp" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/UtRqp/5/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Kids who saw the gun safety video (compared to the car safety video) were more likely to tell an adult (33.9% of kids vs. 10.6% of kids), less likely to touch a gun (39.3% vs. 67.3%) and held it for less time if they did touch it (42.0 seconds vs. 99.9 seconds). They were also less likely to pull the trigger (8.9% vs. 29.8%), and pulled the trigger fewer times if they did pull it (4.2 vs. 7.2). </p>
<p>Risk factors that raised the likelihood of engaging in unsafe behavior around the guns included being male, watching age-inappropriate PG-13 and R-rated movies, and interest in guns, as reported by parents.</p>
<p>We also identified several protective factors that made children less likely to engage in unsafe behavior around the guns. One was previous exposure to gun safety material in a course or video. Another was having guns in the home, which makes sense because surveys find that parents with guns are <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/06/26/among-u-s-gun-owners-parents-more-likely-than-non-parents-to-keep-their-guns-locked-and-unloaded/">more likely to talk to their children about gun safety</a> than parents without guns. Finally, having negative attitudes about guns, like believing they’re not cool or fun, made kids less likely to engage in unsafe behavior in our study.</p>
<h2>Why it matters</h2>
<p>In 2020 in the U.S., <a href="https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMc2201761">guns killed more people ages 1 through 19</a> than any other cause, including motor vehicle crashes, drug overdoses and poisoning. And the rate of gun-related deaths among U.S. children has been increasing for about a decade. Gun deaths among U.S. children under 18 <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/06/gun-deaths-among-us-kids-rose-50-percent-in-two-years/">increased from 1,732 in 2019</a> to 2,590 in 2021.</p>
<p>Gun safety videos might be a relatively simple but effective option to help decrease these gun-related deaths and injuries.</p>
<h2>What still isn’t known</h2>
<p>Participants in this study watched the safety video about a week before they came to our lab. Future longitudinal research is needed to establish how long the protective effects of firearm safety videos might last.</p>
<p>To see if our results apply in other situations, future research should also be conducted in a more naturalistic setting – like the home – and with children of a variety of ages and from geographical locations beyond Ohio.</p>
<h2>What other research is being done</h2>
<p>Other research on children and gun safety primarily focuses on access to guns and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1494">responsible, safe</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.6.707">and secure gun storage</a>. The <a href="https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/state-advocacy/safe-storage-of-firearms/">American Academy of Pediatrics recommends</a> that gun owners store their firearms unloaded, locked up and separate from ammunition.</p>
<p><em>This article has been updated to clarify the ages of those included in the statistics about gun-related deaths.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207404/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Kids were more likely to tell an adult and less likely to touch or hold a handgun that they discovered if they’d recently watched a short video about gun safety.Brad Bushman, Professor of Communication, The Ohio State UniversitySophie L. Kjaervik, Ph.D. Candidate in Communication, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2055532023-06-26T12:21:26Z2023-06-26T12:21:26ZTaking students to the range to learn about gun culture firsthand<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/530147/original/file-20230605-22195-gqn7mv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3404%2C1798&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Sociology of Guns' students during a gun range field trip.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sandra Stroud Yamane</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“Sociology of Guns”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>I grew up in the liberal culture of the San Francisco Bay Area and never touched a firearm until I was 42 years old, living in North Carolina and <a href="https://sociology.wfu.edu/people/faculty/david-yamane">teaching sociology at Wake Forest University</a>.</p>
<p>For the past 10-plus years I have been deeply immersed in American gun culture both professionally and personally. I have both studied and am a member of the Liberal Gun Club, National Rifle Association and other gun-related groups.</p>
<p>Having one foot outside and one foot inside gun culture allows me to see the social life of guns from different perspectives. Wanting to convey this diversity to others prompted me to construct and teach this course for the first time in 2015. This fall, I will teach the course for the ninth consecutive academic year.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>Rather than focusing exclusively on gun violence and politics, my course looks more broadly at guns in society.</p>
<p>The class begins by literally putting firearms in students’ hands.</p>
<p>The first class meeting is at a gun range, where students have the opportunity – but are not required – to shoot three semi-automatic firearms: a .22 pistol, a Glock 17 9 mm pistol and an AR-15 style .223 caliber rifle. The field trip is a source of insight that carries through the entire semester.</p>
<p>Substantively, the course builds on the students’ firsthand experience of guns by exploring the multifaceted role they play in society. It puts guns in historical, legal and global contexts. The intention is to provide students with a greater understanding of the lawful possession and use of guns, gun crime and injuries, and the future of gun politics.</p>
<p>Guest speakers vary from semester to semester but include leaders of various gun owner groups, professional gun educators and trainers, and representatives of gun violence prevention organizations.</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>It often feels as though the United States is being torn apart by cultural and political divisions over guns. As Mark Joslyn argues in “<a href="https://www.choice360.org/choice-pick/the-gun-gap-rotw-4-5-21/">The Gun Gap</a>,” the different social worlds inhabited by gun owners and non-owners shape not just their fundamental orientations to guns, risk and policy, but their very understanding of what constitutes a good society.</p>
<p>I believe that we as a society cannot repair this divide until people begin to talk to each other about their differences with the goal of mutual understanding. These conversations should be built on a solid foundation of empirical knowledge about the role guns actually play in society - both positive and negative.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>The trip to the gun range stands out because it offers direct exposure to gunfire. As expected, <a href="https://guncurious.wordpress.com/2023/06/23/collected-posts-on-sociology-of-guns-seminar/">student responses vary</a>. Most enjoy it. Some dislike it. No one is indifferent. All are better able to relate to the course material because of it.</p>
<p>In particular, those who were personally repulsed by guns prior to the field trip often come to see why guns can be attractive to others. Those who had lacked exposure often become gun curious. And the few gun enthusiasts I get in my course do not just have their enthusiasm reinforced; they also understand why others see guns differently. </p>
<p>Reflecting on the field trip experience over the course of the semester through the lens of scholarship on guns turns the heat of gunfire on the range into the light of comprehension in the classroom.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>“<a href="https://lgolens.com/anthropillar/">The Liberal Gun Owners Lens, Pillar 1: The Human-Weapon Relationship</a>” – which explains the deep anthropological connection between <em>Homo sapiens</em> and projectile weaponry. </p>
<p>“<a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393345834">Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America_</a>,” – Adam Winkler’s magnificent book on the historical and legal context of guns.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162231156292">Gun Culture 2.0: The Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America</a>” – my comprehensive summary of the history and development of gun culture in the United States.</p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmsa1916744">Handgun Ownership and Suicide in California</a>” and “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392115617227">Race and Mass Murder in the United States</a>” – articles that address negative outcomes with guns in society.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>“Sociology of Guns” teaches students to approach this fraught topic in a more objective and nuanced manner encompassing both the everyday uses and abuses of firearms. This knowledge then helps students better understand their own personal beliefs about and relationship to guns. </p>
<p>Taken together, these lessons prepare students to make informed choices for the rest of their lives about being involved with guns – or not – as well as the place of guns in the communities in which they will live.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/205553/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Yamane has received funding from The Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion to study church security. He is a member of the Liberal Gun Club, National African American Gun Association, and National Rifle Association and financially supports the Liberal Gun Owners 501c4 and Walk the Walk America 501c3 organizations.</span></em></p>In this course, a gun range becomes a classroom for students to explore their previously held beliefs about firearms.David Yamane, Professor of Sociology, Wake Forest UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2028082023-03-30T21:54:40Z2023-03-30T21:54:40ZNova Scotia’s Mass Casualty Commission calls for stricter gun control laws<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518587/original/file-20230330-1012-k6nvxx.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C6134%2C4021&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Friends, family and supporters of the victims of the mass killings in rural Nova Scotia in 2020 react at the release of the final report of the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry in Truro, N.S.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/nova-scotia-s-mass-casualty-commission-calls-for-stricter-gun-control-laws" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The final report of the Mass Casualty Commission investigating the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/18-confirmed-killed-canada-s-deadliest-mass-shooting-officials-expect-n1188471">April 2020 mass shooting in Nova Scotia that left 22 people dead</a> makes several recommendations to meaningfully change Canada’s gun laws.</p>
<p>The commission’s <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/final-report/">seven-volume report</a> addresses its <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/about/mandate/">broad mandate</a>, which includes:</p>
<ul>
<li> Considering the “causes, context and circumstances giving rise to the tragedy.” </li>
<li> The police response to the shootings.</li>
<li> The role of gender-based and intimate partner violence.</li>
<li> Access to firearms.</li>
</ul>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1641495249838039048"}"></div></p>
<p>The commission identifies many “<a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Turning-the-Tide-Together-Executive-Summary.pdf">lessons learned</a>” that inform its recommendations about firearms. It concludes that a priority “should be placed on reducing access to the most dangerous, high-capacity firearms and ammunition.” </p>
<p>It also concludes that current firearms laws don’t adequately protect against the unlawful transfer of guns upon the death of owners, and that effective border control requires a collaborative and co-ordinated approach among border agencies to potential weapons smuggling.</p>
<h2>Women at risk</h2>
<p>The commission also determined that the safety of women survivors of intimate partner violence is “put at risk by the presence of firearms and ammunition in the household.”</p>
<p>It also notes that firearm laws are inconsistently enforced, and that the current approach to gun control is hampered by inadequate community engagement with those involved in addressing gender-based violence and implementing firearms policy.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/mass-casualty-commission-report-details-the-nova-scotia-shooters-abuse-of-sex-workers-202228">Mass Casualty Commission report details the Nova Scotia shooter's abuse of sex workers</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The Mass Casualty Commission further recognizes that the public often lacks accurate knowledge about gun laws. </p>
<p>It warns that Canadian beliefs are “influenced by the United States discourse centred on a right to bear arms,” which “does not exist in our constitutional and legal structure.” The commission also laments that discourse about firearms “has become increasingly polarized.”</p>
<p>Finally, the commission finds that there is a lack of community knowledge about the impact of firearms-related harms, and that some people do not have safe and accessible ways to report concerns over guns.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1641471323527413764"}"></div></p>
<h2>Limiting access to some firearms</h2>
<p>These lessons learned shape the commission’s many recommendations, including:</p>
<ul>
<li>Better data collection to limit gun smuggling.</li>
<li>Setting limits on the stockpiling of ammunition by individual firearms owners.</li>
<li>Undertaking a nationwide public education program to increase public awareness of firearm laws.</li>
</ul>
<p>The lesson that a priority “should be placed on reducing access to the most dangerous, high-capacity firearms and ammunition” leads the commission to recommend that Ottawa:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Prohibit all semi-automatic handguns and all semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that discharge centre-fire ammunition and that are designed to accept detachable magazines with capacities of more than five rounds.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This recommendation is noteworthy given the recent heated debate over gun control. Since coming to power, the Liberals under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have reformed Canada’s gun laws. For example, Ottawa banned the <a href="https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2022/10/21/freezing-market-handguns">sale and transfer of handguns</a> in 2022.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A dark-haired man with a solemn expression on his face enters a room." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518588/original/file-20230330-2194-g5ctxr.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prime Minister Justin Trudeau arrives in Truro, N.S., prior to the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry’s final report into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia in 2020.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Later that year, the Liberals also introduced amendments to their current gun control bill, <a href="https://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/44-1/SECU/meeting-50/minutes">Bill C-21</a>, to prohibit some semi-automatic rifles and shotguns <a href="https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2020/the-liberal-governments-incomplete-assault-style-rifle-ban/">not captured</a> in earlier prohibitions. </p>
<p>The amendments also included a revised firearms <a href="https://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/en/firearms/classes-firearms">classification system</a> to prevent new models of firearms similar to those prohibited previously from entering the market.</p>
<h2>A non-partisan analysis</h2>
<p>The Bill C-21 amendments proved controversial partly because critics argued they were <a href="https://theline.substack.com/p/matt-gurney-memo-to-david-lametti">politically motivated</a>. The Liberals <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ottawa-withdraws-firearms-law-amendments-1.6735828">withdrew them</a> in February, but the Mass Casualty Commission now recommends a similar effort to limit access to the kinds of semi-automatic weapons often employed by <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28971349/">mass shooters</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A grey-haired man speaks into a microphone. A sign that reads Mass Casualty Commission is on the front of the podium." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=437&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518592/original/file-20230330-16-rr9y4z.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Commissioner Michael MacDonald delivers remarks in September 2022 at the end of the public hearings of the Mass Casualty Commission inquiry into the mass murders in rural Nova Scotia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This is significant, because the commission is a <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/about/the-commissioners/">non-partisan body</a>. The chair of the commission, Michael MacDonald, is a retired Nova Scotia chief justice. The other commissioners are Leanne J. Fitch, who served for seven years as Chief of Police for the Fredericton Police Force, and Kim Stanton, a lawyer and legal scholar.</p>
<p>The commission developed its recommendations after extensive study and analysis. It is the most ambitious, thorough and open study of a mass casualty in Canadian history. It collected and made publicly available an extensive set of primary source documents and it shared “<a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/documents/foundational-documents/">foundational documents</a>” containing key facts and events.</p>
<p>It also examined and <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/COMM0063226.pdf">summarized national</a> <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/documents/commissioned-reports/#international-scan">and international</a> reports prepared in response to similar mass shootings. </p>
<p>It commissioned and published 23 <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/documents/commissioned-reports/">expert reports and technical reports</a> to help the commissioners better understand the issues related to its mandate. And it broadcast, recorded, transcribed and published <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/webcast/">its proceedings</a>.</p>
<p>Groups for and against gun control received status as participants in the commission. The <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Final-Written_CCGC.pdf">Coalition for Gun Control</a> was a participant, as were the <a href="https://masscasualtycommission.ca/files/documents/Final-Written_CCFR-CNFA.pdf">National Firearms Association and Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights</a>. These groups provided written submissions, examined documents and spoke before the commission.</p>
<p>In the end, the commission found the evidence presented by those who support stronger gun laws more persuasive. Its final report asserts the importance of “affirming that gun ownership is a conditional privilege,” not a right.</p>
<p>The pressing question now is whether — and, if so, how quickly — the federal government will implement the Mass Casualty Commission’s gun policy recommendations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202808/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>R. Blake Brown was commissioned by the Mass Casualty Commission to write an Expert Report on the history of gun control.</span></em></p>The Mass Casualty Commission into the mass shooting in Nova Scotia in 2020 makes several recommendations to meaningfully change Canada’s gun laws.R. Blake Brown, Professor, History, Saint Mary’s UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2010702023-03-27T12:23:20Z2023-03-27T12:23:20ZWhy don’t parents like their kids to play with toy guns?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517278/original/file-20230323-28-6zjl2u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=1035%2C1107%2C6237%2C4190&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even playing with a fake gun comes with risks.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/children-playing-with-water-gun-squirt-in-the-royalty-free-image/1280086198">sarote pruksachat/Moment via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">curiouskidsus@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Why don’t parents like their kids to play with fake guns? – Henry, age 11, Somerville, Massachusetts</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>A major reason parents don’t like kids to play with pretend guns is they’re afraid you’ll get hurt.</p>
<p>It can be hard for others to tell if a gun is real or just a toy. While you and your friends might be able to tell it’s a harmless game, others won’t be so sure. Someone could mistake your toy gun for a real gun, see you as a threat and try to defend themselves, hurting you in the process.</p>
<p><a href="https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/?o=MORT&y1=2020&y2=2020&t=0&i=0&m=20890&g=00&me=0&s=0&r=0&e=0&yp=65&a=5Yr&g1=0&g2=15&a1=0&a2=199&r1=INTENT&r2=NONE&r3=NONE&r4=NONE">Hundreds of children die because of gun violence each year</a> in the United States. Because of these numbers, people like us – <a href="https://epi.washington.edu/faculty/rivara-frederick/">a pediatrician</a> who has worked on firearm violence for 40 years and a <a href="https://psychiatry.uw.edu/profile/laura-prater/">firearm injury prevention researcher</a> – are very concerned about firearms that are not stored properly and the injuries they can cause.</p>
<p>Some of the toy guns available for kids and parents to buy look very much like real guns, including pistols and rifles. Because these toys look so real, kids who come across a real gun may not realize it’s dangerous and not a toy. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.107.6.1247">They may pick it up, fiddle around with it</a>, point it at a friend or themselves and pull the trigger. <a href="https://wisqars.cdc.gov/reports/?o=MORT&y1=2020&y2=2020&t=0&i=0&m=20890&g=00&me=0&s=0&r=0&e=0&yp=65&a=5Yr&g1=0&g2=15&a1=0&a2=199&r1=INTENT&r2=NONE&r3=NONE&r4=NONE">More than 100 children are killed</a> each year in the U.S. because they or a friend were handling a gun that unintentionally went off.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="boy playing with colorful water gun" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/517279/original/file-20230323-2435-yuecbw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Certain kinds of games and play can influence how kids try to solve real world problems.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/boy-in-park-shooting-pump-action-water-pistol-royalty-free-image/103579216">moodboard/Image Source via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Violent games encourage violence</h2>
