Data on Firearms and Violence Too Weak

[beemerb]

Not enough info on gun study

Print This Email This Most Popular Larger Type Smaller Type Subscribe to The Republic




Data found lacking on effects of gun control efforts

Associated Press
Dec. 16, 2004 09:40 AM

WASHINGTON - A new analysis of efforts to control violence by restricting guns says there is not enough evidence to reach valid conclusions about their effectiveness.

The National Research Council said Thursday that a major research program on firearms is needed.

"Policy questions related to gun ownership and proposals for gun control touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics," Charles F. Wellford, chairman of the committee that wrote the report, said in a statement. advertisement




Among the major questions needing answers are whether there should be restrictions on who may possess firearms, on the number or types of guns that can be purchased, and whether safety locks should be required, said Wellford, professor of criminal justice at the University of Maryland.

"These and many related policy questions cannot be answered definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," he said. "The available data are too weak to support strong conclusions."

Thirty-four states have "right to carry" laws that allow certain adults to carry concealed weapons. However, the report found no credible evidence that such laws either decrease or increase violent crime.

Citing another example, the report said there is almost no evidence that programs aimed at steering children away from guns have had any effect on their behavior, knowledge or attitudes toward firearms.

The report does not address gun policy itself, only the quality of available research data on firearm violence, control and prevention efforts.

Many studies linking guns to suicide and criminal violence produce conflicting conclusions, have statistical flaws and often do not show whether gun ownership results in certain outcomes, the report said.

A serious limit in such analyses is the lack of good data on who owns firearms and on individual encounters with violence, according to the study.

Research scientists need appropriate access to federal and state data on gun use, manufacturing and sales, the study urged.

There have been mixed and often divergent findings about whether owning firearms helps deter criminals.

The report noted that many schools have programs intended to prevent gun violence. However, it added, some studies suggest that children's curiosity and teenagers' attraction to risk make them resistant to the programs or that the projects actually increase the appeal of guns.

Few of these programs, the report concludes, have been adequately evaluated.

The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System to begin collecting data.

The study by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Science, was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Sourcehttp://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/1216GunStudy16-ON.html


---

 

[ctdonath]

Translation: "We don't like the conclusions, so we're looking for more favorable data."

 

[Archangel]

Exacty. There's plenty of data, but because it doesn't support their anti-gun agenda, it's not "credible."

 

[tetchaje1]

Translation: "We don't like the conclusions, so we're looking for more favorable data."

BINGO!

I was thinking the exact same thing when reading that article.

The scary thing is that the "research" seems like it could be a trojan horse by an unscrupulous group like VPC or Brady to gather data on legitimate gun owners. This quote in the article peaked my warning bells.

[Affixing foil hat]Ahem![/Affixing foil hat]

A serious limit in such analyses is the lack of good data on who owns firearms and on individual encounters with violence, according to the study.

Research scientists need appropriate access to federal and state data on gun use, manufacturing and sales, the study urged.

 

[wolf]

The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System to begin collecting data.


not just one new bureaucracy..but two..lets make sure we know guns are evil

have mercy

wolf

 

[Justin]

The study by the Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Science, was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Follow the money. Doing Google searches on some of those names should provide some enlightening information. For instance, the Joyce Foundation and its offshoots have been throwing lots of money at anti-rights and specifically anti-gun organizations/studies for years. I would consider the point of this entire study suspect simply because they are associated with it.

That the study they funded couldn't conclude in their favor is really quite ironic.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Translation: "We don't like the conclusions, so we're looking for more favorable data."

Yeah, but you left out the part about demanding that the tax payers pick up the tab for this shameless anti-Second Amendment bigotry. Nothing quite like rubbing salt in wounds, eh?

 

[Bubbles]

Hmmmmmmmm...... looks like a golden opportunity to form our own 501c3 group, with an appropriately liberal touchy-feely name, that could apply for a grant to perform such a study... and since we'd have a new name, the anti's wouldn't realize that we had an agenda...

