Firearms and Violence A Critical Review (2005) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-10
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While there is a large body of empirical research on firearms and violence, there is little consensus on even the basic facts about these important policy issues. Given the importance of these issues and the continued controversy surrounding the debate on firearms, the Committee to Improve Research Information and Data on Firearms was charged with providing an assessment of the strengths and limitations of the existing research and data on gun violence 1
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In particular, a wealth of descriptive information exists about the prevalence of firearm-related injuries and deaths, about firearms markets, and about the relationships between rates of gun ownership and violence. Research has found, for example, that higher rates of household firearms ownership are associated with higher rates of gun suicide, that illegal diversions from legitimate commerce are important sources of crime guns and guns used in suicide, that firearms are used defensively many times per day, and that some types of targeted police interventions may effectively lower gun crime and violence.
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The committee is encouraged by the efforts of the Harvard School of Public Health's Injury Control Research Center pilot data collection program and the recent seed money provided to implement a Violent Death Reporting System at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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For example, efforts should be undertaken to assess whether tracing a larger fraction of guns used in crimes, regularly including questions on gun access and use in surveys and longitudinal studies (as is done in data from the ongoing, yearly Monitoring the Future survey) , or enhancing existing items pertaining to gun ownership in ongoing national surveys may provide useful research data.
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RESEARCH RECOMMENDATIONS Firearms, Criminal Violence, and Suicide Despite the richness of descriptive information on the associations between firearms and violence at the aggregate level, explaining a violent death is a difficult business. Personal temperament, the availability of weapons, human motivation, law enforcement policies, and accidental circumstances all play a role in leading one person but not another to inflict serious violence or commit suicide.
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Firearms are used by the public to defend against crime. Ultimately, it is an empirical question whether defensive gun use and concealed weapons laws generate net social benefits or net social costs.
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This public debate has stimulated the production of a large body of statistical evidence on whether right-to-carry laws reduce or increase crimes against individuals. However, although all of the studies use the same basic conceptual model and data, the empirical findings are contradictory and in the committee's view highly fragile.
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To some observers this suggests that one method for reducing the burden of firearm injuries is to intervene in these markets so as to make it more expensive, inconvenient, or legally risky to obtain firearms for criminal use or suicide. Market-based interventions intended to reduce access to guns by criminals and other unqualified persons include taxes on weapons and ammunition, tough regulation of federal firearm licensees, limits on the number of firearms that can be purchased in a given time period, gun bans, gun buy-backs, and enforcement of laws against illegal gun buyers or sellers.
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In light of the lack of evidence, the committee recommends that firearm violence prevention programs should be based on general prevention theory, that government programs should incorporate evaluation into implementation efforts, and that a sustained body of empirical research be developed to study the effects of different safety technologies on violence and crime. Criminal Justice Interventions Policing and sentencing interventions have had recent broad bipartisan support and are a major focus of current efforts to reduce firearms violence.
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Evidence on Operation Ceasefire, perhaps the most frequently cited of all targeted policing efforts to reduce firearms violence, is limited by the fact that it is a single case at a specific time and location. Scientific support for the effectiveness of the Boston Gun Project and most other similar types of targeted policing programs is still evolving.
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