<p>Playing with toy guns can also affect the way you interact with the world and think about how to solve problems. Researchers have found that just seeing weapons can make people act more aggressively – this is called the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.58.4.622">weapons effect</a>, and it applies to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2013.3824">toy guns</a>. After watching a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.2229">movie that contains a lot of gun violence</a>, kids tend to be more interested in playing with guns, too. These are reasons parents may want to limit kids’ exposure to movies and TV shows that feature guns and prefer for kids to play with nonweapon toys.</p>
<p>Playing games that involve violence can make you <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chc.2021.06.005">more comfortable with violence and aggression</a>. Kids can even <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.adolescence.2003.10.002">become more violent themselves</a>. Researchers have found that kids who play a lot of violent video games tend to show more <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.4319">signs of aggression</a> than those who don’t play them.</p>
<p>We worry that kids who play a lot of shooting video games and with toy guns will believe that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2013.09.004">settling arguments with violence and guns</a> is the right thing to do, when there are more constructive ways to resolve disputes.</p>
<h2>Real guns are not toys</h2>
<p>Adults who have firearms at home have a responsibility to keep them locked up and to prevent anyone from inappropriately accessing and using them. But some people who have firearms <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.1447">don’t lock them up</a>. Or they keep them loaded with ammunition, which is very unsafe. It is always best to treat a gun as if it is real and loaded.</p>
<p><a href="https://kidshealth.org/en/kids/gun-safety.html">What should kids do</a> if they find a firearm in their home or at a friend’s? The answer is very simple: Do not touch it. Leave it alone and tell an adult – even if you think it may be a toy. Checking it out yourself may cause the gun to go off accidentally and hurt someone if it turns out to be real.</p>
<p>The same is true at school. If you find a gun or hear classmates talking about a firearm, tell a teacher. Even if you worry your friends will get mad, telling a teacher could help prevent a serious or even deadly injury.</p>
<p>Parents who are responsible gun owners will teach their children about gun safety and how to handle and shoot them safely. But if you’re a school-age kid, you should never handle a gun by yourself.</p>
<p>Playing with or handling guns – real or fake – is dangerous and can be deadly.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201070/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederick Rivara receives funding from NIH. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura Prater does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Even fake guns can be dangerous if they are mistaken for real ones by the police or other armed adults.Frederick Rivara, Professor of Pediatrics, School of Medicine, University of WashingtonLaura Prater, Research Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, School of Medicine, University of WashingtonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2007932023-03-16T12:33:43Z2023-03-16T12:33:43Z54% of firearm deaths in the US are from suicide – and easy access to a gun is a key risk factor<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514028/original/file-20230307-18-j1qfg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Suicide deaths involving firearms have increased over last decade.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/old-semi-automatic-hand-gun-royalty-free-image/1249406015">Josiah S/iStock/Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
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<p>More than half – 54% – of all firearm deaths in the United States in 2021 were attributable to suicide, according to <a href="http://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10-expanded.html">February 2023 data</a> from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. </p>
<p>Suicide deaths involving firearms – the <a href="http://wonder.cdc.gov/mcd-icd10-expanded.html">most common means of suicide</a> in the U.S. – have increased 28% since 2012. Groups particularly at risk <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/258916/number-of-firearm-suicide-deaths-in-the-united-states-by-gender/">include men</a> <a href="https://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/suicide_prevention/data.asp">and veterans</a>, who are more likely to have access to and experience with firearms. Research also suggests that alcohol use is a significant risk factor for gun-related suicides, as opposed to suicides involving less lethal means. This is particularly true for <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1136/injuryprev-2012-04031710.1136/injuryprev-2012-040317">young adults and middle-aged people</a>.</p>
<p>Access to firearms is a <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.7326/M13-1301">key risk factor for suicide</a> due to their high lethality. Suicide attempts that involve firearms end in death <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.7326/M19-1324">90% of the time</a>. Suicide is often an impulsive act, and when a person has access to swift and lethal means such as a firearm, there is limited opportunity to intervene or allow for a suicidal impulse to pass. </p>
<p>It is a common myth that once a person has made up their mind to die by suicide it is not possible to prevent them from doing so. In fact, most individuals who survive an attempt <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1192/bjp.181.3.193">do not attempt suicide again</a>, and those who survive an initial attempt using one method are <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199112053252305">unlikely to switch</a> <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2013.12091256">to a different method</a>.</p>
<p>These findings underscore the importance of <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031811-124636">restriction of access to firearms</a> as a <a href="https://afsp.org/extreme-risk-protection-orders#what-the-research-shows">critical suicide prevention strategy</a>. </p>
<p>Research indicates that storing a firearm safely <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1136/jech.2003.017343">reduces the risk</a> of the owner – as well as others, including any <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1078">children living in the home</a> – dying by suicide. </p>
<p><a href="https://project2025.afsp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Toolkit_Safe_Firearm_Storage_CLEARED_508_2-24-20.pdf">Firearm safety measures</a> include gun safes, lockboxes, storing firearms separate from ammunition, and either <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2019.305545">voluntarily</a> or involuntarily removing firearms from the home when a person has a mental health condition or other warning signs for suicide risk.</p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/red-flag-laws-saved-7-300-americans-from-gun-deaths-in-2020-alone-and-could-have-saved-11-400-more-185009">Nineteen states</a> – <a href="https://casetext.com/statute/california-codes/penal-code-pen/part-6-control-of-deadly-weapons-16000-34370/title-2-weapons-generally-17500-19405/division-32-gun-violence-restraining-orders-18100-18205">California</a>, <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/connecticut/2018/title-29/chapter-529/section-29-38c/">Connecticut</a>, <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/laws/statutes/2018/790.401">Florida</a> and <a href="https://mdcourts.gov/district/ERPO">Maryland</a> among them – as well as the <a href="https://oag.dc.gov/public-safety/dcs-red-flag-law-removing-guns-potentially">District of Columbia</a> have enacted so-called <a href="https://theconversation.com/red-flag-laws-saved-7-300-americans-from-gun-deaths-in-2020-alone-and-could-have-saved-11-400-more-185009">red flag laws</a>. These allow law enforcement, family members and sometimes school administrators or health care professionals to petition the court to remove a firearm from the home of a person at risk of harming themselves or others.</p>
<p>In addition to these measures, policymakers and care providers can address other risk factors for suicide as part of a comprehensive suicide prevention strategy. This includes <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30285348/">screening and identifying</a> people who are at high risk, treating underlying mental health conditions, improving <a href="https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mental-health-access-and-suicide.html">access to mental health care</a> and encouraging <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/factors/index.html">stronger family and community connections</a>. Prevention priorities also include reducing <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/suicide/factors/index.html">risk factors</a> such as exposure to violence, financial strain and chronic illness.</p>
<p>Another strategy is training friends, teachers, clergy, coaches and other community members in assessing suicide risk and referring individuals to resources. This <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13811118.2018.1509749">has been shown</a> to increase both the likelihood that a trained helper offers needed assistance, as well as the likelihood that the person who is suffering seeks help.</p>
<p><em>If you or someone you know is in crisis, call 988 to speak with a trained listener. Veterans can press 1 after dialing 988 to connect directly to the Veterans Crisis Lifeline. Or, text HELLO to 741741. Both services are free, available 24/7, and confidential.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200793/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heidi Zinzow receives funding from the National Science Foundation and Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. She has previously received funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration and National Institutes for Health.</span></em></p>Keeping weapons locked away and unloaded reduces the risk of death by suicide for gun owners and their children.Heidi Zinzow, Professor of Psychology, Clemson UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1965482023-03-03T13:24:22Z2023-03-03T13:24:22Z3 ways to prevent school shootings, based on research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511775/original/file-20230222-26-1y6fow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C38%2C8588%2C5703&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">School shootings are tragic, but parents, students and school staff can take steps to prevent them, researchers report.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SchoolShootingFlorida5Years/1c6ead3e31464104a9e81560e0d95de7/photo">AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the months leading up to his 2012 attack that killed 26 people in Newtown, Connecticut, a 20-year-old man exhibited a cascade of concerning behaviors. He experienced worsening anorexia, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His relationships deteriorated, and he became fixated on mass murders.</p>
<p>In 2013, an 18-year-old had enraged outbursts at school and threatened to kill his debate coach. Concerned, the school’s threat assessment team interviewed him, rating him as a low-level risk for violence. But three months after the assessment, he shot and killed a classmate and himself on school grounds in Centennial, Colorado.</p>
<p>By 2018, a 19-year-old man had more than 40 documented encounters with law enforcement and a history of threatening others and weapons purchases. After his mother died in 2017, family friends contacted law enforcement and expressed concern about his behavior. In 2018, he perpetrated a shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida.</p>
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<p>All three perpetrators displayed disturbing behavior before their attacks – and the people around them missed the opportunities to intervene.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=id&user=js32DFkAAAAJ">We</a> are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zxp0eOIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociologists</a> at the <a href="https://cspv.colorado.edu/">Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence</a> at the University of Colorado Boulder. We study the circumstances that lead to violence in which an <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">attacker picks a target</a> – like a person, group, or school – in advance. </p>
<p>We find that the same patterns of concerning behavior emerge among the perpetrators, but that’s not all. We also find that there are often many opportunities to intervene with the perpetrator before the tragedy that peers, family members, school staff, law enforcement officials, and others miss.</p>
<p>Much of the public discussion on preventing school shootings focuses on whether and how to limit people’s access to firearms. While these efforts remain important, over the past 30 years, our work has identified other strategies that can reduce the risk for violence. Here are three evidence-based steps that schools and communities can take to prevent violence.</p>
<h2>1. Teach students and adults to report warning signs</h2>
<p>Most school shooters <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/preventingattacksreport.pdf">exhibited concerning behavior</a> and <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">communicated their plan</a> to cause harm before their deadly attack. </p>
<p>These troubling behaviors and communications provide <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2021-03/USSS%20Averting%20Targeted%20School%20Violence.2021.03.pdf">opportunities for adults to step in</a>, for students to speak up, and for people to help a student who may be in psychological or emotional distress.</p>
<p>But the warning signs for violence can be difficult to distinguish from other types of problem behavior, particularly among adolescents. </p>
<p>According to the U.S. Secret Service, the <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">10 most common concerning behaviors among school attackers</a> are:</p>
<ul>
<li>threats to the target or others, and an intent to attack, including on social media</li>
<li>intense or escalating anger</li>
<li>interest in weapons</li>
<li>sadness, depression or isolation</li>
<li>changes in behavior or appearance</li>
<li>suicide or self-harm</li>
<li>interest in weapons or violence</li>
<li>complaints of being bullied</li>
<li>worries over grades or attendance</li>
<li>harassing others</li>
</ul>
<p>Attackers typically exhibit five or more of these concerning behaviors. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2022.2105858">Educational programs and training</a> that encourage people to share their concerns about, and seek help for, those engaging in worrisome behavior may improve safety in schools and communities. </p>
<h2>2. Develop and publicize around-the-clock anonymous tip lines</h2>
<p>People need a way to safely report their concerns. <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/tip-lines-school-safety-national-portrait-tip-line-use">Tip line</a> systems include websites, phone numbers to call or text, email addresses, and apps. They let students and others anonymously, or confidentially, share their concerns about another’s threatening behavior or communications.</p>
<p>These tip lines can make people less hesitant to report situations that worry them or that they think may not be their business, such as bullying, threats, drug use, or someone’s talk of suicide.</p>
<p>Several states have modeled their tip lines after <a href="https://safe2tell.org/">Colorado’s Safe2Tell</a>, which is a 24/7/365 live anonymous reporting system that was created in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School mass shooting. Safe2Tell relays tips to local law enforcement officials and school leaders, who investigate and triage each tip. These law enforcement officials and school leaders determine the nature of the concern, along with the most appropriate response.</p>
<p>A 2011 study found the system had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.390">helped stop 28 potential school attacks</a>, but that research has not been updated in the years since. Recent Safe2Tell reports indicate that the system also helps students get help for significant mental health needs.</p>
<p>During the 2021-22 school year, for instance, Safe2Tell received 19,364 reports. Of those, 14% were related to suicide threats, 7% to bullying, and 7% to welfare checks. Of the 84 self-reports related to mental health that year, <a href="https://safe2tell.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Safe2Tell-annual-report-2021-2022.pdf">32% received counseling services</a>, 32% had their parents notified, 22% had an official check on their well-being, 12% were hospitalized at least briefly, and 10% were given a suicide assessment; some received more than one of those responses. </p>
<p>These types of interventions are known to prevent school violence. The National Policing Institute is a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that maintains the <a href="https://www.avertedschoolviolence.org/">Averted School Violence Database</a>. As of 2021, the database contained case information on <a href="https://www.policinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ASV2021AnalysisUpdate.pdf">171 averted attacks, 88 of which</a> were first discovered by a peer of the potential attacker.</p>
<h2>3. Conduct behavioral threat assessment and management</h2>
<p>Once people report their concerns, law enforcement officers, school staff and mental health professionals must evaluate the reports and determine how to handle the information, and the people implicated. </p>
<p>One method, called <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/usss-ntac-maps-2016-2020.pdf#page=10">behavioral threat assessment and management</a>, seeks to identify the cause of the concerning behavior – such as a grievance, psychological trauma, or mental health concern. In schools, this process encourages the threat assessment team to evaluate the risk for violence and <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/threat-assessment-at-school/protecting-students-rights-in-btam">build a plan for supporting and monitoring the student</a>, their behavior and their communications. </p>
<p>Schools that use this approach are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2019.1707682">less likely to simply suspend or expel</a> the students they evaluate. That means students can still receive services and support through their school, rather than being excluded from it.</p>
<p>This process also helps <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/threat-assessment-at-school/behavior-threat-assessment-and-management-(btam)-best-practice-considerations-for-k%E2%80%9312-schools">distinguish cases</a> in which a student made a threat but does not intend harm from those in which a student poses a real threat.</p>
<p>Once the team has assessed the threat, it can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636517727347">share the results – and the plan of action – with other school staff members</a> to ensure everyone knows how to handle the student and their behavior. School staff members then also know how, and to whom, to report any subsequent observations of worrying actions or statements from the student. </p>
<p>It’s important for all school personnel to know that the federal student privacy law allows this type of information-sharing because it <a href="https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/faq/when-it-permissible-utilize-ferpa%E2%80%99s-health-or-safety-emergency-exception-disclosures">relates to school and personal safety</a>. Some school leaders hesitate to share the plan because they are confused about this provision of the law.</p>
<p>For that reason, and because resources may be constrained at school or may not extend to a student’s home life, the action plans that follow behavioral threat assessments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2399">aren’t always carried out</a> properly. So the team may have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00380407221120431">completed the assessment paperwork</a>, but not the actual work of supporting, managing or monitoring the student’s needs.</p>
<p>Americans are not helpless in the face of school violence. Research has identified solutions. We believe it’s time to act to consistently and effectively implement these solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beverly Kingston receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Botnar Foundation, City of Denver</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Goodrum receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.</span></em></p>Much of the public discussion on preventing school shootings is about whether and how to limit people’s access to firearms. But other strategies can reduce the risk for violence.Beverly Kingston, Director and Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado BoulderSarah Goodrum, Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1975972023-01-12T13:20:36Z2023-01-12T13:20:36ZHow does a child become a shooter? Research suggests easy access to guns and exposure to screen violence increase the risk<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504081/original/file-20230111-18-oyusqn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C2747%2C1826&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The shooting of an elementary school teacher by one of her students is a shocking example of gun violence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/police-tape-hangs-from-a-sign-post-outside-richneck-news-photo/1246066075?phrase=virginia%20teacher&adppopup=true">Jay Paul/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the aftermath of a shocking incident in which a <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-grader-who-shot-teacher-in-virginia-is-among-the-youngest-school-shooters-in-us-history-197392">first grader shot and seriously injured a teacher</a> at a school in Newport News, Virginia, the city’s mayor <a href="https://twitter.com/Phil_Jones_757/status/1611843035905785856">asked the question</a>: “How did this happen?” </p>
<p>Some <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/6-year-old-unlikely-charged-teachers-shooting-parents-experts-say-rcna65176">details</a> are now known: The child took the gun from his home, and the firearm was <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/01/09/virginia-teacher-6-year-old-student-authorities-gun-shooting/11020209002/">legally purchased by his mother</a>.</p>