 

[agricola]

Didnt they use data that was already in existence rather than come up with their own? The chapter below is from the actual report, and it appears that Lott was used:

http://www.nap.edu/openbook/0309091241/html/120.html#pagetop

 

[Harry Tuttle]

Public health experts applauded "Firearms and Violence," a report released today by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). The report is a ringing endorsement of the public health approach to gun violence and a call to action for improving our nation's data and research on firearms.


Nearly 30,000 Americans are killed and 75,000 injured by firearms each year. "Firearm violence remains a significant public health problem in America," said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. "A public health approach is essential. It should be comprehensive and driven by sound science. Future research will help us better understand the health risks associated with firearms and guide injury reduction efforts."


The NAS report calls for a major national effort to improve knowledge about firearms, including:


-- Giving researchers access to trace data, registration data, and manufacturing and sales data from firearm manufactures;


-- Collecting information on gun ownership and use - citing the inadequancy of this data as a critical barrier to understanding gun violence; and


-- Maintaining basic data collection systems on crime and violent death, such as the National Violent Death Reporting System and the National Incident-Based Reporting System.


Overall, the report cites studies showing that violence is positively associated with firearm ownership and goes on to point out several areas of further research needed to explore a causal chain in the relationship.


Current research and data on firearms and violent crime are too weak to support strong conclusions about the effects of various measures to prevent and control gun violence, the report said. The report found " no credible evidence" that "right-to- carry" laws, which allow citizens to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime. To date, 34 states have enacted these laws (Chapter 6). "Ironically, right-to-carry laws are the prime example of laws promoted based on claims of scientific evidence of their effectiveness," said David Hemenway, Director of Harvard University's Injury Control Research Center.


The following experts are available on other aspects of the report:


Association between guns and violence:


-- David Hemenway, Director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and author of Private Guns, Public Health


-- Doug Wiebe, Resident Scholar at the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn


Law enforcement:


-- Joe Vince, Firearms Committee Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, formerly Director of the Tracing Center at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms


-- Scott Knight, President of the Minnesota Association of Chiefs of Police


Suicide:


-- Alan Berman, Executive Director of the American Association of Suicidology


-- Matthew Miller, Associate Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center


Right-to-carry laws and defensive gun use:


-- John Donohue, Professor at Yale Law School


-- Jens Ludwig, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University


-- David Hemenway, Director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and author of Private Guns, Public Health


Medical/clinician


-- Dr. Stephen Hargarten, Chair of the Medical College of Wisconsin's Department of Emergency Medicine


Children and gun violence prevention programs:


-- David Hemenway, Director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and author of Private Guns, Public Health


-- Doug Wiebe, Resident Scholar at the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn


Public health data collection systems:


-- Catherine Barber, Co-Director of the National Violent Injury Statistics Systems at Harvard


-- Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director, American Public Health Association


http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=40844

 

[P95Carry]

As ever - vacillation! To us of course everything is quite clear - but as ever, the anti's will be looking for every chink in the armor to further their cause. Pity they don't use actual logic for a change and then this issue would not even be up for debate. Hope this not already posted.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[ This news release and the report are available at http://national-academies.org ]

Date: Dec. 16, 2004
Contacts: Vanee Vines, Senior Media Relations Officer
Heather McDonald, Media Relations Assistant
Office of News and Public Information
202-334-2138; e-mail <[email protected]>

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Data on Firearms and Violence Too Weak to Settle Policy Debates;
Comprehensive Research Effort Needed

WASHINGTON -- The role of guns in U.S. society is a subject of intense policy debate and disagreement. However, current research and data on firearms and violent crime are too weak to support strong conclusions about the effects of various measures to prevent and control gun violence, says a new report from the National Academies' National Research Council. A comprehensive research program on firearms is needed if criminal-justice and crime-prevention policy is to have a sound basis.

Some of today's most pressing policy issues in this area cannot be tackled with existing data and research methods, which are weak, the report says. For example:

-- There is no credible evidence that "right-to-carry" laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime. To date, 34 states have enacted these laws.

