Newsweek Article: The Science of Gun Control

[Superpsy]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/141500

The Science of Gun Control


Jun 23, 2008 Issue


There's nothing simple about gun control, a tangle of legal, political and public-health issues complicated by cultural preferences and regional biases. Passions run high on all sides. Lifelong hunters who grew up with firearms, urban victims of gun violence, Second Amendment scholars, NRA lobbyists, chiefs of police—they've all got cases to make and they make them well, often contentiously.

For the past 15 years, much of the debate has centered on the effectiveness of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, the federal gun-control bill that was passed in 1993. Critics say the focus on law-abiding gun buyers doesn't address the real issue—bad guys who acquire their weapons illegally. Supporters say that the bill stops thousands of illegal gun purchases and deters crime and violence. Now medical research has come to the rescue, sifting through the data to figure out which legal measures work best to reduce firearm suicides and homicides.

In a paper published in the May issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Steven Sumner, a third-year med student (who conceived the project), and Dr. Peter Layde, codirector of the Injury Research Center at the Medical College of Wisconsin, found that local background checks, which are optional and used by just a handful of states, were more effective than the federal background checks mandated by the Brady law. The report, which has the elegant simplicity of the best research, compared the homicide and suicide rates in states that perform only federal checks with states that do state-level checks and those that perform local-level checks. The local-level checks were associated with a 27 percent lower firearm suicide rate and a 22 percent lower homicide rate among adults 21 and older, the legal age to purchase a gun. (The state checks also reduced gun violence, but by much less.)

Why are local checks so much better? "We hypothesize that it's due to access to additional information that's not available at the federal checks," says Layde, "particularly related to mental-health issues and domestic-violence issues." All 50 states use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), the minimum required under Brady, while 17 states also perform state-level checks and 12 do additional local-level checks. Layde says the NICS databases are "very complete" when it comes to tracking fugitives from justice, felony indictments and convictions, dishonorable discharges and some other factors that disqualify a person from purchasing a firearm. However, it appears that a lot of critical data gathered at the local level, involving things like restraining orders and commitments to mental institutions, are not filtering up to the federal level.

"This is the first study that's looked at this issue," says Layde. "If the magnitude of impact we found were in fact to apply to all 50 states, you would expect a very substantial reduction in suicides and homicides linked to firearms, many thousands." However, background checks can be both an administrative and a cost burden for strapped and stretched local authorities. There is another way to get the same results: improve the flow of local information to the NICS databases. "In an ideal world," says Layde, "you might not have to have the local agencies involved if you just reliably got all the data they had up to the federal level."

As for wading into the middle of one of the country's most controversial issues, Layde is unfazed. "I think our role in this area is to try to provide objective information that policymakers can use to form the best relevant policies," he says. "Having that objectivity and trying to do a clear, clean scientific approach is far more valuable than me getting up on a soapbox and espousing my personal views, which I keep to myself." Spoken like a true scientist.

© 2008

My question. Would you support replacing the federal check with a local one? Please, don't respond if all you're going to say is, "I don't support any check at all..."

 

[divemedic]

No. (I wanted to leave it at that, but the system says that post is too short)

 

[Thernlund]

I don't think I would. Last thing I want to do is put that sort of thing in the hands of the states. Can you imagine how it would get bastardized in places like California and Illinois?


-T.

 

[Solo Flyer]

It's Newsweek(AKA the Washington Post).
Making USA Today look conservative.
Any idea promoted or espoused by them is going to be a loser for the Republic.That can be taken to the bank.
Leave it at the Federal level.That's bad enough.

 

[Titan6]

Yes but only if they agreed to get rid of the ATFE and the numerous firearm laws based upon the ICC that have nothing to do with interstate commerce.

 

[LWGN]

The article doesn't even begin to suggest that local checks replace Federal ones. The local checks studied were in addition to the Federal check.
According to the article, the additional public health benefit of local background checks was most likely due to local departments having better access to data on commitments, restraining orders, and domestic violence than was available in the Federal database, even though those things are already supposed to be reported to the Federal database. Perhaps, as the article suggested, just having local agencies actually do what they are already supposed to do would take care of the issue without adding more hassle and expense.

If we are going to have background checks, then we should do them in such a way that they actually work.

 

[longdayjake]

The single issue I have with the issue of local checks is that their evidence is based stricly on statistical information. For example, do these states and localities that require checks annoy gun owners into not buying guns from that state or locality? The more rules you make the less people are going to want to cooperate. I do see an advantage in getting guns out of the hands of wife beaters and nut cases, but I am not entirely convinced that local background checks will do the trick. You simply have to weigh the cost and decide if it is worth the benefit.