<p>Many other aspects of the incident have yet to be established – not least, the likely many factors that resulted in the boy shooting his teacher. But as <a href="https://www.asc.upenn.edu/people/faculty/dan-romer-phd">experts in media use</a> <a href="https://comm.osu.edu/people/bushman.20">and its connections to violence</a>, we have reported some disturbing findings about how children are influenced by gun violence depicted in media like television, movies and video games. What makes this more troubling is the fact that <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-school-shooters-get-their-guns-from-home-and-during-the-pandemic-the-number-of-firearms-in-households-with-teenagers-went-up-172951">millions of children in the U.S. have easy access</a> to firearms in their homes, increasing the risk of gun deaths, <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-easy-access-to-guns-at-home-contributes-to-americas-youth-suicide-problem-187744">including suicides</a>. </p>
<h2>The effect of media violence on children</h2>
<p>Research has shown that the depiction of gun violence is increasing in both <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2013-1600">movies</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0247780">on TV</a>. Our research found that acts of gun violence in PG-13 movies has nearly tripled in the 30 years since the rating was introduced in 1984. And PG-13 movies are not exclusively watched by teens and above. A <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1018017/pg-13-movie-viewing-age-us/">survey of adults in 2019</a> found that 12% said they were allowed to watch PG-13 movies between the ages of 6 and 9, with 6% saying they watched such films aged even younger.</p>
<p>Although <a href="https://homeword.com/2019/01/22/movie-violence-doesnt-make-kids-violent-study-finds/#.Y78jYOzML9E">some skeptics say</a> violent media do not lead children to become more aggressive, a large survey conducted in 2015 found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/ppm0000046">most pediatricians and media scholars agree</a> that there is a link. </p>
<p>Violent media can also lead children to engage in more dangerous behavior if they find a real gun. In studies one of us conducted, exposure to both <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.2229">movies</a> and <a href="https://doi.org//10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.4319">video games</a> with guns was found to encourage children ages 8-12 years old to pick up a real gun that had been hidden in a drawer and pull the trigger, including while pointing the gun at themselves or their friend. This behavior was observed by a hidden camera.</p>
<p>This is what can happen if parents do not store a gun in a secure location in the home.</p>
<p>The child in the Virginia shooting was younger than 8 years old, but there is no reason to believe the effects we found would differ in a younger child. In fact, the effects might be stronger in younger children because those younger than about 8 can have <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Fake-Fact-and-Fantasy-Childrens-Interpretations-of-Television-Reality/Davies/p/book/9780805820478">more difficulty distinguishing reality from fantasy</a>.</p>
<p>Violence in the media can desensitize or numb children to violence. In <a href="https://doi.org//10.1177/0886260515584337">one study</a>, researchers found that “children exposed to multiple sources of violence may become desensitized, increasing the possibility of them imitating the aggressive behaviors they watch and considering such behavior as normal.”</p>
<p>Movies containing gun violence that are rated PG-13 portray the use of guns <a href="https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2017-3491">in ways that are unrealistic</a>. The effects of gun use in such films are often sanitized so that one rarely sees much blood or serious harm, unlike what is typically shown in movies that are rated R. This could give a child the sense that using a gun to harm someone is not as dangerous as it actually could be.</p>
<p>What concerns us about these findings is that they come at a time of increased media consumption by younger children. A <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/research/the-common-sense-census-media-use-by-tweens-and-teens-2021">2021 report</a> by Common Sense Media found that <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/16/health/covid-kids-tech-use.html">media use by children has risen faster</a> in the two years since the pandemic than the four years before. <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2798256">Research has found</a> that children ranging in age from 5 to 11 years old spent an average of more than three hours a day on screens and consuming media during the pandemic. </p>
<h2>Guns in the home</h2>
<p>Children are naturally curious, and adults often <a href="https://theconversation.com/most-school-shooters-get-their-guns-from-home-and-during-the-pandemic-the-number-of-firearms-in-households-with-teenagers-went-up-172951">underestimate their ability to find guns</a> hidden in the home. As one <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/12/09/health/gun-safety-tips-for-home-parents-children-wellness/index.html">firearms expert noted</a>, “Their brains are developing. That same curiosity that can inspire them to pick up a book and want to learn how to read can inspire them to go looking for a parent’s gun.” </p>
<p>And the U.S. has <a href="https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/database/global-firearms-holdings">far more</a> civilian-owned guns per capita than any country in the world, with 120.5 guns per 100 residents – the next highest country is Yemen, with 52.8 guns per 100 residents.</p>
<p>The U.S. is also an outlier when it comes to gun-related violence, with rates about <a href="https://www.healthdata.org/acting-data/gun-violence-united-states-outlier">23 times higher</a> than in other developed countries. </p>
<p>Figures from the nonprofit organization Everytown for Gun Safety show that every year <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/report/notanaccident/">more than 300 people are either wounded or killed</a> in unintentional shootings by children. Data on the number of people shot by children intentionally is not, to our knowledge, available.</p>
<p>It is vital for gun owners to lock away firearms, unloaded, with ammunition stored separately – especially if there are children in the home. The <a href="https://www.aap.org/en/advocacy/state-advocacy/safe-storage-of-firearms/">American Academy of Pediatrics</a> recommends that all guns be secured to decrease “the risk of both unintentional gun injuries and intentional shootings.” Roughly a third of U.S. homes with children have guns, but <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2018/survey-more-than-half-of-u-s-gun-owners-do-not-safely-store-their-guns">less than half</a> of gun owners secure their guns. As of 2022, an estimated <a href="https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/at-home/Pages/Handguns-in-the-Home.aspx">4.6 million children in the U.S.</a> live in a home with unlocked, loaded guns.</p>
<p>What drove the child at an elementary school in Virginia to shoot his teacher is something that is not publicly known. But what the research clearly shows is that exposure to gun violence in media and easy access to firearms around the home all serve to increase the risks of any child picking up a gun.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dan Romer receives funding from the National Institutes of Health and from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brad Bushman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Watching gun violence on screen can desensitize children to the harm caused by firearms.Brad Bushman, Professor of Communication and Rinehart Chair of Mass Communication, The Ohio State UniversityDan Romer, Research Director, Annenberg Public Policy Center, University of PennsylvaniaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1946142023-01-10T13:29:29Z2023-01-10T13:29:29ZGod and guns often go together in US history – this course examines why<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502489/original/file-20221221-20-q1wuth.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C2%2C1986%2C1502&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Views on guns are intertwined with views on God for many Americans.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/pistol-on-open-bible-royalty-free-image/157197798?phrase=gun%20god&adppopup=true">RichLegg/E+ via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“God and Guns: the History of Faith and Firearms in America”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>As <a href="http://jslaughter01.faculty.wesleyan.edu">a religion professor</a>, I’ve come to know many students from other countries who identify as Christian. I realized they were puzzled at some of the things Americans often bundled into their faith – things these international Christians didn’t consider relevant to their own religious identity.</p>
<p>One issue in particular sparked a question from a South Asian Christian student: Why did American evangelicals seem to have such an affinity for firearms? For example, Pew Research indicates <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/november/god-gun-control-white-evangelicals-texas-church-shooting.html">41% of white evangelicals</a> own a firearm, compared with 30% of people in the U.S. overall. This unsettled the student, since they shared much of the same theology, and they wanted to know more about this connection.</p>
<p>I was embarrassed to admit that I didn’t have a satisfactory answer. Since I was trained as <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/122/article/766198">a historian of the 18th and early 19th centuries</a>, I suspected it wasn’t explained by the last 10 or 20 years. I knew we needed to go back and start with the Colonial era and work our way forward. This course is my humble attempt to answer these students’ questions.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>We spend the first two weeks reading what the Bible says about violence. There are no firearms in the ancient text, of course – but there are plenty of other weapons.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+5&version=KJV">hymns of celebration</a> after <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Judges+4&version=KJV">defeating enemies</a>, such as when Jael hammers a peg through the head of the military commander Sisera in the Book of Judges, appear to celebrate violence.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+5&version=KJV">the Sermon on the Mount</a>, however, Jesus teaches his followers to turn the other cheek. What do American Christians think about these types of passages, and to what degree do they inform their approach to firearms? </p>
<p>The surprises in the text are endless, especially since very few of my students have ever read the Bible.</p>
<p>Our readings help contextualize key themes in American history as we move through the course: from the Colonial era, <a href="https://wwnorton.co.uk/books/9780393334906-our-savage-neighbors-5712a22d-99af-4f98-ab18-ca2a75a2180e">when firearms, religion and violence were intertwined aspects of settlers’ lives</a>, to the Cold War, when we discover how evangelicals embraced a <a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9781631495731">masculine, warriorlike idea of Jesus</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A black and white old-fashioned portrait of a standing man with a long white beard in black clothing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=846&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502500/original/file-20221222-22-kmbu5s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1063&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Portrait of John Brown (1800-1859).</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-john-brown-militant-abolitionist-that-seized-news-photo/615230680?phrase=%22john%20brown%22&adppopup=true">Corbis Historical via Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Together, we explore digital and archival sources that show a wide range of attitudes toward weapons. For example, the abolitionist <a href="https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781442236707/John-Brown-Speaks-Letters-and-Statements-from-Charlestown">John Brown’s prison letters</a> provide a fascinating window into how faith and firearms can be central to someone’s cause. Brown was a Christian who believed so strongly in abolishing slavery that he was convinced God had appointed him as his agent of violent judgment. The letters were written just prior to Brown’s execution in 1859, after his failed attempt to spark a slave uprising in Harper’s Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia).</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>Americans live in a country where politicians’ platforms often focus on God and guns.</p>
<p>Some are overtly weaving it into their election pitch, such as U.S. Senate candidate <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/mandel-campaigning-pro-god-guns-050100949.html">Josh Mandel</a> of Ohio, who called himself “pro-God, guns and Trump,” while other Republicans such as Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/christmas-card-guns-lauren-boebert-thomas-massie-start-new-culture-ncna1285709">included guns in Christmas messages</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A crowd holds signs, including one that says, 'God...guns...and guts...lets keep them all.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/502503/original/file-20221222-24-d330ay.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=518&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">A crowd outside the Arizona State Capitol in Phoenix in 2013, during a Guns Across America rally.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/GodAndGuns/9c3ba87661c54684aaea8a29da4171d0/photo?Query=guns%20god&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=116&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Matt York</a></span>
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<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>American Christians, including evangelicals, are a diverse lot. The “peace church” tradition – the Mennonites, Amish and Quakers, among others – may not often grab headlines, but complicate the narrative about guns and God in U.S. culture. </p>
<p>Many other types of Christianity <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-06-01/the-role-of-religion-in-the-gun-control-debate/101114470">do not embrace firearms</a>, either. For example, Pew Research found that only 52% of Black Protestants have fired a gun, compared with <a href="https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/july/praise-lord-pass-ammunition-who-loves-god-guns-pew.html">a 72% average among all Americans</a>.</p>
<p>Yet from the time of the Puritans onward, many Christians <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691181592/as-a-city-on-a-hill">have viewed America as a divinely inspired nation</a> – an idea that often served to sanction violence, whether in a war for Indigenous lands, defending slavery or leading a revolt.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>Hopefully this course will equip students to coherently answer the question of why American religious culture is so intertwined with gun culture – especially if the subject comes up at Thanksgiving dinner. </p>
<p>More seriously, the better that people in America understand how their predecessors viewed firearms, the more robust and productive debates will be over their place <a href="https://gunsandsocietycenter.com/">in American society today</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194614/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph P. Slaughter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Support for strong gun ownership rights is often associated with conservative Christian views, but religion and self-defense have a much longer history in the United States.Joseph P. Slaughter, Assistant Professor of the Practice in Religion and History and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Guns and Society, Wesleyan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1952732022-12-05T13:26:14Z2022-12-05T13:26:14ZA judge in Texas is using a recent Supreme Court ruling to allow domestic abusers to keep their guns<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498785/original/file-20221204-16605-8lpn7f.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C3008%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Taking guns from abusers saves lives.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/gun-royalty-free-image/1007622020?phrase=gun%20law&adppopup=true">Kameleon007 via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>For a large part of the history of the United States, <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781635570977">domestic abuse was tolerated</a> under the nation’s legal system. There were few laws <a href="https://doi.org//10.1353/eam.2007.0008">criminalizing</a> <a href="https://doi.org//10.1086/449151">domestic violence</a>, and enforcement of the existing laws was rare. </p>
<p>It was only in the <a href="https://jaapl.org/content/38/3/376">past few decades</a> that laws criminalizing domestic violence came to be widespread and enforced. But now, the U.S. is in danger of backtracking on that legal framework precisely because of the <a href="https://doi.org//10.1086/449151">nation’s historical legacy</a> of turning a blind eye to domestic violence.</p>
<p>On Nov. 10, 2022, a <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txwd.1177458/gov.uscourts.txwd.1177458.55.0.pdf">judge in the Western District of Texas</a> struck down the federal law that prohibits access to guns for people subject to domestic violence protection orders. He did this based on a 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-843">NYSRPA v. Bruen</a>, which held that, to be constitutional, a firearm restriction must be analogous to laws that were in existence when the country was founded. In other words, disarming domestic abusers violates the Second Amendment because those types of laws didn’t exist at the founding of the country.</p>
<p>In a separate, but related, case, the 5th U.S. Circuit of Court of Appeals on Feb 1. sided with the Texas judge, ruling that the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/02/politics/domestic-violence-guns-fifth-circuit/index.html">federal ban was unconstitutional</a>. The Justice Department has indicated that it will appeal.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://sph.umich.edu/faculty-profiles/zeoli-april.html">study the link between gun laws</a> <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/240/shannon-frattaroli">and domestic violence in the U.S.</a> and know that backtracking on laws that prevent the perpetrators of domestic violence from getting their hands on guns will put lives at risk – the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20363814/">research </a>has proved this time and time again. </p>
<h2>Putting lives in danger</h2>
<p>At present, <a href="http://disarmdv.org/">federal law</a> prohibits persons subject to final – rather than temporary – domestic violence protection orders from purchasing or possessing firearms. In addition, 39 states and the District of Columbia have similar prohibitions on their statutes, with many expanding the restrictions to include individuals under temporary, or ex parte, orders prior to a full hearing.</p>
<p>Ruling that these laws are unconstitutional will put mainly women and children in danger. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31245255/">More than 50%</a> of women who are murdered are killed by intimate partners, and <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2019-14080-005">most of those homicides</a> are committed with guns. A 2003 study found that when an abusive man has access to a gun, it <a href="https://doi.org//10.2105/ajph.93.7.1089">increases the risk</a> of intimate partner homicide by 400%.</p>
<p>Women constitute the <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-10.xls">majority of victims</a> of intimate partner homicide, and almost <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28630118/">one-third of children under the age of 13</a> who are murdered with a gun are killed in the context of domestic violence. </p>
<p>Moreover, <a href="https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0">68% of mass shooters</a> have a history of domestic violence or killed an intimate partner in the mass shooting.</p>
<p>Enforcement of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20088664/">gun restrictions is spotty</a>, with further research needed as to how systematically they are ordered and whether restricted individuals relinquish firearms they already possess. Nonetheless, research shows that firearm restrictions on domestic violence protection orders save lives. <a href="https://doi.org//10.1093/aje/kwy174">Multiple studies</a> conclude that these laws are associated with an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0193841X06287307">8%-10% reduction</a> in intimate partner homicide.</p>
<p>Specifically, there are <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30383263/">statistically significant reductions</a> in intimate partner homicide when the firearm restriction covers both dating partners and those subjected to temporary orders. This decrease is seen in total intimate partner homicide, not just intimate partner homicide committed with guns, nullifying the argument that abusers will use other weapons to kill.</p>
<p>Moreover, these laws have broad support across the country – <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7859883/">more than 80%</a> of respondents to two national polls in 2017 and 2019 said they favor them.</p>
<p>Americans – whether male or female, gun owner or non-gun owner – tend to agree that domestic abusers should not be able to purchase or possess firearms while they are subject to a domestic violence protection order. Most seem to realize that such reasonable restrictions serve the greater good of keeping families and communities safe. </p>
<h2>A disregard for data</h2>
<p>The ruling in Texas was based on an originalist legal argument rather than the data. Under the judge’s interpretation of the Bruen decision, because colonial law – written before a time when women could vote, let alone be protected in law from violent spouses – didn’t restrict domestic abusers’ gun rights, then it simply isn’t constitutional to do so now. In effect, the ruling, should it stand, would mean the U.S. is unable to escape the nation’s <a href="https://doi.org//10.1086/449151">historic legal disregard for domestic violence</a>.</p>
<p>It also disregards the harm that allowing domestic abusers to keep hold of guns does. Multiple studies demonstrate that domestic violence firearm restriction laws are <a href="https://doi.org//10.1136/ip.2009.024620">effective </a>and <a href="http://doi.org//10.1093/aje/kwy174">save</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0193841X06287307">lives</a>.</p>
<p>That research shows that, should the Texas ruling stand, people who suffer abuse at the hands of an intimate partner are at greater risk of that abuse being deadly. </p>