-- There is almost no evidence that violence-prevention programs intended to steer children away from guns have had any effects on their behavior, knowledge, or attitudes regarding firearms. More than 80 such programs exist.

-- Research has found associations between gun availability and suicide with guns, but it does not show whether such associations reveal genuine patterns of cause and effect.

"Policy questions related to gun ownership and proposals for gun control touch on some of the most contentious issues in American politics: Should regulations restrict who may possess firearms? Should there be restrictions on the number or types of guns that can be purchased? Should safety locks be required? These and many related policy questions cannot be answered definitively because of large gaps in the existing science base," said Charles F. Wellford, professor, department of criminology and criminal justice, University of Maryland, College Park, and chair of the committee that wrote the report. "However, we do know what kind of data and research are needed to fill those gaps and, in turn, inform policy debates in a more meaningful way."

The study committee was not asked to address any issues of policy and did not do so. Rather, the committee evaluated the research base on firearms violence and on prevention, intervention, and control strategies. It also explored how new methods of merging scientific findings and data could inform strategies for reducing gun-related crime, suicide, and accidental fatalities. The federal government should support a robust research program in this area, concluded the committee.

Firearms, Criminal Violence, and Privacy Issues

Research linking firearms to criminal violence and suicide is seriously limited by a lack of credible information on who owns firearms and on individuals' encounters with violence, the report says. Moreover, many studies have methodological flaws or provide contradictory evidence; others do not determine whether gun ownership itself causes certain outcomes.

Assessing the potential of several ongoing national surveys to provide useful data on firearms should be a starting point, the report says. For instance, questions about gun use and access could be added to or fine-tuned in the Monitoring the Future project or the Youth Risk Behavior Survey. For research purposes, scientists also need appropriate access to federal and state data on gun use, manufacturing, and sales.

One of the largest barriers to better understanding gun violence is the lack of high-quality and extensive data on gun ownership and use. Some people have expressed concerns about expanding the government's data on gun ownership. Others have noted that some individuals -- especially those who use guns illegally -- will always be reluctant to disclose ownership information. Yet scientists in other fields, such as health care, have found effective ways to collect individual data on sensitive topics while protecting privacy. Research is needed -- and can indeed be done -- to determine whether ownership data can be accurately collected with minimal risk to legitimate privacy concerns, the report says.

Do Firearms Deter Crime?

Many Americans keep firearms to defend themselves against criminals, but research devoted to understanding the defensive and deterrent effects of guns has resulted in mixed and sometimes widely divergent findings, the report says. In addition, the accuracy of responses in gun-use surveys is a topic that has not been thoroughly investigated. The committee called for systematic research to define what is being measured in studies of defensive and deterrent effects of guns, to reduce reporting errors in national gun-use surveys, and to explore ways that different data sets may be linked to answer complex questions.

Likewise, new research tools are needed to evaluate right-to-carry laws. Existing studies that use similar methods and data yield very dissimilar findings. Some studies indicate that the laws reduce violent crime. Other studies show negligible effects, while still others suggest that they increase violent crime. It is impossible to draw any strong conclusions about their effects from these studies, the report says.

A Look at Interventions

Firearms are bought and sold in both formal markets, such as gun shops, and informal ones, such as the underground economy. Market-based interventions aimed at reducing criminals' access to guns include taxes on weapons and ammunition, limits on the number of firearms that can be purchased in a given time period, and gun "buy back" initiatives. Arguments for and against these approaches are largely based on speculation rather than scientific evidence. Data on gun markets -- on how many guns are sold through various channels, or how systematically background checks are performed, for instance -- are virtually nonexistent. Greater attention should be paid to research design and data needs regarding gun markets, the report says. More studies also should be conducted on potential links between firearms policies and suicide rates.

