Dangers of Guns: Research

Title: Means Matter: Suicide, Guns, and Public Health [website]

What does it say?  This new website from the Harvard School of Public Health provides comprehensive resources on the role of guns in facilitating suicide, including key messages, state-specific information, a bibliography, and an online course.   The goal of the project is to make it easy for state suicide prevention coalitions to adopt “lethal means restriction” as a key part of their work in preventing suicides.  

How can I use it?  Send the website link to suicide prevention organizations in your area and to elected officials serving on committees related to mental health, health care, and injury prevention.  Incorporate the messaging and facts on gun suicide into existing presentations and materials.  The materials can be used in support of any gun control laws aiming to limit access to guns by high-risk users, like background checks, childproof handgun bills and safe storage.

Citation: Harvard School of Public Health, “Means Matter: Suicide, Guns, and Public Health,” http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/means-matter/index.html.


Title: Examples of Workplace Shootings

Publication date: February 13, 2008

What does it say?  This document provides examples of workplace shootings from 1999 to 2008.

How can I use it? Since 2006, the National Rifle Association has been trying to pass "take-your-guns-to-work" laws that seek to turn companies into criminals if they bar guns on their private property. Its efforts have met stiff opposition from the business community and Brady activists.  These incidents can be used to show the dangers of guns in the workplace.

Citation: Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, Examples of Workplace Shootings 2008.

 
Title: Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007

Publication date: December 2007

What does it say? Although the report does not include specific information on firearms, it documents that children are 50 times more likely to be murdered away from school than at school.  Violent crime rates and property crime rates were stable from 2004 to 2005; from 2005 to 2006, there were 14 school-associated homicides involving school-aged children. Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007 is the tenth in a series of reports produced by the National Center for Education Statistics and the Bureau of Justice Statistics since 1998 to document recent data available on school crime and student safety.

How can I use it? Fourteen school-associated homicides is too many, but it is important to realize that violence against children is much more likely to happen in the community or at home than at school.   These numbers can be used to refute claims that schools are dangerous places, an argument used by the NRA to push for guns on campus.  See also the Brady Center report, No Gun Left Behind.

Citation: U. S. Department of Education, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Education Statistics, Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2007 (Washington, DC: December 2007)

Title: Law Enforcement Officer Deaths, 2007

Publication Date: December 2007

What does it say? This research bulletin, based on preliminary data from 2007, documents a 33 percent increase in the number of officers killed by gunfire from 2006 (52) to 2007 (69) (either feloniously or accidentally killed).  Deaths from gunshot wounds increased faster than deaths from motor vehicle crashes. The National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund records and commemorates the service and sacrifice of law enforcement officers.

How can I use it? Keep in mind that this report is based on preliminary data and does not separate out felonious from accidental deaths.  However, this data, combined with the increase in assaults with firearms documented by the FBI in 2006, indicates that police may be at increased risk from illegal guns.

Citation: National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, “Law Enforcement Officer Deaths, 2007,” Research Bulletin (December 2007)

Title: Homicides and Intimate Partner Violence: A Literature Review

Publication date: October 2007

What does it say? Based on review of the literature, recommends that physicians inquire about guns in the home/in the ownership of batterers, and policy-wise focuses on requiring that police confiscate firearms used in incidents of partner violence and tighten restrictions on firearms possession by those with restraining orders. 

How can I use it? Use this study to document that the weapon most often used in intimate partner homicides is a firearm and that the use of a gun in an attack increases the risk of death by 12 versus the use of another weapon. 

Citation: L Garcia, C Soria, and E Hurwitz, "Homicides and Intimate Partner Violence: A Literature Review,"  Trauma, Violence and Abuse 8:4 (October 2007)


Title: Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2006

Publication Date: September 2007

What does it say? In 2006, 46 officers were feloniously killed by a firearm, a decrease of 13 percent (55 to 46) from 2005.  The number of officers assaulted with a firearm increased by 6 percent (2,157 to 2,278 incidents).  Four officers were killed with firearms accidentally, the same number as were killed in 2005.  This annual Federal Bureau of Investigation report documents law enforcement officers killed (feloniously or accidentally) and those assaulted while performing their duties.

How can I use it? This report includes descriptions of the circumstances of attacks on law enforcement officers, by state..  The stories make very real the dangers faced by law enforcement because of easy access to illegal guns and could be used in testimony, letters to the editor, etc.  Click here to find out how many law enforcement officers have been assaulted by a gun in your state.

Citation: United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted, 2006  (October 2007)


Title: Storage of household firearms: an examination of the attitudes and beliefs of married women with children

Publication date: September 22, 2007

What does it say? Forty percent of the women interviewed reported that at least one gun in the house was stored unlocked.  Yet, 88 percent of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed “it is wisest to keep a gun stored in a locked place, and 72 percent reported that their husbands thought the gun should be stored in a locked place."  Most of the women (63 percent) leave the decision on how to store the gun to their husbands, and 90 percent reported that their husbands owned the gun.

How can I use it? These results can be used to document to legislators and program designers that, according to the wives, most married gun owners with children in the house believe that guns should be locked up, yet most do not lock up their guns. 

Citation: RM Johnson, CW Runyan, T Coyne-Beasley, MA Lewis, JM Bowling, “Storage of Household Firearms: an Examination of the Attitudes and Beliefs of Married Women with Children. Health Education Research (September 22, 2007)


Title: School Survey on Crime and Safety, School Crime Supplement, Table 17
 
Publication date: 2005

What does it say? Table 17 documents the percentage of students ages 12-18 who reported bringing a knife to school, having knowledge of a gun being brought by another student to school, having seen another student with a gun at school, and the possibility of accessing a gun during the previous 6 months, by selected student and school characteristics. 

How can I use it? These statistics can be used to show that between 9 and 17 percent of students in grades 9-12 state that it is possible to get a gun without adult supervision, at or away from school.  The School Crime Supplement (SCS) is a national survey of students ages 12 through 18 in U.S. public and private elementary, middle, and high schools. Created as a supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, SCS collects information about characteristics of school-related crime, victimization, and safety.

Citation: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, School Crime Supplement (SCS) to the National Crime Victimization Survey (2005)