<p><em><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-geller">Lisa Geller</a>, director of state affairs at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, contributed to this article.</em></p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This story was updated on Feb. 3, 2022 to include the ruling from the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195273/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Research shows that removing guns from violent abusers saves lives. But laws doing just that are at risk of being ruled unconstitutional, following a landmark Supreme Court guns case.April M. Zeoli, Associate Professor of Public Health, University of MichiganShannon Frattaroli, Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1950622022-11-21T21:28:17Z2022-11-21T21:28:17ZRed flag laws and the Colorado LGBTQ club shooting – questions over whether state’s protection order could have prevented tragedy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/496558/original/file-20221121-14-tvq6qg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C175%2C7340%2C5165&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Flowers at a memorial near Club Q </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-leaves-flowers-and-other-items-at-a-memorial-near-news-photo/1443134730?phrase=colorado%20shooting&adppopup=true">RJ Sangosti/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The killing of five patrons <a href="https://apnews.com/article/shootings-colorado-springs-e098d88261db6bcfc0774434abbb7a8f">in a Colorado LGBTQ bar on Nov. 19, 2022</a>, is the latest mass shooting to garner headlines in the U.S.</em></p>
<p><em>Police have said they have <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/colorado-springs-police-probe-motive-lgbtq-nightclub-shooting-2022-11-21/">yet to determine a motive</a>. But one thing that has emerged is that the suspect had a history of violent plans, having <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1138197437/colorado-springs-shooting-suspect-red-flag-gun-law">allegedly threatened to attack his mother with a homemade bomb</a> more than a year before the attack at Club Q.</em></p>
<p><em>It has led to questions over why that earlier alleged incident did not trigger <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb19-1177">Colorado’s “red flag” law</a> – something that may have prevented him from acquiring the AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon that police say was used in the Club Q attack. The Conversation asked Alex McCourt, an <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/faculty/3794/alexander-mccourt">expert on gun laws at Johns Hopkins University</a>, to explain how red flag laws are supposed to work – and why they weren’t triggered in this case.</em></p>
<h2>What are red flag laws?</h2>
<p>Red flag laws – also know as <a href="https://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-for-gun-violence-prevention-and-policy/research/extreme-risk-protection-orders/">extreme risk protection orders</a> – allow for judges to make a ruling that results in firearms being taken away temporarily from a person who is deemed to be at high risk of harming themselves or others. They also prevent that person from purchasing guns for a set period of time.</p>
<p>They are aimed at protecting against the actions of individuals who have made violent threats or may be going through some sort of crisis.</p>
<p>The way they work is that specific people can petition a court to issue an order when someone is deemed to be behaving dangerously or making violent threats.</p>
<p>The categories of individuals who can petition in this way vary from state to state. But all the states that have enacted such laws – <a href="https://theconversation.com/red-flag-laws-saved-7-300-americans-from-gun-deaths-in-2020-alone-and-could-have-saved-11-400-more-185009">19 plus the District of Columbia</a> – include law enforcement officers among those who can petition the court to have a red flag order imposed.</p>
<p>Household and family members are also commonly listed. And in <a href="https://health.maryland.gov/bha/suicideprevention/Documents/ERPO_Brochure%20PRINT%20Version.pdf">Maryland</a>, <a href="https://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/2022/06/17/hawaiis-red-flag-law-how-file-gun-violence-protective-order/">Hawaii</a> and the <a href="https://oag.dc.gov/public-safety/dcs-red-flag-law-removing-guns-potentially">District of Columbia</a>, health care officials can petition the court should they be concerned over the behavior of a patient. In California, Hawaii and New York, <a href="https://www.edweek.org/policy-politics/let-school-officials-seek-gun-limits-for-potentially-violent-students-feds-suggest/2021/06">teachers or school administrators are included</a> in the list of people who can petition the court.</p>
<p>Typically, if the court finds there is sufficient evidence of risk of violence, a judge will issues an ex parte – or temporary – order. These cover a very short period until a hearing can take place. At that subsequent hearing the potential subject of the order can provide an argument that they aren’t dangerous.</p>
<p>If the court decides there is indeed a risk, it will deliver a longer-term order. In most cases it covers a period of up to a year. The subject of the gun ban may be able to petition for the order to be ended early, should they be able to prove, for example, that their moment of mental crisis is over or that they have sought sufficient treatment. The petitioner can also ask for the order to be renewed at the end of the year.</p>
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<h2>Does research show that red flag laws work?</h2>
<p>The first thing to note is that the laws are relatively new – most have come in over the past decade. So researchers are still evaluating the data. But studies have shown that they can be effective in preventing mass shooting events and possibly suicides.</p>
<p><a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31426088/">Research from 2019</a> found that, among a group of cases in which guns were removed from individuals who made threats of mass shootings in California, none of the individuals went on to carry out mass shootings. A <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36265579/">2022 study</a> evaluated extreme risk protection orders in six states. It found that all the states being observed were issuing orders on the basis of mass shooting threats – 20% of these cases involved threats toward schools and 15% toward intimate partners or family members.</p>
<p>Though these laws are relatively new, <a href="https://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=&httpsredir=1&article=4830&context=lcp">research</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30988021/">analyzing</a> the legislation suggests that they may help prevent suicide.</p>
<p>So there is enough evidence to say they can be used to prevent deaths. But these measures are so new, we need to know more about how well they are being implemented by states. So far, research suggests that public awareness of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35977171/">extreme risk protection orders is low</a> and that efforts to <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36099263/">educate the public and facilitate filing of petitions might</a> help.</p>
<h2>How well are red flag laws implemented across states?</h2>
<p>Connecticut and Indiana both had early versions of red flags laws, in place in 1999 and 2006 respectively, but the policy was really developed after the <a href="https://apnews.com/hub/sandy-hook-elementary-school-shooting">Sandy Hook shooting of 2012</a>. Since that incident – in which 20 children and six adults were killed by a gunman – a further 17 states and Washington, D.C., have added extreme risk protection orders to their statutes. Most have come in since the Parkland school shooting of 2018.</p>
<p>One of the areas in which more research is needed is on implementation of red flag laws. There appears to be wide variation – both state by state, but also within states that have laws in place. </p>
<p>Spotty implementation might be the result of a combination of factors. As they are quite new, there is a knowledge gap – that is, would-be petitioners might not know that a red flag order is an option, or how to go about filing for an order.</p>
<p>But it is also true that there has been a fair amount of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/red-flag-laws-get-little-use-even-as-mass-shootings-gun-deaths-soar">pushback</a> from certain counties and sheriffs who have said that they won’t enforce these laws out of Second Amendment concerns. This appears to be the case more in rural areas. But that has not been systemically studied to date.</p>
<h2>Any chance of a federal red state law?</h2>
<p>There has been some discussion among advocates about trying to <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/jun/10/ask-politifact-what-are-red-flag-gun-laws-and-do-t/">pass federal legislation</a>. But to date, the main actions taken at the federal level are to make it easier for individual states to adopt red flag laws. The Biden administration has pushed for their adoption, and the Justice Department has issued model legislation that states can use.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Bipartisan-Safer-Communities-Act-SAP-1.pdf">Bipartisan Safer Communities Act</a> passed in June 2022 allows for the distribution of funds to states for crisis intervention programs, including the rollout of extreme risk protection orders.</p>
<h2>What was in place in Colorado?</h2>
<p>Colorado’s <a href="https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/hb19-1177">red flag law</a> was enacted 2019. It allows for law enforcement and family or household members to file a petition to a court. If it is approved, a court can order that an individual’s guns be removed for up to one year.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00353-7">2021 study</a> of the first year of implementation of Colorado’s law found that in 85% of cases it was law enforcement that initiated proceedings, and in 15% of cases it was household or family members that petitioned.</p>
<p>There has been slower uptake in Colorado than in some other states. But there have been some questions over whether that is over the timing of the law – it was implemented just before COVID-19 pandemic began, so for a large chunk of the first year it has been in operation, people were under stay-at-home orders.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the study found there were a significant number of sheriffs and counties that said they would not enforce the law. There is no real legal basis for them to do this; it is more of a symbolic or political stance. But it does have implications for red flag laws, as law enforcement officers may not have the training or inclination to pursue red flag orders.</p>
<h2>Why was it not triggered in this case?</h2>
<p>There hasn’t been an awful lot of detail released on why a red flag order was not imposed on the Colorado shooter. Early reporting suggests that this appears to be a classic example of someone who made a threat, in this case threatening his mother with a homemade bomb – and as such would qualify for an order. But there is <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/11/21/1138197437/colorado-springs-shooting-suspect-red-flag-gun-law">reportedly no public record</a> indicating that law enforcement or any family member acted on that threat and petitioned the court.</p>
<p>Experts can only speculate about why this might be the case. But one point of note is that it occurred in a county where the sheriff has <a href="https://www.koaa.com/news/covering-colorado/2019/03/07/sheriff-elder-explains-opposition-to-the-red-flag-bill/">expressed</a> opposition to Colorado’s law and has previously said that his officers <a href="https://www.epcsheriffsoffice.com/red-flag-bill">will not petition</a> for an order except under “exigent circumstances.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195062/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex McCourt receives funding from The Joyce Foundation, The David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Missouri Foundation for Health, and the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research.</span></em></p>Colorado is one of 19 states that have laws in place to prevent individuals believed to pose a threat from obtaining guns. But a preventive order needs to be petitioned before it can be issued.Alex McCourt, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1944952022-11-15T13:23:19Z2022-11-15T13:23:19ZGuns on the ballot: How mixed midterm results will affect firearm policy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495177/original/file-20221114-15619-a0gj3p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C139%2C5491%2C3268&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">One in 10 American voters listed guns as their top concern.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/many-torn-voting-campaign-buttons-with-handgun-as-royalty-free-image/1334515999?phrase=gun%20vote&adppopup=true">iStock / Getty Images Plus</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The U.S. midterm elections took place on the backdrop of <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/what-is-behind-the-rise-in-gun-related-violence-in-the-u-s">surging gun violence</a> and in a year scarred by high-profile <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/mass-shootings-2022.html">mass shootings</a>.</p>
<p>And though <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/exit-polls-2022-elections/">exit</a> <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/inflation-abortion-lead-list-voter-concerns-nbc-news-exit-poll-finds-rcna56258">polls</a> indicated that abortion rights and inflation were the top motivating issues for voters, views toward guns also played a significant role. Indeed, a survey by Edison Research found that around <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/inflation-abortion-top-issues-us-voters-casting-midterm-ballots-exit-poll-finds-2022-11-08/">1 in 10 voters</a> listed gun policy as their top concern.</p>
<p>That guns were in the mind of many voters should not be too much of a surprise. In 2020, <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/2020-gun-deaths-in-the-us-4-28-2022-b.pdf">there were a record</a> number of gun deaths, and <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7140a4.htm?s_cid=mm7140a4_w">data for 2021</a> shows a continuing increase. Disparities in gun violence widened – in 2020, the firearm homicide rate for young Black men was <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/sites/default/files/2022-05/2020-gun-deaths-in-the-us-4-28-2022-b.pdf">over 20 times</a> greater than the rate for young white men. The midterms were also the first national vote since the tragic <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/series/uvalde-texas-school-shooting/">mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas</a>; <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/buffalo-reflects-mourns-6-months-after-tops-shooting/">Buffalo, New York;</a> and <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/lake-county-news-sun/ct-lns-victims-memorial-st-1112-20221111-4zpx5bbhujbhxirjbf7f7ly7cy-story.html">Highland Park</a>, Illinois.</p>
<p>The midterm elections offered voters the opportunity to affect gun policy in two ways. First, it gave voters the chance to elect local, state and national officials who will have a say in which gun violence strategies are considered and implemented. And second, in two states – Iowa and Oregon – residents voted on gun rights and gun violence initiatives. The mixed results in these initiatives, in particular, reveal much about the state of gun policy in the United States. </p>
<h2>State ballot initiatives</h2>
<p>In the two states in which guns appeared explicitly on ballots, voters approved measures that moved state gun laws in opposite directions. <a href="https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinion/columnists/rekha-basu/2022/11/13/iowa-more-lax-on-guns-amendment-vote/69636745007/">Iowa passed a constitutional amendment</a> that enshrined a right to bear arms and specified a standard for judicial review of gun laws, while <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2022/11/oregon-measure-114-one-of-strictest-gun-control-measures-in-us-too-close-to-call.html">Oregon voters passed</a> an initiative that requires a permit to buy a firearm and bans large capacity ammunition magazines. </p>
<p>Around <a href="https://electionresults.iowa.gov/IA/115641/web.307039/#/detail/15500">two-thirds of Iowans</a> voted to add the right to bear arms to the state constitution. This amendment <a href="https://www.thegazette.com/government-politics/iowa-senate-passes-gun-rights-constitutional-amendment/">brings Iowa in line</a> with 44 states that have similar provisions. </p>
<p>Iowa’s amendment differs from most by also setting a strict scrutiny standard for evaluating gun restrictions. Under strict scrutiny, a state law will only be upheld by a court if it is narrowly tailored to further a compelling government interest. Researchers have not studied how these provisions affect gun violence, but this amendment is part of an overall trend in Iowa toward deregulating guns. <a href="https://dps.iowa.gov/hf756-iowas-new-weapon-permit-law">The state began allowing</a> the carrying of concealed handguns without a license and repealed its longstanding law requiring a permit to purchase a handgun. Research has found that both of these changes are associated with <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32816544/">increases in gun</a> <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2022/study-finds-link-between-dropping-permit-requirement-for-carrying-concealed-weapons-and-increase-in-officer-involved-shootings-with-civilian-victims">violence</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Oregon voters narrowly <a href="https://results.oregonvotes.gov/resultsSW.aspx?type=MEASURE&map=CTY">approved</a> an initiative adopting a permit-to-purchase law. Under Oregon Measure 114, all would-be gun buyers will be <a href="https://www.opb.org/article/2022/10/18/oregon-measure-114-gun-laws-permits-safety-class-magazine-limits/">required</a> to first acquire a permit from local law enforcement. To acquire a permit, applicants will need to be fingerprinted, pass a background check and undergo safety training.</p>
<p>Research has consistently shown that laws requiring a permit to purchase a gun are <a href="https://doi.org//10.2105/AJPH.2020.305822">associated with reductions</a> in <a href="https://doi.org//10.2105/AJPH.2015.302703">homicide</a>, <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26212633/">suicide</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12487">mass shooting incidents</a> and other measures of gun crime.</p>
<p>Despite this evidence, only <a href="https://giffords.org/lawcenter/gun-laws/policy-areas/owner-responsibilities/licensing/">nine other states and Washington, D.C.</a>, have this policy, and Oregon will be the first state to adopt it since <a href="https://mgaleg.maryland.gov/mgawebsite/Legislation/Details/sb0281?ys=2013RS&search=True">Maryland in 2013</a>. In addition, the Oregon initiative institutes a ban on large-capacity magazines – those that hold more than 10 rounds and allow shooters to fire for longer periods before reloading. Bans of these devices have been associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12487">reductions in mass shootings</a>.</p>
<h2>The impact of Supreme Court’s Bruen ruling</h2>
<p>The midterms were the first general elections since the Supreme Court set a new standard for evaluating gun laws under the Second Amendment. Under the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-843">Bruen</a> ruling, which came down in June 2022, courts must assess whether a gun law is consistent with the “historical tradition of firearm regulation” in the U.S. In <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/20-843/#tab-opinion-4600259">its opinion</a>, the court failed to provide an adequate framework for lower courts to use for this <a href="https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2022/09/worrying-trends-in-the-lower-courts-after-bruen/">analysis</a>. Despite the lack of clarity, this standard will affect implementation of Iowa’s and Oregon’s new policies.</p>
<p>The fact that Iowa’s constitutional amendment requires analysis of state gun laws under a strict scrutiny standard creates a difficult situation for state judges, who may have to <a href="https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/2022/11/2022-midterms-gun-watch/">grapple with both</a> strict scrutiny and the historical tradition test from the Bruen ruling.</p>
<p>Laws requiring a permit to purchase are popular, but they will almost certainly be challenged either in Oregon or in one of the other nine states with such a policy. For the law to be upheld, a court would need to find that such a law was consistent with the country’s history and tradition of firearm regulation. Rigorous historical analyses have proved difficult for courts. </p>
<p>Despite the confusion created by the Supreme Court, the midterm election results indicate that gun violence remains an important issue for voters and elected officials. </p>
<p>At the state and local level, <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2022/11/midterm-election-gun-reform-candidates/">young candidates</a> who ran campaigns centered on gun violence prevention were elected. Control of some state legislatures and executive branches shifted from one party to the other and, as of this writing, control of the U.S. House of Representatives will come down to several close contests.</p>
<p>The outcomes of these state and local elections will dramatically affect the likelihood that gun violence prevention legislation and programs are considered and implemented in the coming months.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194495/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Alex McCourt receives funding from The Joyce Foundation, The David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Missouri Foundation for Health, and the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research.</span></em></p>Two states had guns directly on the ballot in midterm election initiatives. Voters moved state laws in opposite directions.Alex McCourt, Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1932092022-11-02T12:52:38Z2022-11-02T12:52:38ZGuns at voting sites have long sparked fears of intimidation and violence – yet few states ban their presence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492814/original/file-20221101-26784-5t4agc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3583%2C2139&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Voters have encountered armed poll 'watchers' in Mesa, Ariz.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Election2022ArizonaBallotDropBoxes/c2b7393bf15d44d5b571724ecdf7e0ed/photo?Query=Mesa,%20Arizona&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=11633&currentItemNo=4">AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A couple in Mesa, Arizona, was dropping off their ballots on Oct. 21, 2022, for the forthcoming midterm election when they saw <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/29/1132589130/group-can-monitor-arizona-ballot-drop-boxes">two people carrying guns and dressed in tactical gear</a> hanging around the Maricopa County drop box. The <a href="https://twitter.com/MaricopaVote/status/1583976792062185472">armed pair left when officers later arrived</a>.</p>