Programs created to prevent gun violence are common in the nation's public schools. However, the actual effects of particular programs on violence and injury rates are difficult to predict, the report says. Some studies suggest that children's curiosity and teenagers' attraction to risk make them resistant to the programs or that the projects actually increase the appeal of guns. But few programs have been adequately evaluated. Gun-safety technologies, such as trigger locks, also have been proposed as a way to prevent injuries. Yet how these technologies affect injury rates remains unknown. Government programs for prevention of firearm violence should include evaluation.

Available scientific evidence on how policing interventions and tougher sentencing policies affect firearms violence is both limited and mixed, the report adds. Several cities, including Boston and Richmond, Va., have implemented highly publicized programs designed to suppress crime and gun offenses. It is difficult to gauge the value of the measures because social and economic factors behind criminal acts are often complex and interwoven, and the efforts are narrow in scope. Without much better research, the benefits and costs of policing and sentencing interventions remain largely unknown.

Data limitations are immense in the study of firearms and violence, the committee emphasized. The report calls for the development of a National Violent Death Reporting System and a National Incident-Based Reporting System. No single data system can answer all questions about violent events, but it is important to start collecting accurate and reliable information that describes basic facts about violent injuries and deaths.

The report includes a dissenting opinion written by one committee member regarding the effects of right-to-carry laws on homicide rates, and a response by the committee.

The study was sponsored by the National Institute of Justice, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Joyce Foundation, Annie E. Casey Foundation, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation. The National Research Council is the principal operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Engineering. It is a private, nonprofit institution that provides science and technology advice under a congressional charter. A committee roster follows.

Copies of Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review are available from the National Academies Press; tel. 202-334-3313 or 1-800-624-6242 or on the Internet at http://www.nap.edu. The cost of the report is $47.95 (prepaid) plus shipping charges of $4.50 for the first copy and $.95 for each additional copy. Reporters may obtain a copy from the Office of News and Public Information (contacts listed above).

[ This news release and the report are available at http://national-academies.org ]

 

[Gunstar1]

What do you mean, like this?

Contact: Peter Hamm of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 202-898-0792

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 /U.S. Newswire/ -- A blue ribbon panel of scientists and scholars of the National Research Council today concluded a three-year-long review of data on gun violence in America, issuing a report that called for research to close enormous gaps in the knowledge base for making sound gun policy decisions.

In fact they said they needed the data because they could find no proof that gun control reduces crime or right to carry neither increases or decreases crime.

Unfortunately, the Federal government has been moving in the precise opposite direction. Congress has shut down sources of gun violence data and favors giving gun companies immunity from facing discovery in the courts.

"Congress and the current Administration have been working to systematically block information related to gun crimes in America -- information that could help drive sensible public policy," said Michael Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

In its report, the panel said, "licensed gun dealers play an important role" in "supplying criminals and juveniles with guns." The panel called for crime gun trace data maintained by the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), as well as information from Brady Act background checks on gun purchasers, to be made available for research that may lead to a more complete understanding of the diversion of guns from licensed dealers to the illegal market.

Absolutly correct, a new gun must go through a licensed dealer. It's the law. However the Dealer can do nothing about who the customer sells it to years from now. The ATF is aware that Dealers that go beyond the letter of the law to keep guns off the streets can still end up with multiple trace hits.

Instead, Congress has blocked that data. This year, Congress passed legislation requiring the destruction of Brady background records after 24 hours and took several steps to aggressively block disclosure of the ATF data. That trace data, according to the NRC, has already enabled researchers to understand that many thousands of guns are rapidly diverted from gun dealers into the hands of criminals and juveniles.

It is not what "researchers" do with the data, it is what people say the research means is the problem.

"By enforcing this policy, Congress is doing the bidding of the extreme gun lobby and the gun industry, which does not want the American people to understand how reckless gun dealers funnel guns to criminals," Barnes said.

The National Rifle Association has worked for years to cast a broad chill over public gun issue research. The NRA knows the better informed the public is about gun industry complicity in the gun violence problem, the more difficult it will be to pass their top legislative priority -- sweeping legal immunity for the gun industry.

