Gun violence panel releases report

[Evan Thomas]

In January, President Obama asked the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council to assemble a panel to make recommendations for research into the causes of gun violence and ways to prevent it. That panel has just released its report.

The four-page summary is available here, and the full report (124 pp.) can be downloaded or read online at the website of the National Academies Press. (Note that the latter is serious about its copyright policy, so let's be careful to follow the policy here at TFL.)

I haven't had a chance to read the full report, and won't until later, but just from the summary, the panel has suggested an ambitious research program -- including research into who owns guns, what kind, how they're stored, etc. I expect some of this will raise our eyebrows a bit, and I'm not sure how they propose to study these things among people who own guns illegally.

A program such as this is also going to require substantial funding...

 

[mehavey]

From the report:

ConclusionThe public health aspects of firearm violence
presented in the committee’s proposed research
agenda—in conjunction with research conducted
from criminal justice and other perspectives—aim
to provide a robust knowledge base to help bolster
our nation’s approach to minimizing the consequences
associated with firearm violence.
The evidence generated by implementing
a public health research agenda will enable the
development of sound policies that support both
the rights and the responsibilities central to gun
ownership in the United States. In the absence of
this research, policy makers will be left to debate
controversial policies without scientifically sound
evidence about their potential effects.

Emphasis mine, but I think it goes w/o saying that this is a push to move the debate into a regulatory regime that will take things in a very different direction.

 

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

Does that mean my doctor will start asking me about my (recently misplaced) firearms?

 

[Tom Servo]

The evidence generated by implementing a public health research agenda will enable the development of sound policies that support both the rights and the responsibilities central to gun ownership in the United States.

This is in line with the executive order proposed back in February.

Then we've got the "smart gun" stuff:

Specifically, the committee proposes an agenda that would identify the effects of different technologies designed to reduce firearm injury and death; examine past consumer acceptance of safety technologies; and explore state and international policy approaches to firearm safety technology for applicability to the United States as a whole.

And we're back to trying to blame video games:

However, in more than 50 years of research, no study has focused on firearm violence as a specific outcome of violence in media. As a result, a direct relationship between violence in media and real-life firearm violence has not been established and will require additional research.

Glenn can correct me on this, but there have been studies on the links between media and violence, and the link is tenuous at best. Do we need to be wasting our tax dollars on another inconclusive study?

I haven't had a chance to read the whole thing yet, but we're coming back to the whole idea of gun control as a public health issue. This started with Kellerman and Wintemute's "studies" in the 1980's, and that's the angle they'll try to push here.

 

[Punisher_1]

No, this means they will allocate billions for a multi faceted study that will see some of the funds but the rest will be funneled to buy weapons for allied foreign powers, lol.

Looking at the summary and some of the research they want or recommend it looks like they would want to screen the owners and inventory your weapons which I doubt would go over well. I don't see how they could gather accurate information for the studies due to disclosure issues.

I find it amazing that Veterans are always mentioned as some sort of risk group. I also got a kick out of the firearm safety devices, tokens? You'll have to carry a roll of quarters with you in case you get caught in a shoot out, lol.

 

[mdd]

Well Tom, we have to blame something. It has to be the video games or the music or the firearms themselves. We couldn't possibly blame the person. That would be akin to acknowledging individualism which we know cannot be possible.

 

[Mr X]

From the summary - I'm not reading that much (>120 pp) public health drivel -

"Basic data about gun possession, distribution, ownership, acquisition, and storage are lacking. Additionally, no single database captures
the number, locations, and types of firearms and
firearm owners in the United States. Data that do
exist are weak, making it virtually impossible to
answer fundamental questions about occurrence
and risk factors, or to effectively evaluate programs intended to reduce violence and harm." FROM http://www.iom.edu/~/media/Files/Report Files/2013/Firearm-Violence/FirearmViolence_RB.pdf (Institute of Medicine).

Thus really limiting any findings from this panel as none of the available datasets are going to withstand the scrutiny of strict public health evidence-based review procedures. This happens all the time. Statistics is forever a garbage in -> garbage out game.

As usual with systematic reviews... drumroll... more studies must be done! <Sigh>

This is really nothing new. The panel rehashed previous statements made about public health perspectives on firearm violence. I don't really see any value here whatsoever. IOM/CDC/NIH have better things to be doing than this drivel.

Please limit that paranoia that physicians are going to create a database of gun owners and that your electronic records will be trolled by the government to identify "risky" individuals. In most instances, the hospital down the street can't read your records, much less some anonymous supercomputer at Fort Meade. We're not.

 

[Mr X]

Hmmm.... the pages are small... I may read a good chunk of this as so far it isn't too horrible RE the actual data.

EDIT: So half-way through...