<p>It wasn’t an isolated incident. A lawsuit filed Oct. 24 by Arizona Alliance for Retired Americans and Voto Latino noted that on several occasions “armed and masked individuals” associated with the group Clean Elections USA had <a href="https://www.democracydocket.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/2022-10-24-AZ-Dropbox-Intimidation-Complaint-FINAL-v.F26.pdf">gathered at drop boxes in the county</a> “with the express purpose of deterring voters.”</p>
<p>Voter intimidation is <a href="https://azsos.gov/elections/guidance-voting-location-conduct">a crime in Arizona</a> – as it is <a href="https://everytownlaw.org/report/election-protection/">throughout the country</a>. In the case of Maricopa County, a <a href="https://www.azmirror.com/2022/11/01/temporary-restraining-order-issued-in-arizona-drop-box-intimidation-case/">judge ruled on Nov. 1</a> that the actions of the individuals – who present themselves as anti-voter fraud activists – crossed the line and <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23257286-arizballotboxestro110122">issued a restraining order</a>. Under the order, people associated with Clean Elections USA are now barred from openly carrying firearms within 250 feet of a ballot box. Concealed firearms will be permitted, though, and the restriction only affects individuals connected to Clean Elections USA.</p>
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<p>The presence of armed individuals at voting sites adds to concerns over the prospects of election-related intimidation and violence, which have deepened in recent years.</p>
<p>As Rachel Kleinfeld, senior fellow in the Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program at the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment, recently reported to the congressional committee looking into the Jan 6. attack on the Capitol, political violence “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/03/31/rise-in-political-violence-in-united-states-and-damage-to-our-democracy-pub-87584">is considered more acceptable</a>” by the public than it was five years ago.</p>
<p>False charges of stolen elections – such as those repeatedly made by former President Donald Trump – are “<a href="https://carnegieendowment.org/2022/03/31/rise-in-political-violence-in-united-states-and-damage-to-our-democracy-pub-87584">a major instigator</a> of political unrest,” Kleinfeld noted, although she added that extremists in both political parties have reported a greater willingness to resort to political violence.</p>
<p>These concerns are far from hypothetical: As of this fall, <a href="https://www.axios.com/local/phoenix/2022/10/19/fbi-arizona-top-state-threats-election-workers">more than 1,000 threats</a> to election officials – some <a href="https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/texas-man-arrested-making-election-related-threats-government-officials">explicitly mentioning gun violence</a> – were under review by federal law enforcement agencies. Responding to the situation in Arizona, the Department of Justice on Oct. 31 <a href="https://www.justice.gov/crt/case-document/file/1548171/download">noted that the presence of armed individuals</a> raises “serious concerns” of voter intimidation.</p>
<p>Such concerns are fanned by the fact that only <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/mar/31/most-states-dont-explicitly-ban-guns-polls-some-la/">seven states</a> ban all gun-carrying at polling places. <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/mar/31/most-states-dont-explicitly-ban-guns-polls-some-la/">Five more states</a> bar the carrying of concealed guns at polling places. But in swing states like Florida, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, people are allowed to carry guns even while they are voting.</p>
<p>The lack of a federal ban on firearms at voting sites has prompted Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., to introduce in Congress the <a href="https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/ahead-of-midterms-murphy-introduces-legislation-to-keep-voters-and-election-workers-safe-from-guns-at-the-polls">Vote Without Fear Act</a>, proposed legislation that would “prohibit the possession of a firearm within 100 yards of any federal election site.”</p>
<h2>Pitched battles, and voter intimidation</h2>
<p>To be sure, election-related violence is a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/09/30/guns-polling-places-intimidation/">part of America’s past</a>. For example, the anti-immigrant Know-Nothing party of the 1850s <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/immigrants-conspiracies-and-secret-society-launched-american-nativism-180961915/">often employed armed violence</a> using an array of weapons, and Democrat-Whig <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/our-long-forgotten-history-of-election-related-violence">party battles</a> erupted in the 1830s. Throughout the middle of the 19th century, such cities as Philadelphia, Baltimore and New Orleans at times witnessed <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/14/our-long-forgotten-history-of-election-related-violence">pitched battles</a> between warring political factions at election time. And lethal violence was used extensively after the Civil War to systematically <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-322.ZX.html">terrorize and disenfranchise</a> Black voters in the South.</p>
<p>Yet many people in the United States also believed from the start that guns and violence were contrary to the values of a democratic nation, especially, though not limited to, during times of elections. As early as 1776, <a href="https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/1776-del-const-art-28/">Delaware’s state Constitution</a> stated: “To prevent any violence or force being used at the said elections, no person shall come armed to any of them.” It further stipulated that, to protect voters, a gun-free zone would be put in place within a mile of polling places for 24 hours before and after election day.</p>
<p>In its state Bill of Rights of 1787, <a href="https://history.nycourts.gov/nys-bill-rights-1787/">New York decreed</a> that “all elections shall be free and that no person by force of arms nor by malice or menacing or otherwise presume to disturb or hinder any citizen of this State to make free election.”</p>
<p>In <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gun-dilemma-9780197643747?cc=us&lang=en&">my own research on historical gun laws</a>, I found roughly a dozen states that specifically barred guns during elections or at polling places in laws enacted between the 1770s and the start of the 20th century. But even more importantly, from the 1600s through the 1800s, I found that at least three-quarters of all Colonies and later states enacted laws criminalizing gun-brandishing and display in any public setting – and that would certainly include voting stations at election time.</p>
<p>As I discuss in my new book, “<a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gun-dilemma-9780197643747?cc=us&lang=en&">The Gun Dilemma</a>,” early American lawmakers well understood that public gun-carrying, by its very nature, was intimidating. And that extended not only to brandishing a gun, meaning displaying one in a threatening manner, but also to mere gun display – simply showing a gun in a public setting. </p>
<p>Modern studies confirm this understanding. Analysts in fields including <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-psyched/201301/the-weapons-effect">psychology</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-criminol-061020-021528">criminology</a> have concluded that the mere presence of guns increases aggression and violence. To cite a different analysis, <a href="https://acleddata.com/2022/01/05/updated-armed-demonstration-data-released-a-year-after-the-6-january-insurrection-show-new-trends/?utm_source=The+Trace+mailing+list&utm_campaign=589479c541-">a study of over 30,000 demonstrations</a> in the U.S. from 2020 to 2021 found that when guns were present, protests were over six times more likely to turn violent or destructive.</p>
<h2>Creating an ‘island of calm’</h2>
<p>According to polls, wide majorities of Americans oppose public gun-carrying. A 2017 study <a href="https://doi.org//10.2105/AJPH.2017.303712">reported</a> that from two-thirds to over four-fifths of respondents opposed public gun-carrying in various settings, including at the polls. And as recently as 2018, the Supreme Court <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/16-1435/#tab-opinion-3915294">affirmed</a> that Election Day polling places should be “an island of calm in which voters can peacefully contemplate their choices.” </p>
<p>Both history and modern research support the conclusion that the presence of guns in public defeats this goal. Indeed, they can induce “great fear and quarrels,” or so said New Jersey <a href="https://firearmslaw.duke.edu/laws/the-grants-concessions-and-original-constitutions-of-the-province-of-new-jersey-page-289-290-image-293-294-1881-available-at-the-making-of-modern-law-primary-sources/">in a law passed in 1686</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193209/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Spitzer is a member of the National Rifle Association and the Giffords organization. </span></em></p>Election-related violence isn’t unheard of in the US. A scholar of gun laws explains how the threat is only increased by allowing people to carry firearms as they vote.Robert Spitzer, Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the Political Science Department, State University of New York CortlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1927702022-10-26T15:08:22Z2022-10-26T15:08:22ZIn France, the tough debate about hunting and alcohol<p>Over the last <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/france-three-people-injured-over-weekend-in-latest-hunting-incidents">weekend of November alone</a>, a 26-year-old hiker was shot in the arm while walking in the Alpilles mountains in Provence and a 64-year-old man, in the stomach, in Dordogne. Lead pellets also hit a 58-year old man in Brittany.</p>
<p>The link between these gruesome incidents? They were all caused by careless hunters.</p>
<p>All the more timely, then, is the French Senate’s report released in September, which called for a <a href="http://www.senat.fr/notice-rapport/2021/r21-882-notice.html">ban on alcohol and narcotics while hunting</a> alongside for a spate of <a href="https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/le-senat-propose-un-taux-maximal-d-alcoolemie-pour-la-chasse-20220916">measures</a> similar to those applied to drink-driving. On 25 October, the government released a <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2022/10/25/delit-d-alcoolemie-demi-journees-sans-chasse-les-pistes-envisagees-par-le-gouvernement-pour-ameliorer-et-garantir-la-securite-a-la-chasse_6147294_3244.html">policy roadmap</a> comprising some of these suggestions, including restrictions on drinking. “Hunting involves an arm. Like driving, it is not compatible with a high blood-alcohol concentration,” the secretary of state for ecology, Bérangère Couillard, said. The Elysee is now awaiting to hear feedback from hunting federations with the view to formulating decrees by early 2023 at the latest.</p>
<p>The president of France’s National Hunters’ Federation (FNC), Willy Schraen, has retorted that <a href="https://www.marianne.net/societe/agriculture-et-ruralite/le-velo-bourre-cest-dangereux-aussi-nouvel-argument-du-patron-des-chasseurs-pour-esquiver-le-debat">“a drunk guy on a bike is dangerous, too”</a>, apparently forgetting French drink-driving laws <a href="https://www.securite-routiere.gouv.fr/chacun-son-mode-de-deplacement/dangers-de-la-route-velo/bien-circuler-velo">also apply to cyclists</a>.</p>
<p>The French hunting chief’s remark would not hold water in other countries, where representative organisations advise hunters to abstain from alcohol. Absent an EU-wide legislation on the matter, national legislation in states such as <a href="https://gestiberian.com/2017/01/27/sanciones-por-cazar-con-copas/">Spain</a>, <a href="https://www.rtbf.be/article/ouverture-de-la-chasse-quels-sont-les-droits-et-obligations-des-chasseurs-et-des-promeneurs-11076343">Belgium</a> and <a href="https://www.jagdverband.de/vor-und-waehrend-der-jagd-ist-alkohol-tabu">Germany</a> restrict drinking while in possession of a firearm. Or take, for example, the official website of <a href="https://www.hunter-ed.com/newyork/studyGuide/Alcohol-and-Drugs/20103502_138053/">a US agency for hunting education</a>, which states that</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“consuming alcohol before or during the hunt increases the risk of incidents because it impairs coordination, hearing, vision, communication, and judgement”.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This may seem like common-sense advice, but alcohol is still integral to the world of hunting, both in France and farther afield.</p>
<h2>Hunting while drunk</h2>
<p>In the United States, where the general population consumes <a href="https://donnees.banquemondiale.org/indicateur/SH.ALC.PCAP.LI?locations=US">20% less</a> alcohol than in France, a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01639625.2019.1631069">recent survey</a> carried out on a representative sample of 2,349 young adults found that 23% of male hunters had at some point hunted while inebriated.</p>
<p>And in France? Although there is an absence of hard data, the Senate report tentatively ventures that a “small minority” of people have hunted while under the influence of alcohol. However, the senators offer more precise statistics regarding deaths and serious accidents in hunting, 9% of which are attributable to a hunter’s state of inebriation.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the report ignores most international data available on the topic, failing to mention that in the US, <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.78.12.158">drunkenness is involved in 15% of hunting accidents</a>. Also overlooked is an extensive Danish study of 1,800 hunters, which revealed the risk of firearm-related accidents <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2009/12000/Firearm_Related_Hunting_Accidents_in_Denmark.21.aspx">was directly proportional to the hunters’ alcohol intake</a>.</p>
<p>Moreover, the recent Senate report does not clarify how alcohol significantly raises the risk of accidents. But we have managed to pinpoint three contributing effects of inebriation.</p>
<h2>Locomotion and motor coordination</h2>
<p>A study conducted at a Swiss A&E service showed a third of the hunting-related injuries there resulted from falls – for example, <a href="https://www.hindawi.com/journals/emi/2015/284908/">when shooters tumbled from tree-stands</a>. Alcohol is conducive to this type of incident, particularly by interfering with the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcohol.2008.04.004">inner ear and cerebellum</a>, which regulate balance. This has a negative impact on the hunter’s anticipation and motor coordination skills.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://bmcresnotes.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1756-0500-3-243">research</a> demonstrated that when individuals were instructed to avoid obstacles while walking on a treadmill, their reaction times were significantly longer, even at low levels of alcohol intake.</p>
<h2>Visual and hearing impairment</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.thieme-connect.de/products/ejournals/abstract/10.1055/s-2008-1050922">Alcohol also impairs peripheral vision</a>, thus affecting judgement and accuracy in angles of fire. This is what causes double vision and <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03207543">blurred vision</a>, by disturbing the action of muscles that control visual focus. It enhances <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/415330/">glaring</a>, by slowing down the muscles responsible for opening and closing the pupil in response to surrounding light levels.</p>
<p>Over the long term, <a href="https://theconversation.com/alcool-et-autres-substances-pourquoi-leur-dangerosite-est-elle-sous-estimee-par-les-usagers-159369">high alcohol intake</a> alters <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26465148/">colour perception</a> and promotes the emergence of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34055263/">chronic diseases</a>, such as <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20443769/">cataracts</a>. It can lead to <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02713683.2021.1942070">age-related macular degeneration</a> (AMD), a condition characterised by <a href="https://theconversation.com/la-degenerescence-maculaire-est-la-premiere-cause-de-cecite-au-pays-comment-la-prevenir-154683">damage to the central region of the retina</a>.</p>
<p>Alcohol even <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33341812/">deteriorates our hearing</a>. In one study, subjects who had consumed alcohol were found to have significantly poorer hearing abilities compared to those who had not.</p>
<h2>Errors of judgement</h2>
<p>Once the extent of alcohol’s effects on sight and hearing are better understood, the range of stories that pop up in local newspapers – such as the man who ended up <a href="https://www.lyonmag.com/article/90723/beaujolais-le-chasseur-ivre-vise-un-lievre-et-tire-sur-son-ami">riddled with buckshot</a> when his hunting companion mistook him for a hare – become less of a surprise.</p>
<p>According to France’s <a href="https://www.ofb.gouv.fr/la-securite-la-chasse">Biodiversity Agency</a> (OFB), hunting accidents are often the result of carelessness and bad judgement. The OFB reminds hunters that, once fired, the projectiles can reach a distance of up to five kilometres (three miles). When a target is far away or moving, how can a hunter guarantee – drunk or sober – that their bullet doesn’t <a href="https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/auvergne-rhone-alpes/haute-savoie/ouverture-du-proces-du-chasseur-accuse-avoir-tue-vetetiste-haute-savoie-1900586.html">hit a mountain biker</a>, a <a href="https://www.20minutes.fr/faits_divers/2338343-20180918-limoges-fillette-grievement-blessee-chasseur-tirait-faisan">ten-year-old girl playing by the river</a> or a <a href="https://www.lavoixdunord.fr/1143614/article/2022-02-22/femme-de-25-ans-tuee-lors-d-un-accident-de-chasse-ce-qu-sait-sur-ce-drame">young hiker</a> ?</p>
<h2>Drinking makes for riskier decision-making</h2>
<p>The choice of whether to pull the trigger or hold fire is dependent on another dimension. According to the Senate report:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“More than two thirds of accidents result from gross misconduct that contravenes basic safety rules. Moreover, some one hundred incidents per year lead to devastating consequences, whereby shots are fired at vehicles or homes.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Assessing risks and perceiving the consequences of our actions are two processes that are <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33065446/">notoriously affected by inebriation</a>.</p>
<p>A 2015 study demonstrated this effect using a straightforward method, which involved presenting two jars filled with cards to bar patrons, aged 18 to 43. The subjects were told that they could earn a prize if they found a winning card. In the jar on the right, 50% of the cards were winners, whereas the probability of winning was not given for the jar on the left. The results showed that the drunk men (but not the women) <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25642202/">more often chose the riskier option</a>. Could this be likened to the scenario of taking a shot in the dark in the hopes of hitting a target?</p>
<h2>A major factor in human aggression</h2>
<p>By directly affecting the prefrontal cortex, alcohol disturbs <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hup.1194">executive cognitive functions</a>, which are involved in our ability to consider or maintain multiple options simultaneously in order to solve problems, as well as our attention skills, our action inhibition skills, and <a href="https://compass.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-9004.2007.00051.x">our ability to control aggression</a>. In fact, alcohol is the psychoactive substance most often linked to <a href="https://www.dunod.com/sciences-humaines-et-sociales/drogues-alcool-et-agression-equation-chimique-et-sociale-violence">human aggression on a global scale</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, it’s not alcohol but hunters who have <a href="https://www.ledauphine.com/france-monde/2019/11/17/en-20-ans-les-chasseurs-ont-tue-plus-de-400-personn">shot 400 people dead</a> in the past two decades in France and injured thousands more. (And it should be noted that alcohol is responsible for <a href="https://www.inserm.fr/wp-content/uploads/2021-05/inserm-expertisecollective-alcool2021-synthese.pdf">almost a million deaths</a> in instances not related to hunting).</p>
<p>Given that alcohol has clearly been identified as an avoidable risk factor, however, it seems wise to ban its consumption for those using rifles and shotguns in woodland areas frequented by the public. When consuming alcohol, hunters threaten the lives of others, and their own as well.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Translated from the French by Enda Boorman for <a href="http://www.fastforword.fr/en">Fast ForWord</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192770/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laurent Bègue-Shankland has received funding from the Inter-ministerial Mission for the Fight against Drugs and Addictive Behaviour (MILDECA).</span></em></p>A recent French Senate report calling on a ban on alcohol use while hunting has prompted the wrath of the country’s hunting lobby. Do its arguments hold water?Laurent Bègue-Shankland, Addictologue, Professeur de psychologie sociale, membre de l’Institut universitaire de France (IUF), directeur de la MSH Alpes (CNRS/UGA), Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1900202022-09-07T10:52:39Z2022-09-07T10:52:39ZLiverpool shooting: what we know about guns in England and Wales<p>Nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/olivia-pratt-korbel-murder-shooting-guns-liverpool-b2157639.html">was murdered</a> in her Merseyside home on August 22, 2022, the innocent victim of what has been reported to be a confrontation between two people which had spilled from the streets of Liverpool into her family’s house. The child’s mother was also wounded. </p>
<p>In the wake of Pratt-Korbel’s tragic death, news reports have focused on the extent of gun crime in the UK. A recent report in the Guardian revealed that Home Office figures <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/sep/01/gun-rising-in-two-thirds-of-police-force-areas-in-england-and-wales">show</a> an increase in recorded gun crime in two-thirds of police force areas in England and Wales. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/datasets/offencesinvolvingtheuseofweaponsdatatables">Government statistics</a> show that for the year ending March 2021, the number of offences in which firearms (excluding airguns) were reported by the police in England and Wales to have caused injury stood at 5,709. Out of <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2021">5.4 million</a> total recorded offences, that represents only 0.1% of recorded crime. The numbers also show that gun crime has generally been falling overall since around 2004. </p>