Or could it be that Congress passed these laws because Brady and the VPC mis-used the data to try and prove the gun industry is guilty of crimes. It is YOUR OGRANIZATIONS FAULT that researchers cannot get to this data.

Gun tracings tell the police what licensed dealer sold the gun first. A LEO will then get the name of the original owner from the same licensed dealer. A LEO must then track down what happend to the gun from the first buyer. Trace data does not tell what happend to it after it was legally sold. The tracings are not a random sampling either.

First, tracings are for all the guns sold by that dealer, ever. If the dealer had 3 criminal tracings for last year, the guns that were traced could have been sold 1 or 5 or 15 years ago.

Once that has been proved in court the case has usually been thrown out. So Congress decided if you cannot use the data correctly and tort reform did not pass, well lets restrict the data.

The ATF has said that high volume gun dealers can do nothing illegal and have a high number of tracings. However, that has not stopped inappropriate use of trace data to blame gun dealers.


http://www.usnewswire.com/

 

[Gunstar1]

Oh it is worse than I thought

The following experts are available on other aspects of the report:

Association between guns and violence:

-- David Hemenway, Director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and author of Private Guns, Public Health

-- Doug Wiebe, Resident Scholar at the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn

Law enforcement:

-- Joe Vince, Firearms Committee Member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, formerly Director of the Tracing Center at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms

-- Scott Knight, President of the Minnesota Association of Chiefs of Police

Suicide:

-- Alan Berman, Executive Director of the American Association of Suicidology

-- Matthew Miller, Associate Director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center

Right-to-carry laws and defensive gun use:

-- John Donohue, Professor at Yale Law School

-- Jens Ludwig, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University

-- David Hemenway, Director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and author of Private Guns, Public Health

Medical/clinician

-- Dr. Stephen Hargarten, Chair of the Medical College of Wisconsin's Department of Emergency Medicine

Children and gun violence prevention programs:

-- David Hemenway, Director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and author of Private Guns, Public Health

-- Doug Wiebe, Resident Scholar at the Firearm and Injury Center at Penn

Public health data collection systems:

-- Catherine Barber, Co-Director of the National Violent Injury Statistics Systems at Harvard

-- Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director, American Public Health Association

HMmm....
David Hemenway, anti-gun book author

Donohue and Ludwig, 2 researchers determined to debunk Lott's work

Joe Vince, former director of the ATF's gun-tracing unit who runs a Maryland consulting group called Crime Gun Solutions ...
More info on Mr. Vince:

Joe Vince, former chief of the ATF's crime analysis branch, says the ATF is undermanned for the job. Restricting handgun purchases to one a month per person -- already the law in four states -- would level the playing field, he says.

To counter the NRA, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence will send you to Joe Vince, a former ATF official who helped invent the database system and who will tell you the White House is "misinformed" - that the system has been tested and works, that criminals often use new guns, that cops have made many matches over the years.

So if the media needs help, they can ask the anit-gun people on this little panel what the reasearch doesn't really say?
If you needed a list of anti-gun scientific sounding people, there you are.

 

[P95Carry]

So if the media needs help, they can ask the anti-gun people on this little panel what the reasearch doesn't really say?

Downright depressing ain't it?!

 

[Gunstar1]

Downright depressing ain't it?!

The most depressing part is that many media outlets will parrot these people. Instead of seeing that all the "safety" limits and bans do nothing, they harp on the fact that right to carry does not decrease crime.

Lets see, this report proves nothing bad happens when CCW's are allowed.
So it also proves "wild west shootouts" are also a lie.

They can't find anything Brady or VPC has worked on in the past have worked.

After 3 years they neither support nor dismiss Lott's claims.

Brady does not want this researched for legislative use, they want the data for lawsuits.

 

[Leatherneck]

The most depressing part is that many media outlets will parrot these people.

Whaddya want: Fair and balanced investigative journalism?

TC
TFL Survivor