I'm sad to see the continued citation of the Kellermann study that indicated presence of firearms in home conferred an increased risk vs mortality. This paper has been thoroughly evaluated on this very board and is generally considered to make improper conclusions. Certainly nothing causative was ever supported by that paper

The strongest public-health facet of firearms ownership/access/use etc. in my opinion is suicide. Notably this report summarized data indicating 60% US suicides used a firearm and 83% were successful. For comparison, they indicated 80% of suffocation methods were successful. (Interesting to me, I figures it was higher than 83%)

One public health stat I should verify that I thought was interesting was 3% of firearm assaults are fatal. Certainly getting shot has sinificant morbidity but I thought this was low.

Overall the paper offers nothing really new, cited the usual suspects in data sources and recommend future study that is impossible given the lack of nation-wide data on firearms and socioeconomic data insufficiency.

Please note I'm not an academic researcher, I don't intensely read the public health literature, including firearms and I find public health minutiae to be highly correlated with nap time.

 

[kraigwy]

With the current problems this administration is having, regarding "trust", I don't see anything happening towards gun control.

The data base to who has what, and what not, surely wont fly any time in the near future or my life time since I'm old anyway.

 

[fragtagninja]

I personally think this money would be better spent on cancer research.

The problem with the science community these days is they have an angle they are trying to prove. Not looking at data and drawing conclusions. Many of these researchers get mad when the data does not tell the story they want it to. For instance Jack Horner a paleontologist believes Tyrannosaurus Rex was a scavenger based on data he has collected. We all grew up with T-Rex as the apex predator of the ages and thus no one likes this idea and disregards it. Even people who should look at the evidence and consider it. My point here is that the researchers they choose are likely to have a horse in the race so to speak and there is no telling how reliable this data would actually be after the study is completed. If you want know about global warming don't pick researchers that don't believe in it. Likewise don't pick ones that do. Pick ones that say I don't know maybe. Let us find out. This is almost certainly not the going to be the case. Biases are everywhere and for some reason the science community seems have this notion that they insulated from bias because they are scientists.

 

[bt380]

The reports don't factor in the catch-n-release before trial crimes or the high speed revolving door of injustice. They also fail to factor in the liberal governors releasing thousands of criminals back out on the street before their time is served. They fail to factor in the down grading of crimes so the criminal is back out on the street. They fail to factor in a bunch of items that can only be summed up in political banter such as gun banning.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

Glenn can correct me on this, but there have been studies on the links between media and violence, and the link is tenuous at best. Do we need to be wasting our tax dollars on another inconclusive study?

But "tenuous" links are links, they are not nothing. What if a properly funded and well-formatted study shows more than a "tenuous" link between violent video games and violence in society? What then?

Personally, I don't think there's any question that there's a linkage. The only problem is that research hasn't proven it.

 

[Tom Servo]

But "tenuous" links are links, they are not nothing.

Yeah, I know

The thing is, I can find a tenuous link between consumption of Gatorade and violence. Polyester pants and violence? I could cook something up.

And they will, if only to secure future funding.

 

[Miss Stana]

Sounds like a sugar-coated way of saying "we are going to spend your money foolishly again and find out where all the honest folks are stashing their guns so we can come get them."

 

[Strafer Gott]

I think Congress should pull the money they spent on the paper out of next years budget, then pass a law that forbids them from throwing good money after bad as regards further gun grabbing research. That's right ladies and gentlemen, if we can get the votes, I'll have every one of those evil stethoscopes banned!

 

[Dave P]

".. drumroll... more studies must be done!" Who wooda thunk??


Gotta keep all those researchers busy and employed!

 

[ballardw]

I have worked with data from one of the CDC systems, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System for 15 years. They have periodically included firearms ownership and storage questions in the surveys.

The reports that use the data will report things like X percent of firearm owners have loaded weapons not locked in a a safe.

They don't ask:
Is the loaded "unsecured" weapon actually carried by a person?
Have you ever had to display or fire a weapon to protect self or family?

My recommendation is to not answer the questions on any similar surveys.

 

[Glenn E. Meyer]

There is a tremendous amount of literature on media violence and firearms as primes for aggression, Tom.

One problem is that the literature is not conclusive - at all. It is necessarily correlational or in lab experiments not able to show ecological validity.

It is also an are where a negative finding is hard to publish due to the need for a PC finding. This is reviewed quite well in the work of Ferguson. http://christopher.ferguson.socialpsychology.org/publications

He is in conflict with the standard position from Berkowitz and Anderson.

I predict that this research thrust is aimed at producing more evidence that the media, gun prime effects are major causes of violence.

There is evidence for priming effects but whether they are the major causes of 500 deaths a year in Chicago for instance or the rampages is shakey.

The best evaluation so far is the major causes of gun violence are:
1. Societal
2. Specific mental illness

- then media and gun images can channel the violent actions of someone already on the way to violent actions.

 

[44 AMP]

So, basically, what it appears they are saying is "we need more money to study it more, we need to know everything about everyone and every gun in the country, and we need the authority to do this, before we can make any recommendations. Oh, and we need more money to study this..."

does that about sum it up?

 

[Dashunde]

Yep, thats the summation I get from it... self-perpetuating government job security and wasting tax dollars.