<p>Gun crime carries a devastating symbolic significance. As <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Gun-Crime-in-Global-Contexts/Squires/p/book/9781138937390">my research</a> into gun crime worldwide shows, it has the potential to signal a descent into chaos and brutality where violent criminal authority may prevail. In order to tackle it effectively, in any context, we need to understand how many criminal firearms there are, where they come from and how they are being used. Doing so, however, is never simple because it means trying to count what is both illegal and hidden. </p>
<h2>How many guns there are in the UK</h2>
<p>Rates of gun crime are best approached through the interaction of three sets of factors: illicit gun supply, demand for criminal firearms and police action. The UK has <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-plymouth-attack-british-gun-laws-under-scrutiny-166792">some of the toughest gun laws</a> in the world, but laws are only part of the equation. Criminals break laws, laws require consistent and effective enforcement – and social contexts matter. </p>
<p>Two types of illegal guns have tended to preoccupy gun control researchers: so-called “grey” firearms. These tend to be souvenirs and antiques, often hidden away or forgotten by their owners and are deemed to pose little threat. The threat tends to come from illegal weapons in the possession of offenders. Unless the gun is used in a crime and recovered by police or is fired during the commission of a crime and ballistic trace evidence found, many of the illicit guns will remain largely unknown. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.nabis.police.uk/">National Ballistic Intelligence Service (NABIS)</a> took our understanding closer to the core of the problem by identifying “criminally active” firearms from the moment an illegal weapon is first recorded as having been fired or reported, or when ballistic evidence of it is identified. NABIS research has found that about 90% of firearms are only ever used once. Those which do not resurface for 12 months then fall off the “criminally active” list. Only a small percentage of firearms are used <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/gun_no_6_untold_story_britains_deadliest_illegal_firearm">used multiple times</a>.</p>
<p>In 2012, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/after-shooting-tragedies-britain-went-after-guns/2013/01/31/b94d20c0-6a15-11e2-9a0b-db931670f35d_story.html">NABIS told US journalists</a> that criminally active firearms in the UK numbered around 1,000. This was lower than many had perhaps assumed but it is still instructive. </p>
<p>First, given the 12-month cutoff point, beyond which NABIS considers a weapon no longer criminally active, there are likely to be many dumped guns out there –- although a firearm rusting away at the bottom of a canal may be of little real criminological interest, except perhaps in helping to solve historic offences. And second, there would seem to be sufficient supplies of weapons coming into the country to replace those which have fallen off the criminally active list, given the 90% disappearance rate. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A multicoloured pie chart." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/482965/original/file-20220906-20-vuiaih.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Different types of illegal guns recovered by the police in England and Wales.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Peter Squires</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Where the UK’s guns come from</h2>
<p>With the exception of the so-called <a href="https://www.bradyunited.org/fact-sheets/what-are-ghost-guns">“ghost guns”</a> popular in the US (unserialised and untraceable DIY weapons, often using 3D-printed parts or kits bought online), virtually all firearms start out as lawful products in their countries of manufacture. That does not mean they may be lawfully exported. </p>
<p>Turkey and a number of other European countries permit the manufacture of alarm guns designed for household crime prevention and <a href="https://solware.co.uk/retay-blank-firing-pistols">blank firers</a>. These realistic replica guns and collectables are designed to fire only blanks, sometimes advertised, rather unconvincingly, as “bird scarers”, but mostly prohibited in the UK by virtue of being readily convertible to live firing. However, precisely because of this and the fact they are relatively inexpensive to acquire, they are attractive to would-be offenders. </p>
<p>Of those illicit firearms recovered to date, a large proportion have been converted weapons. The rest are reactivated weapons or recycled <a href="https://theconversation.com/criminals-are-using-antique-weapons-due-to-a-loophole-in-uk-law-102666">antiques</a>, original factory-quality weapons, or shotguns that have been stolen from their <a href="https://theconversation.com/nosy-neighbours-and-the-outsourcing-of-uk-gun-control-80906">lawful owners</a> and sawn off. </p>
<p>There are also a host of air-powered, replica and imitation firearms, which, because handguns are only fired in less than one-fifth of gun crime incidents, will often suffice for opportunist robbers. They are essentially “frighteners” rather than “shooters”. </p>
<p>On the other hand, Cleveland Police, one of the force areas reporting a significant increase in gun crimes, has <a href="https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/19621863.rising-use-guns-rival-drug-gangs-growing-concern-cleveland-police/">reportedly attributed it</a> to a rise in the use of “slam guns” – or homemade firearms – by drug gangs. The corollary of this, of course, is that if offenders are resorting to such junk weapons, it suggests that fully operational firearms are quite hard to come by.</p>
<h2>The persistent demand for guns</h2>
<p>Weapons find their way to the UK in much the same way as drugs, concealed within other cargoes, conveyed by traffickers and organised criminals, via <a href="https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-is-the-dark-web-46070">dark-net</a> sales and fast-parcel delivery services. They are sometimes also smuggled in small numbers by overseas travellers (firearms control researchers refer to this as the “ant trade”). </p>
<p>In the past, <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7366279.stm">returning military personnel</a> were responsible for a small influx of souvenir weapons. More recently, <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2">as I have shown</a>, a consistent flow of firearms <a href="https://theconversation.com/paris-attacks-terrorism-trafficking-and-the-enduring-curse-of-the-ak-47-50733">trafficked</a> from south-east Europe and <a href="https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/short_news/frontex-western-balkans-main-point-of-entry-for-arms-smuggled-into-eu/">the Balkans</a> has also been identified, with some weapons making it to the UK.</p>
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<img alt="Parked lorries viewed from above." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483196/original/file-20220907-19-qsvmzg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Traffickers are exploiting the Post-Brexit border chaos.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/aerial-top-down-photo-harbor-trucks-1056625694">GLF Media | Shutterstock</a></span>
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<p>If gang-related violence dipped during lockdown, rates are <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/288256/violent-crimes-in-england-and-wales/">rising</a> once again. Criminals have been able to profit from border controls being affected by the post-Brexit chaos affecting ports and other points of entry, the growing fast-parcel trade and austerity cuts. </p>
<p>Research has <a href="https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/509831/6.1770_Modern_Crime_Prevention_Strategy_final_WEB_version.pdf">long shown</a> that deprivation, underemployment and contraband economies (drugs, in particular) are drivers of violent crime. And police commentators have <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/uk-police-cuts-violent-crime-london-stabbings-met-police-chief-cressida-dick-a8357796.html">argued</a> that funding cuts have seriously affected their ability to act.</p>
<p>This has contributed to plummeting <a href="https://www.london.gov.uk/questions/2019/20862">sanction detection rates</a> (number of crimes solved). Between 2013 and 2020, these fell <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7654/?doing_wp_cron=1589699695.5201330184936523437500">by one-third</a> from 31% to 22%, in respect of gun crime offences, and <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-030-83742-6">by almost one-half</a> from 25% to 13% for knife crime. </p>
<p>Until recently, gun crime was largely associated with relatively few conurbations, about two-thirds of it <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/street-weapons-commission-guns-knives-and-street-violence">concentrated</a> in five or six police force areas. However, some specialist local police operations (Trident in London; Xcalibre in Manchester) have seen officers deployed to other priorities (counterterrorism or knife crime).</p>
<p>Home Office figures report that the recent increases in gun crime are all in those force areas with the historically lowest rates. This might suggest some displacement of gang and gun offending from the hottest locations. Further, rising rates in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, for example, might also suggest that the guns are following <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-gangs-adapted-to-coronavirus-and-why-we-may-see-a-surge-in-violence-as-lockdown-lifts-140653">county lines</a> drugs and money routes. </p>
<p>Yet the answer to “how many criminal firearms are there in the UK?” will always be “too many”. It takes few guns in the wrong hands to create a serious violence problem.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190020/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Squires receives funding from the EPSRC for a project exploring illegal firearms and gangs in Manchester. Although an Independent criminological researcher, Peter Squires is a member of the UK Gun Control Network established after the Dunblane School Shooting.</span></em></p>Recent news reports highlight rising rates of gun crime in two-thirds of England and Wales’s police jurisdictions.Peter Squires, Professor of Criminology & Public Policy, University of BrightonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1848232022-08-12T12:17:02Z2022-08-12T12:17:02ZReducing gun violence: A complicated problem can’t be solved with just one approach, so Indianapolis is trying programs ranging from job skills to therapy to violence interrupters to find out what works<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474979/original/file-20220719-18-26nxd6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5400%2C3605&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Participants in 'violence prevention' programs seek to deescalate conflicts before they turn deadly.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/safe-streets-violence-interrupter-lamont-medley-left-greets-news-photo/547477796?adppopup=true">Andre Chung for The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Indianapolis is no stranger to gun violence. The city is also trying many <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/community-based-violence-interruption-programs-can-reduce-gun-violence/">promising approaches to reducing violence</a> that – if proven successful – could benefit other urban areas across the U.S.</p>
<p>The city’s homicide rate in 2020, at 24.4 per 100,000 residents, was <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indianapolis-Gun-Violence-Problem-Analysis-Summary-Narrative.pdf">approximately triple the national average</a>, and the city’s highest on record. Approximately 80% of those homicides were perpetrated using firearms.</p>
<p>Gun homicides ended about <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indianapolis-Gun-Violence-Problem-Analysis-Summary-Narrative.pdf">240 lives there in a recent two-year period</a>, according to a study regarding this <a href="https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/indianapolis-in-population">city of 900,000 people</a>. The number of people who were shot but survived was far higher, and firearms account for a significant number of suicide deaths. </p>
<p>I’m a former police officer who has studied <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ShZl8kwAAAAJ&hl=en">policies and programs that seek to prevent gun violence</a> since the late 1990s. I have periodically partnered with Indianapolis officials and community agencies on anti-violence initiatives coordinated by the <a href="https://www.indy.gov/activity/violence-reduction">local government</a> with many <a href="https://www.cicf.org/not-for-profits/elevation-grant/">private- and nonprofit-sector partners</a> since 2004.</p>
<p>Though some <a href="https://www.philanthropy.com/article/as-homicide-rates-surge-momentum-grows-for-community-violence-prevention-solutions">approaches developed in other places</a> have worked here, and Indianapolis has implemented many programs that have been shown to make a difference elsewhere, there’s still not enough data to pinpoint which specific programs are the most effective.</p>
<p>But given the urgency of the problem, I believe it’s important to keep test-driving promising methods based on the information available so far. And because Indianapolis experiences many of the same gun violence issues that other medium and large cities face, what’s learned here can apply in many other places.</p>
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<h2>Stepping up efforts to reduce gun violence</h2>
<p>Indianapolis intensified its efforts to reduce gun violence in 2006, when <a href="https://wonder.cdc.gov/">144 people died by homicide</a> – up 27% from a year earlier. </p>
<p>That year Bart Peterson, then serving as the city’s mayor, created the <a href="https://www.wthr.com/article/news/crime-prevention-task-force-tackles-thorny-problem/531-4fc46635-5009-404a-af73-72e5bf32993e">Community Crime Prevention Task Force</a>, in which I played a role. Its mission was to seek evidence-based recommendations to reduce violence. </p>
<p>After reviewing the relevant academic research, I identified best practices and the most promising violence-prevention strategies. The task force, in turn, made recommendations to the Indianapolis City-County Council.</p>
<p>The city subsequently began to increase funding for efforts to reduce gun violence in coordination with the <a href="https://cicf.welldonesite.com/not-for-profits/crime-prevention/">Indianapolis Foundation</a>, a local charity.</p>
<p>This private-public partnership has been supporting nonprofits engaged in several approaches to <a href="https://publichealth.jhu.edu/departments/health-policy-and-management/research-and-practice/center-for-gun-violence-solutions/solutions/strategies-to-reduce-community-gun-violence">reducing gun violence</a> ever since. </p>
<p>The overarching purpose of all these programs is to help the people who are the most likely to be wounded or killed by a gun to obtain services, such as job training and health care, in their communities and change norms away from gun violence to reduce that risk.</p>
<p>Because people killed by guns in Indianapolis are most likely to be <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Indianapolis-Gun-Violence-Problem-Analysis-Summary-Narrative.pdf">male, young and Black</a>, young Black men are a major focus for all the programs. Researchers have also determined that 3 in 4 gun homicide victims and suspects in the city were known to law enforcement through prior investigation, arrests or convictions. So that is another factor in terms of determining who gets these services.</p>
<h2>Employing formerly incarcerated people</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.cicf.org/2022/07/05/mayor-joe-hogsett-the-indianapolis-foundation-announce-recipients-of-elevation-grants/">Other grants</a> from the private-public partnership in Indianapolis have funded <a href="https://theconversation.com/cbt-dbt-psychodynamic-what-type-of-therapy-is-right-for-me-171101">cognitive behavioral therapy</a> for people at risk of engaging in or being victims of gun violence. This is a method in which people get help identifying and pushing back on their negative thoughts and behaviors, making it easier to resolve disputes without resorting to violence.</p>
<p>The city has also partnered with <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdin/pr/us-department-justice-recognizes-community-violence-intervention-program-indianapolis">several community organizations</a> to prevent gun violence.</p>
<p>One such group is Recycleforce, which <a href="https://cbs4indy.com/this-morning/recycleforce-provides-resources-for-formerly-incarcerated-to-find-housing/">hires formerly incarcerated people</a> to recycle old electronic goods. It’s among several enhanced transitional job programs that provide services and <a href="https://www.indy.gov/activity/violence-reduction">training to the recently incarcerated</a>.</p>
<p>One study showed that Recycleforce participants were <a href="https://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/documents/opre/etjd_sted_7_site_report_508_2.pdf">5.8% less likely to be arrested</a> and 4.8% less likely to be convicted of a crime in the first six months of the period reviewed. However, in the second six months, the benefits were no longer statistically significant. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2019.1596190">second study</a> used in-depth interviews to assess the program. It suggested that the <a href="http://doi.org/10.1080/10509674.2019.1596190">peer-mentor model</a> Recycleforce follows works well.</p>
<h2>Preventing future gunshots</h2>
<p>A large Indianapolis hospital, Eskenazi, also runs several important anti-violence programs. One, called <a href="https://www.eskenazihealth.edu/programs/violence-prevention">Prescription for Hope</a>, assists people treated there for gunshot wounds.</p>
<p>Like similar <a href="https://www.thehavi.org/what-is-an-hvip">hospital-based programs</a> around the country, the one based at Eskenazi helps participants develop effective life skills and connects them with community resources to reduce criminal and risky behaviors.</p>
<p>An <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/000313481207800942">initial study of the program</a> showed that only about 3% of participants returned to the emergency department with a repeat violent injury within the first year, compared with an 8.7% rate when the program wasn’t underway. This translates to a two-thirds reduction in the likelihood that someone with a violent injury will need similar emergency medical assistance in the future. </p>
<h2>‘Violence interruption’</h2>
<p>In 2021, <a href="https://cbs4indy.com/news/violence-interrupters-hit-streets-to-curb-indys-record-homicide-rate/">Indianapolis began to hire “violence interrupters</a>” to calm contentious situations and reduce the risk of violent retaliation.</p>
<p>The “<a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/summer16/highlight2.html">violence interruption</a>” method connects people with personal ties to those most at risk of becoming involved in gun violence as victims or perpetrators.</p>
<p>Violence interrupters try to mediate disputes and <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/many-cities-are-putting-hopes-violence-interrupters-understand-challen-rcna28118">calm things down</a> on the streets, at parties and during funerals before any shooting starts. They have credibility with violence-prone people because of their past experiences. </p>
<p>The interrupters also help at-risk people to obtain services and to <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/227181.pdf">change gun violence norms</a> in their communities. </p>
<p>Violence interruption, part of a growing <a href="https://cvg.org/what-we-do/">public health approach to reining in violence</a>, <a href="https://cvg.org/about/#history">originated in Chicago</a> in 2000. Now called the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122509">cure violence model</a>,” it has spread quickly amid <a href="https://johnjayrec.nyc/2020/11/09/av2020/">generally positive</a> <a href="https://bja.ojp.gov/program/community-violence-intervention/overview">research results</a>.</p>
<p>Indianapolis was employing about <a href="https://www.wthr.com/article/news/local/violence-interrupters-to-hit-the-streets-of-indianapolis-crime-homicide-record/531-a628deb7-37eb-437c-8b34-dadc7597a890">50 violence interrupters as of mid-2022</a>.</p>
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<h2>More federal funding</h2>
<p>Most of the city’s violence-prevention grants funding these efforts have been relatively small until now, ranging from US$5,000 to $325,000.</p>
<p>But U.S. cities, including Indianapolis, now have have until 2024 to <a href="https://gfrc.uic.edu/our-work/featured-projects/how-are-cities-using-arpa-fiscal-recovery-funds/what-the-first-batch-of-treasury-department-reports-tells-us-about-how-governments-are-using-their-arpa-money/">tap into a comparatively large stream of federal funding</a> for community-based violence intervention. That money was included in the $1.9 trillion stimulus package enacted in 2021.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/crime-watch-8/indianapolis-spends-45m-on-organizations-combating-violence/">Using these federal funds</a>, the city is partnering with the Indianapolis Foundation to <a href="https://www.cicf.org/not-for-profits/elevation-grant/">award grants totaling $45 million</a> from 2022 through 2024 for local efforts to reduce gun violence. </p>
<p>Fortunately, Indianapolis’ <a href="https://www.wishtv.com/news/i-team-8/impd-new-numbers-show-gun-violence-going-down-in-indianapolis/">homicides appear to be declining</a> in 2022 compared with a year earlier.</p>
<p>As a local resident, I certainly welcome this news. But as researcher, I consider it to be too soon to tell whether this trend will continue or what the many public and private efforts to reduce gun violence underway will accomplish.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184823/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Stucky received funding to serve as a research partner on Indianapolis anti-violence initiatives prior to 2013. </span></em></p>A burst of federal funding is letting Indianapolis expand existing efforts and try promising new approaches that other cities have developed.Thomas D. Stucky, Professor of Criminal Justice, IUPUILicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1871822022-07-18T13:49:33Z2022-07-18T13:49:33ZMass shootings in South Africa are often over group turf: how to stop the cycle of reprisals<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/474584/original/file-20220718-72671-c54j9t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South African police minister, Bheki Cele, centre, at the scene of the tavern shooting that claimed 16 lives in Soweto. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EFE-EPA/Kim Ludbrook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In just two days in early July 2022, 25 people were shot dead in four separate incidents at taverns across South Africa. In one of these shootings, in <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2022-07-13-police-have-footage-of-soweto-tavern-shooting-mazibuko-says/">Soweto</a>, 16 people lost their lives. </p>
<p>The killings made <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/10/africa/soweto-south-africa-shooting-intl/index.html">international headlines</a> and were shocking even in South Africa, a society with one of the highest <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/VC.IHR.PSRC.P5?locations=ZA">murder rates</a> in the world.</p>
<p>There has been intense speculation about the motives behind the killings in the absence of reliable evidence that explains why the multiple murders took place. </p>
<p>To provide some insights into the possible reasons, I reflect on some of the research about mass shootings in South Africa with a view to recommending violence prevention interventions. </p>
<p>South African police <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2022/05/16/wc-has-seen-more-than-400-mass-shootings-between-june-2019-and-december-2021">classify</a> a mass shooting as an incident in which three or more people are shot with a firearm. Available evidence indicates that mass shootings in South Africa are mostly perpetrated by organised criminal groups, such as gangs, with motives often linked to competition over territory and resources. And that shooting incidents have a tendency to result in reprisal attacks.</p>
<p>Based on my insights gained over decades of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Guy-Lamb-3">researching violence in South Africa</a>, my view is that the police will need to prioritise the confiscation of illegal firearms and improve the functioning of crime intelligence to reduce the occurrence of mass shootings.</p>
<h2>Patterns of crime</h2>
<p>Mass shootings have been taking place in South Africa for decades. Incidents were prominent during the 1990s, especially in the province of <a href="https://www.accord.org.za/ajcr-issues/voting-and-violence-in-kwazulu-natals-no-go-areas/">KwaZulu-Natal</a> as a result of tensions between supporters of the African National Congress and the Inkatha Freedom Party. Over the past three decades conflicts between <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/taxiviolence/fromlowintensity.pdf">minibus taxi associations</a> and between <a href="https://issafrica.org/research/books/organised-crime-a-study-from-the-cape-flats">criminal gangs</a> (especially in the Western Cape province) have frequently been characterised by mass shootings.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">Quarterly crime data</a> indicate that incidents involving multiple murder victims have increased substantially over the past year. </p>
<p>Most murder cases involve the use of a firearm in which a single perpetrator murders a single victim. Nonetheless, multiple murders are perpetrated on a regular basis. For example, the <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/april_to_march_2019_20_presentation.pdf">2019/20 crime data</a> indicated that there were 508 murder cases where two or more people were slain simultaneously. A total of 1,133 people died in the incidents. This represented 5% of murders for 2019/20. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/plasma-gangs-how-south-africans-fears-about-crime-created-an-urban-legend-185544">Plasma gangs: how South Africans' fears about crime created an urban legend</a>
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<p>No data for multiple murder cases was provided for 2020/21. But <a href="https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php">quarterly crime data</a> for 2021/22 showed a significant increase in such murders. For the six-month period between 1 October 2021 and 31 March 2022, there were 416 multiple murder cases involving 953 victims. This equated to 9% of murders for this period.</p>
<p>Historically, most mass shootings in South Africa have been associated with three main things: gang conflicts, rivalries in the minibus taxi sector and factional or inter-group feuds (mainly in KwaZulu-Natal). These forms of collective violence have ultimately emerged from efforts to control certain spaces and resources.</p>
<p>Criminal gangs operate in most major cities in South Africa, especially in Cape Town and Gqeberha, in the Eastern Cape, where much of the <a href="https://www.sacities.net/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Web_SACN-State-of-Urban-Safety-2018-19-1204-1.pdf">violent crime</a> has been attributed to gang activity. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/13/world/africa/cape-town-crime-military.html">Gang conflicts</a> have traditionally revolved around gangs seeking to dominate poorer urban neighbourhoods to facilitate and benefit from the trade in illegal goods, especially drugs. </p>
<p>Violence in the <a href="http://www.csvr.org.za/docs/taxiviolence/fromlowintensity.pdf">minibus taxi industry</a> has often arisen from conflicts between taxi organisations over access to transport routes and taxi ranks. Another driver has been the perceived competition from other public transport service providers, such as <a href="https://www.news24.com/fin24/companies/amabhungane-taxi-mafia-blamed-for-deadly-attacks-on-long-distance-buses-20220608-2">bus companies</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.newframe.com/going-back-to-the-future-of-kwazulu-natal-politics/">Factional disputes</a>, which have frequently been linked to party politics, have often been related to access to and control over territory.</p>
<p>Mass shootings have at times been the outcome of conflicts between vigilantes and gangsters (or those regarded as criminals by vigilante groups) over control over specific communities. This has been an ongoing problem in Philippi East in the Western Cape. For example in September 2017, <a href="https://mg.co.za/article/2017-10-03-patrollers-in-marikana-philippi-east-live-in-fear-after-mass-shooting/">11 people</a> were fatally shot in one evening at the <a href="https://www.groundup.org.za/article/marikana-informal-settlement-erupts-protests/">Marikana informal settlement</a> in fighting between gangsters and other residents. </p>
<p>Vigilantes in <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-28-phoenix-massacre-what-really-happened-in-the-deadly-collision-of-brutalised-communities/">Phoenix</a> were also responsible for mass shootings during the July 2021 unrest in KwaZulu-Natal.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/crime-statistics-show-south-africas-lockdown-crime-holiday-is-over-166785">Crime statistics show South Africa's lockdown 'crime holiday' is over</a>
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<p>Mass shootings have also been associated with the illegal gold mining sector, due to conflicts between <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2018/5/1/illicit-gold-trade-fuels-conflict-in-south-african-mining-town">competing groups of miners</a> (or “zama zamas”) and between zama zamas and law enforcement or private security personnel. For instance, eight illegal miners died in a shootout with police at a mine in Orkney in <a href="https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/six-killed-as-police-exchange-fire-with-zama-zamas-in-north-west-20211007">October 2021</a>. And in <a href="https://ewn.co.za/2018/01/15/police-suspect-gang-rivalry-after-7-men-found-dead-at-benoni-mine-shaft">January 2018</a>, seven died in a shootout between different groups of miners.</p>
<p>Since 2017, mass shootings, particularly in <a href="https://globalinitiative.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Lifting-the-veil-on-extortion-in-Cape-Town-GITOC.pdf">Khayelitsha</a> in the Western Cape, have increasingly been attributed to extortion efforts by gangs. Acts of mass firearm violence have been used to terrorise township businesses and residents into paying “protection” fees. </p>
<p>Such violent organised criminality appears to have become more prevalent. <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/tavern-shootings-extortion-among-possible-motives-say-experts-20220711">Extortion</a> efforts might be the cause of the recent tavern shootings in Soweto and Pietermaritzburg. </p>
<p>Turf battles between extortion gangs have also tended to result in mass shootings between these groups.</p>
<p>All these forms of collective violence appear to have become self-perpetuating. Mass shootings have tended to ignite <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/news/bodies-pile-up-as-cape-towns-hard-livings-gang-goes-to-war-in-durban-a97c039f-f0a8-4e60-8364-f266baa0c74e">retaliatory attacks</a>, which in turn have led to further violent reprisals. This has contributed to norms and beliefs that prioritise the use of violence to manage inter-group conflicts becoming more entrenched in crime-affected communities. </p>
<p>On top of this, COVID and the war in Ukraine have had serious implications for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/south-africas-economy-has-taken-some-heavy-body-blows-can-it-recover-183165">legal economy</a> as well as the illegal economy. Organised criminal groups have been feeling the <a href="https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-03-gugulethu-massacre-gang-sends-out-grim-video-message-warning-of-more-carnage/">economic pinch</a>. Hence <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/southafrica/news/extortion-rackets-likely-behind-spate-of-mass-shootings-in-cape-town-20220513">competition</a> between groups, especially between street gangs and groups specialising in extortion, appears to have become more acute and more violent.</p>
<h2>Way forward</h2>
<p>The South African government has two options to reduce mass shootings. Both will require monumental policing efforts. </p>
<p>The first entails the establishment of <a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/2018/01/11/how-to-reduce-gun-violence-in-baltimore-city/">targeted police operations</a> that focus on the confiscation of illegal firearms and ammunition where the risk of mass shootings is the highest, such as Khayelitsha and Delft in the Western Cape and Soweto in Gauteng. This is critically important as the upturn in violent crime appears to be linked to the widespread availability of illegal firearms. These are the <a href="http://www.policesecretariat.gov.za/downloads/reports/CSPS-WSG_Firearms_Report.pdf">most common weapon</a> used to commit murder, attempted murder and robberies with aggravating circumstances in the country.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-turn-the-tide-against-south-africas-crime-wave-131839">How to turn the tide against South Africa's crime wave</a>
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<p>This would need to be linked to a process of tightening the <a href="https://www.saferspaces.org.za/understand/entry/gun-violence">firearm law</a> to reduce the diversion of firearms into criminal hands. More than 5,000 licensed firearms are lost or stolen each year.</p>
<p>The second option necessitates considerable <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/role-intelligence-combating-organised-crime">intelligence gathering</a>. The police service’s crime intelligence arm needs to be able to identify and monitor the activities of groups responsible for mass shootings to secure arrests and convictions in court.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/187182/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Guy Lamb receives funding from the Peace Research Institute, Oslo. He also serves as a Commissioner on South Africa's National Planning Commission where he chairs the Commission's Justice, Crime Prevention and Security Task Team.</span></em></p>Historically, most mass shootings in South Africa have been associated with three main things: gang conflicts, rivalries in the minibus taxi sector and factional or inter-group feuds.Guy Lamb, Criminologist / Lecturer, Stellenbosch UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1849322022-06-29T12:06:45Z2022-06-29T12:06:45ZAmerican gun culture is based on frontier mythology – but ignores how common gun restrictions were in the Old West<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470869/original/file-20220624-18-mcz5ze.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=54%2C0%2C7276%2C3824&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Reenactments of Old West gunfights, like this one at a tourist attraction in Texas in 2014, are part of the mythology underpinning the United States' gun culture.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.loc.gov/item/2014632859/">Carol M. Highsmith via Library of Congress</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the Buffalo and Uvalde mass shootings, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/09/1103661684/gun-control-npr-pbs-marist-survey-uvalde-buffalo-biden">70% of Republicans</a> said it is more important to protect gun rights than to control gun violence, while 92% of Democrats and 54% of independents expressed the opposite view. Just weeks after those mass shootings, Republicans and <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/many-on-long-island-hail-supreme-court-gun-carry-law-decision-as-major-victory-for-law-abiding-citizens/">gun rights advocates hailed</a> the Supreme Court ruling that invalidated New York state’s gun permit law and declared that the <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2021/20-843">Second Amendment guarantees a right to carry a handgun outside the home</a> for self-defense.</p>
<p>Mayor Eric Adams, expressing his opposition to the ruling, suggested that the court’s decision would turn New York City into the “<a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2022-06-23/adams-says-new-york-can-t-become-the-wild-wild-west-video">Wild West</a>.” Contrary to the imagery of the Wild West, however, many towns in the real Old West had <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/">restrictions on the carrying of guns</a> that were, I would suggest, stricter than the one just invalidated by the Supreme Court.</p>
<p>Support for gun rights among Republicans played an important role in determining the contents of the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/25/1107626030/biden-signs-gun-safety-law">the bipartisan Safer Communities Act</a>, the first new gun reform bill in three decades. President Joe Biden signed it into law just two days after the Supreme Court’s decision was released. In order to attract Republican support, the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/senate-bill/2938/text">new law</a> does not include gun control proposals such as an assault weapons ban, universal background checks or raising the purchasing age to 21 for certain types of rifles. Nevertheless, the bill was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/22/politics/house-republicans-bipartisan-gun-bill/index.html">denounced by other Republicans in Congress</a> and was <a href="https://www.nraila.org/articles/20220621/nra-announces-opposition-to-senate-gun-control-legislation">opposed by the National Rifle Association</a>.</p>
<p>I have found that for those Americans who see the gun as both symbolizing and guaranteeing individual liberty, gun control laws are perceived as fundamentally un-American and a threat to their freedom. For the most ardent gun rights advocates, <a href="https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/05/02/highest-number-of-gun-related-deaths-in-2020-report/">gun violence</a> – <a href="https://www.gunviolencearchive.org/reports/mass-shooting">as horrible as it is</a> – is an <a href="https://www.thepriceoffreedommovie.com">acceptable price of that freedom</a>.</p>
<p>My analysis finds that gun culture in the U.S. derives largely <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2019.1573843">from its frontier past</a> and the <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806130316/gunfighter-nation/">mythology of the “Wild West,”</a> which <a href="https://utpress.utexas.edu/books/brodre">romanticizes guns, outlaws, rugged individualism</a> and the inevitability of gun violence. This culture ignores the fact that gun control was widespread and common in the Old West.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A view of Dodge City, Kansas, in 1878 including a sign banning firearms." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=301&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471244/original/file-20220627-20-klvqkz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=378&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">It’s a bit hard to read, but the sign to the right of this view of Dodge City, Kansas, from 1878 reads ‘The carrying of firearms strictly prohibited.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.kshs.org/km/items/view/640">Ben Wittick via Kansas Historical Society</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The prevalence of guns</h2>
<p>Guns are part of a deep political divide in American society. The more guns a person owns, the more likely they are to <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-gun-gap-9780190064839">oppose gun control legislation</a>, and the more likely they are to vote for Republican candidates.</p>
<p>In 2020, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/264932/percentage-americans-own-guns.aspx">44% of American households</a> reported owning at least one firearm. According to the 2018 international study <a href="https://www.smallarmssurvey.org/sites/default/files/resources/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">Small Arms Survey</a>, there were approximately 393 million firearms in civilian hands in the U.S., or 120.5 firearms per 100 people. That number is likely higher now, given <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/20/us-gun-purchases-2020-2021-study">increases in gun sales in 2019, 2020 and 2021</a>.</p>
<p>Americans have owned guns since colonial times, but American gun culture really took off after the Civil War with the imagery, icons and tales – or mythology – of the lawless frontier and the Wild West. Frontier mythology, which <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2019.1573843">celebrates and exaggerates the amount and significance of gunfights and vigilantism</a>, began with <a href="https://truewestmagazine.com/masters-of-western-art/">19th-century Western paintings</a>, popular dime novels and <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/learn/western-essays/wild-west-shows/">traveling Wild West shows</a> by Buffalo Bill Cody and others. It continues to this day with Western-themed shows on streaming networks such as “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4236770/">Yellowstone</a>” and “<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11006642/">Walker</a>.”</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0gXxRsQGp60?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">A gunfight in the TV show ‘Yellowstone.’</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A marketing move</h2>
<p>Historian Pamela Haag attributes much of the country’s gun culture to that Western theme. Before the middle of the 19th century, she writes, guns were common in U.S. society, but were <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/pamela-haag/the-gunning-of-america/9780465098569/">unremarkable tools</a> used by a wide range of people in a growing nation.</p>
<p>But then gun manufacturers Colt and Winchester started marketing their firearms by appealing to customers’ sense of adventure and the romance of the frontier. In the mid-19th century, the gun manufacturers <a href="https://www.basicbooks.com/titles/pamela-haag/the-gunning-of-america/9780465098569/">began advertising their guns</a> as a way people all around the country could connect with the excitement of the West, with its Indian wars, cattle drives, cowboys and gold and silver boomtowns. Winchester’s slogan was “<a href="https://www.grunge.com/310679/the-gun-that-won-the-west-isnt-what-you-think-it-is/">The Gun That Won the West</a>,” but Haag argues that it was really “the West that won the gun.”</p>
<p>By 1878, this theme was so successful that Colt’s New York City distributor recommended the company market the .44-40 caliber version of its Model 1873 single-action revolver as the “Frontier Six Shooter” to <a href="https://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/nra/ar_201912/index.php?startid=37#/p/36">appeal to the public’s growing fascination</a> with the Wild West.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A revolver with a wooden butt" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=344&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/471411/original/file-20220628-19-ymuld0.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=432&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Colt’s Frontier Six Shooter was marketed to take advantage of people’s romantic ideas of the Wild West.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.cabelas.com/shop/en/101208113">Cabelas</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A different reality</h2>
<p>Gun ownership was commonplace in the post-Civil War Old West, but actual gunfights were rare. One reason was that, contrary to the mythology, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/guns-across-america-9780190621063?cc=us&lang=en&">many frontier towns had strict gun laws</a>, especially <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/gun-control-old-west-180968013/">against carrying concealed weapons</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393345834">As UCLA constitutional law professor Adam Winkler puts it</a>, “Guns were widespread on the frontier, but so was gun regulation. … Wild West lawmen took gun control seriously and frequently arrested people who violated their town’s gun control laws.” </p>
<p>“<a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0047736/">Gunsmoke</a>,” the iconic TV show that ran from the 1950s through the 1970s, would have seen <a href="https://www.historynet.com/letter-from-wild-west-april-2021/">far fewer gunfights</a> had its fictional marshal, Matt Dillon, enforced Dodge City’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/09/02/opinion/l-dodge-city-believed-in-strict-gun-control-237490.html">real laws banning the carrying of any firearms</a> within city limits.</p>
<p>The appeal of this mythology extends to the present day. In August 2021, a Colt Frontier Six Shooter became the world’s most expensive firearm when the auction house <a href="https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/27262/lot/11/">Bonhams sold “the gun that killed Billy the Kid” at auction for over $6 million</a>. As a mere antique firearm, that revolver would be worth a <a href="https://truegunvalue.com/pistol/colt/frontier-six-shooter-saa/price-historical-value-196">few thousand dollars</a>. Its astronomic selling price was due to its Wild West provenance.</p>
<p>The historical reality of the American frontier was more complex and nuanced than its popular mythology. But it’s the mythology that fuels American gun culture today, which rejects the types of laws that were commonplace in the Old West.</p>
<h2>A particular view of safety and freedom</h2>
<p>Hardcore gun owners, their lobbyists and many members of the Republican Party <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-nra-convention-212dfd1b57474f1ab208d4a72521a010">refuse to allow</a> the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/">thousands of annual gun deaths</a> and the additional <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.6696">thousands of nonfatal shootings</a> to be used as justifications for <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/28/us/politics/nra-convention-guns.html">restricting their rights</a> as law-abiding citizens.</p>
<p>They are willing to accept gun violence as an inevitable side effect of a free and armed but violent society.</p>
<p>Their opposition to new gun reforms as well as the current trends in gun rights legislation – such as <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2022/apr/12/more-states-remove-permit-requirement-carry-concea/">permitless carry</a> and the <a href="https://www.k12dive.com/news/efforts-to-arm-teachers-spark-new-and-old-safety-concerns/625562/">arming of teachers</a> – are but the latest manifestations of American gun culture’s deep roots in frontier mythology.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/nra-board-re-elects-ceo-wayne-lapierre-signaling-no-change-direction-rcna31132">Wayne LaPierre</a>, executive director of the National Rifle Association, the country’s largest gun rights group, tapped into imagery from frontier mythology and American gun culture following the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012. In his call to arm school resource officers and teachers, LaPierre adopted language that could have come from a classic Western film: “<a href="https://www.npr.org/2012/12/21/167824766/nra-only-thing-that-stops-a-bad-guy-with-a-gun-is-a-good-guy-with-a-gun">The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun</a> is a good guy with a gun.” </p>
<p>This view of a <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/how-the-good-guy-with-a-gun-became-a-deadly-american-fantasy">lone, armed person</a> who can stand up and save the day has <a href="https://www.vox.com/2022/5/25/23140519/uvalde-school-shooting-nra-texas-good-guy-gun">persisted ever since</a>, and provides an answer of its own to mass shootings: Guns are not the problem – they’re the solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184932/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pierre M. Atlas has been a life member of the National Rifle Association since 1997 (but has not made any financial contributions to the NRA since 1997). </span></em></p>A scholar of gun culture looks at the roots of Americans’ love affair with firearms – and their willingness to accept gun violence as a price of freedom.Pierre M. Atlas, Senior Lecturer, Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1854812022-06-23T14:13:54Z2022-06-23T14:13:54ZWill closing the ‘boyfriend loophole’ in gun legislation save lives? Here’s what the research says<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470578/original/file-20220623-51459-duwhsw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=22%2C67%2C4970%2C3263&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Preventing people with domestic violence records obtaining guns would be a life-saver.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/woman-holds-a-placard-that-says-no-more-silence-end-gun-news-photo/1241273019?adppopup=true">Jeremy Hogan/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>The U.S. Congress <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/politics/gun-control-bill-congress.html">has passed</a> a bipartisan gun safety bill, representing the first federal gun safety legislation to be passed in a generation.</em></p>
<p><em>The legislation, which will now be signed into law by President Joe Biden, is limited in scope. But among its provisions is the closing of the so-called “<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/06/14/boyfriend-loophole-bipartisan-gun-deal/">boyfriend loophole</a>” which allows some people with a record of domestic violence to still buy firearms.</em></p>
<p><em><a href="https://cj.msu.edu/directory/zeoli-april.html">April Zeoli, at Michigan State University</a>, researches the link between intimate partner violence, homicide and gun laws. She explains what the change means – and why it would save lives.</em></p>
<h2>What is the boyfriend loophole?</h2>
<p>Under current federal legislation, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921#a_32">intimate partner relationships</a> are defined only as those in which two people are or were married, live or lived together as a couple, or have a child together. People who were in a dating relationship are largely excluded from this definition.</p>
<p>As a result, dating partners are exempt from federal laws that prohibit those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor crimes, or those who are under domestic violence restraining orders, from buying or possessing a firearm. This is what is referred to as the “boyfriend loophole”.</p>
<p>To put it another way, if you have two domestic abusers who have both committed the same severe physical violence against their partners, but one of them is married to their intimate partner while the other isn’t, then only the domestic abuser who is married could be prohibited from having a gun.</p>
<h2>What does the data tell us about domestic violence and guns?</h2>
<p>Intimate partner homicides have been rising since about 2015, and this increase is almost entirely due to <a href="https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/series/57">intimate partner homicides committed with guns</a>. Indeed, guns are the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2019.0005">most common weapon used in intimate partner homicide</a>. In contrast, non-gun intimate partner homicide levels have stayed roughly the same over that period.</p>
<p>Research suggests that when a violent male partner has access to a gun, the risk of murder to the female partner increases by <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.93.7.1089">fivefold</a>. We also know that guns are used to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1524838016668589">coerce, intimidate, and threaten</a> intimate partners, and that gun-involved intimate partner violence can result in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1089/vio.2016.0024">more symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder</a> than intimate partner violence that doesn’t involve guns. With a nationally representative survey suggesting that <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/ndv0312.pdf">3.4%</a> of victims of domestic violence have experienced non-fatal gun use by their abusers – combined with the high numbers of intimate partner murders committed with guns – this constitutes a large public health threat.</p>
<h2>Why are people talking about the ‘boyfriend loophole’ now?</h2>
<p>The conversation over extending domestic violence firearm restrictions to dating partners arises every few years.</p>
<p>This time, Congress has actually passed new gun safety legislation that will close, or at least narrow the loophole. The <a href="https://www.murphy.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/bipartisan-group-of-senators-announce-agreement">wording of the proposed legislation</a> extends the ban to those who “have or have had a continuing relationship of a romantic or intimate nature.” </p>
<p>There are a few issues to note here. First, the motivation to pass new gun safety legislation came from recent mass shooting events and the hope of preventing future mass shootings. We know that many mass shootings often involve <a href="https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0">killing intimate partners or family members</a>, and that some of the shooters have <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1745-9133.12475">criminal histories involving domestic violence</a> before they commit the mass shootings.</p>
<p>But mass shootings make up only a small percentage of shootings in the United States. Intimate partner homicide is a more frequent occurrence.</p>
<p>My research shows that when states extend firearm restrictions placed on individuals under domestic violence restraining orders to cover dating partners, there is an <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy174">associated reduction in intimate partner homicide</a>.</p>
<p>However, the legislation which has made its way through Congress does not do this exactly. The law would only close the loophole for those convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor crimes. It does not cover restraining order laws.</p>
<h2>What is the current situation at the state level?</h2>
<p>Some states, such as Minnesota and West Virginia, have <a href="https://www.statefirearmlaws.org/">extended misdemeanor domestic violence firearm restrictions to dating partners</a> already. Others, including Tennessee, have not. Fewer than half of states have extended the misdemeanor domestic violence firearm restriction to cover dating partners.</p>
<p>This has created a situation in which safety from gun violence by a violent dating partner depends on the state in which you live. Federal legislation would help to create a more consistent picture across the country when it comes to dating partners who commit violence.</p>
<h2>What effect will closing the ‘boyfriend loophole’ have at a national level?</h2>
<p>My research suggests that the federal firearm restriction for individuals convicted of domestic violence misdemeanor crimes is associated with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/aje/kwy174">reductions in intimate partner homicide committed with firearms</a>.</p>
<p>As such, one could hypothesize that restricting access to guns for a greater number of dangerous intimate partners would further reduce firearm homicides within violent relationships. By the same thinking, closing the boyfriend loophole when it comes to banning gun possession for individuals under domestic violence restraining orders would also probably save lives.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/185481/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>April M. Zeoli receives funding to support her research from the National Collaborative for Gun Violence Research, the Joyce Foundation, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. She is affiliated with the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy.</span></em></p>Congress has pushed through its first gun control legislation in 30 years. Included in the legislation is a provision to expand a firearm ban to dating partners accused of domestic violence.April M. Zeoli, Professor of Criminal Justice, Michigan State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1845972022-06-23T11:47:17Z2022-06-23T11:47:17ZLook at 3 enduring stories Americans tell about guns to understand the debate over them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470346/original/file-20220622-29730-oq3jle.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=6%2C3%2C1016%2C702&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A family poses in front of their sod house in Custer County, Neb., in 1887.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/laforge-sod-house-home-south-of-west-union-custer-county-news-photo/514882604?adppopup=true">Bettmann/Bettmann via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States has struggled with <a href="https://theconversation.com/did-the-assault-weapons-ban-of-1994-bring-down-mass-shootings-heres-what-the-data-tells-us-184430">a spate of horrific mass shootings</a> – and will now need to grapple with the implications of the Supreme Court <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-843_7j80.pdf">striking down</a> New York’s restrictions on carrying concealed firearms, with consequences beyond the state. </p>
<p>After each tragedy with guns, people try to make sense of the violence <a href="https://theconversation.com/blaming-evil-for-mass-violence-isnt-as-simple-as-it-seems-a-philosopher-unpacks-the-paradox-in-using-the-word-184289">by talking</a> about what happened. The discussion usually gravitates toward two familiar poles: gun control on one end, and personal liberty on the other. But despite all the talk, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-gun-control-laws-dont-pass-congress-despite-majority-public-support-and-repeated-outrage-over-mass-shootings-183896">not much changes</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/gdickins/">We are scholars of communication</a> <a href="https://communication.missouristate.edu/bo443e.aspx">who study how rhetoric shapes politics and culture</a> – particularly how the stories Americans tell about the country and its past continue to shape the present. The nation’s failure to prevent such frequent mass shootings is, we suggest, partially a product of how American society commemorates and talks about guns.</p>
<h2>Imagining the ‘Wild West’</h2>
<p>An excellent example of how American culture tells the story of guns is <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/explore/firearms/">the Cody Firearms Museum</a> in Wyoming: home to “the most comprehensive collection of American firearms in the world” and subject of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2011.594068">an academic article</a> we coauthored with colleague <a href="https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/people/eaoki/">Eric Aoki</a> in 2011. We have continued this research as part of a book project.</p>
<p>Featuring more than 7,000 weapons, the museum is part of <a href="https://centerofthewest.org/">the Buffalo Bill Center of the West</a>. The center’s namesake, 19th-century rifleman <a href="https://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/burbick.pdf">and showman</a> Buffalo Bill, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10570310500076684">popularized the story of the “Wild West</a>” that is still familiar to Americans today – one where guns were central.</p>
<p>Stories, of course, <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520001923/language-as-symbolic-action">are never neutral</a>. They include and exclude certain details; they highlight some aspects of a thing and downplay others. They distill the great complexity of our world into manageable and memorable bits that guide how we understand it.</p>
<p>An especially important kind of storytelling happens at museums. As historians <a href="https://rrchnm.org/">Roy Rosenzweig</a> and <a href="https://alliance.iu.edu/members/member/1142.html">David Thelen</a> explain, surveys show that <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-presence-of-the-past/9780231111485">people trust museums</a> more than family members, eyewitnesses, teachers and history textbooks.</p>
<p>So it matters what U.S. museums have to say about guns. Based on multiple research visits to the Cody Firearms Museum over the past decade, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2011.594068">we have identified three foundational narratives about guns</a> – stories that we argue get replayed in the present-day rhetoric about firearms.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A display case at the Cody Firearms Museum." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/470344/original/file-20220622-39985-k6jyri.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Guns are central to how Americans talk about the ‘Wild West.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy of Greg Dickinson</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Story 1: Guns are tools</h2>
<p>One of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14791420.2011.594068">the key themes</a> at the Cody Firearms Museum was that guns were central to life on the frontier. Settlers had few possessions, and guns, which were necessary for hunting and fending off dangerous animals, were among the most common household items.</p>
<p>The view of guns as a daily tool remains prevalent today, usually through references to hunting. Emphasizing firearms’ role as a normal necessity to survive – even though so few people in the U.S. live that way today – “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/24589296">domesticates” guns</a>, and many Americans continue to treat even assault rifles as ordinary objects of everyday life.</p>
<p>Consider <a href="https://twitter.com/therecount/status/1532397025156898816">recent comments</a> Colorado Rep. Ken Buck made to the House Judiciary Committee: “In rural Colorado, an AR-15 is a gun of choice for killing raccoons before they get to our chickens. It is a gun of choice for killing a fox. It is a gun that you control predators on your ranch, your farm, your property.”</p>
<p>Such talk domesticates assault rifles, depicting them as ordinary objects. But they are far from ordinary. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-017-0205-7">One 2017 study</a> found that assault rifles and other high-capacity semiautomatics “account for 22% to 36% of crime guns, with some estimates upwards of 40% for cases involving serious violence including murders of police.” They are also used in up to 57% of mass murders involving firearms.</p>
<h2>Story 2: Guns are wonders</h2>
<p>A second key theme on display at the museum was that guns are technological marvels. Visitors could learn, often in painstaking detail, about each advancement in loading systems, ammunition cartridges and firing mechanisms. </p>
<p>Displays like these frame guns as inert objects of study and fascination, shifting attention from their function and purpose to their design and development. Moreover, the display of thousands of guns in glass cases, physically separated from human beings, turns them into objects that seem almost worthy of veneration.</p>
<p>The world of gun collecting strongly connects these admired objects to their owner’s identity. Like enthusiasts of any stripe, gun hobbyists view <a href="https://doi.org/10.1525/si.1988.11.2.277">guns as collectibles</a>. According to a <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">Pew Research Center</a> study, 66% of gun owners own multiple firearms, and 73% say they “could never see themselves not owning a gun.” </p>
<p>In short, guns are central to gun owners’ sense of self, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">with half acknowledging that</a> “owning a gun is important to their overall identity.” Because gun hobbyists regard guns as collectibles, they often use rhetoric that treats guns as <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-020-00673-x">inert objects</a> rather than machines engineered for violence.</p>
<p>For many gun owners, gun violence is a problem associated with “bad” actors, not guns. Following <a href="https://theconversation.com/accused-buffalo-mass-shooter-had-threatened-a-shooting-while-in-high-school-could-more-have-been-done-to-avert-the-tragedy-183455">the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York,</a>, podcaster Graham Allen <a href="https://www.tpusa.com/live/guns-dont-kill-people-bad-people-kill-people">wrote</a>: “Firearms are LIFELESS objects, they do not think, they do not feel, and they do not take a life on their own. Therefore you CANNOT hold an inanimate object accountable for the actions of the shooter.”</p>
<h2>Story 3: Guns are quintessentially American</h2>
<p>The third story American culture tells about guns is that they are <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/armed-america-the-remarkable-story-of-how-and-why-guns-became-as-american-as-apple-pie/oclc/71126665">central to what it means to be “American”</a>. They symbolize the myth of rugged individualism on which the country is founded. Guns are also associated with <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/the-myth-of-manifest-destiny/">Manifest Destiny</a>, the belief that white Americans were destined by God to violently “settle” the plains and “civilize” the West, expanding U.S. territory from coast to coast.</p>
<p>Guns served as the primary instrument for Westward expansion and the forced removal of Native Americans. As American studies scholar <a href="https://www.wesleyan.edu/academics/faculty/rslotkin/profile.html">Richard Slotkin</a>’s work explains, many <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806130316/">iconic portrayals of the frontier</a> depict white colonizers doing what they believed to be “God’s work” with the help of their guns.</p>
<p>Today, national discourse still frames guns as part of a God-given right to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-backed-senate-candidate-blake-masters-blames-gun-violence-black-rcna32290">eliminate “threats”</a> in <a href="https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Ted-Cruz-confronted-at-Houston-restaurant-17205943.php">a world full of dangerous people</a>. The National Rifle Association has <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0276-z">used religiously infused language</a> to argue for gun rights, such as its president, Wayne LaPierre, <a href="https://www.christianpost.com/news/nra-president-second-amendment-granted-by-god-americans-birthright.html">saying in 2018 that</a> the right to bear arms is “granted by God to all Americans as our American birthright.” </p>
<p>In these arguments, gun ownership is a way of expressing a deep and <a href="https://www.oupress.com/9780806130316/">long-held American desire</a> to protect oneself, one’s family and one’s property. Crime <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.03.029">data</a>, however, suggests that self-defense with guns is rare, used by victims in 1% or fewer of “crimes in which there is personal contact between the perpetrator and victim” or robbery and nonsexual assault. Meanwhile, owning guns increases other dangers like accidental shooting and <a href="https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2020/06/handgun-ownership-associated-with-much-higher-suicide-risk.html">gun-related suicide</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://people.healthsciences.ucla.edu/institution/personnel?personnel_id=75145">Joseph Pierre</a>, a psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-019-0373-z">has written</a> that while fear may be the main cited reason for owning a gun, ownership is also strongly associated with fear of the loss of control. Seventy-four percent of gun owners say the right to own guns is essential to their sense of freedom, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/06/22/americas-complex-relationship-with-guns/">according to a Pew survey</a>.</p>
<h2>From talk to action – or inaction</h2>
<p>How people talk about an object influences how they understand and see it. And once that view hardens into an attitude, it significantly impacts future action.</p>
<p>In the firearms museum, and American culture more broadly, guns are portrayed as utilitarian tools of daily life, venerated objects of technological progress and symbols of what it means to be American.</p>
<p>These stories continue to shape and constrain how America talks and thinks about guns, and help explain why gun policy in the U.S. looks the way it does.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184597/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ways Americans talk about firearms is full of contradictions, two communication scholars explain – and that powerfully shapes the country’s approach to gun policy.Greg Dickinson, Professor of Rhetoric and Memory, Colorado State UniversityBrian L. Ott, Professor of Communication, Missouri State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.