 

[Picard]

No, this just gives the government more reason to deny a citizen the right to keep and bear arms.

Statistics can and are skewed because they oversimplify the situation. No doubt it was the same in this case. You can't just group states as a whole and suppose that they are the same as other states. States such as New York, when compared to states like South Dakota couldn't be further apart in terms of social norms yet this statistic assumes that they are equal. This study is flawed from the start.

 

[rugerman07]

NO! I live in The Peoples Republic Of Illinois, a state, (if you want to call it that), that refuses to acknowledge our 2nd amendment rights. Hopfully, Heller vs D.C. will rectify that.

 

[Standing Wolf]

I'm sure leftist extremists would see the point of having to undergo background checks before applying for government permission to buy books and magazines and sign up for internet connections.

 

[Nolo]

Okay... I feel bad for being the only guy to say "yes".
Why did I say "yes"?
Because the Constitution was set up as a limit on the federal government, not the state governments (only in the amendments after the BoR is there any limits placed on the states, with the arguable exception to the 2nd Amendment [which states that the RKBA "shall not be infringed", as opposed to the 1st which only says that Congress "shall make no law"]), so a local background check would be more in the spirit of the Constitution, if still a bit off.

 

[Big45]

Haha who voted Yes

 

[Nolo]

Look right above you.

 

[stephpd]

background checks

So they state that more checks prevent suicide? To bad most suicides are by children not old enough to purchase guns. And most murders are by felons on felons. That article doesn't address either of these. Looking into sealed records of juveniles can't be a good thing. And anyone who wants to kill themselves will find a way. Purchasing a gun just to kill yourself is really low on the reasons most people purchase a gun.

Stupid article with an even more flawed conclusion.:banghead:

 

[romma]

Too many power hungry wardens will abuse this in no-time flat.

 

[jrfoxx]

Assuming it was run under the same rules as the federal NICS, and was NOT, in ANY way, discretionary (meaning there must be actual commitment papers, felony records, etc to prove the denial, not just the CLEO saying "I think this guy is a whacko, so....DENIED), and assuming it did not include any additional paperwork by the buyer, include any additional delays to the buyer, or require any additional information or fees be provided by the buyer, then I dont see why there is any reason for it to be any more of an issue than the NICS check already in place, everywhere.

My only concern, is that we all know there are erronious denials caused by the way NICS is done, so the more "layers" you add, the more the same problem is likely to be compounded, so that would be a negative result, but not because of any actions, but just because problems inherint in the way NICS works will simply be compounded, so there would need to ne an overhaul in how they do the checks, which they need to deal with even if we saty with just the federal NICS, as there are some needles, error causing flaws to be fixed, regardless of any expansion of the system, or not.

Biggest error causing issue with current NICS, if I have been told correctly, is that when they check names, the check them against similar, but different spellings, and with "sounds alike or similar" names, which REALLY makes no freakin' sense. Just because I have they same name as someone else if you cahnge a couple letters, or my name "sounds like" someone elses, is stupid. with 300 million people in the country, of course there will be similarly spelled, or sounding names, but that doesnt mean there's any reason to suspect I'm any of those people, so whats the point of it? Run MY full, legal, correctly spelled name, that I have proven is accurate by showing ID, and leave it at that. No other names are in ANY way relevant.

 

[Nate C.]

Been there, done that (sort of).

Printz v. United States (95-1478), 521 U.S. 898 (1997)

http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-1478.ZO.html

 

[chieftain]

I guess that's why there were so few murders and suicides in Chicago, New York, and Washington DC. the local records check allow virtually no one to get a weapon, HE, He, he. They are not allowed to have OC spray, knife, walking sticks etc. Nothing. Of course this keeps the people safe, from?????

obviously why these places are much safer than say, some crazy place like, Kennesaw Georgia. NOT!

More hyperbole by the wingnut left. That desperate need to control people and seize their property, for their purposes. After all, these elite's know much better than ignorant folk like me.

Sort of like the folks that ask, as I was yesterday, "You want the Company's that make medicines to do away with the FDA?" I have noticed most of these folks want to legalize, illegal drugs, but don't want to legalize, "legal" drugs. Me? I'm just an ole' Country red neck, I simply don't understand these folks.

Go figure.

Fred

 

[everallm]

No, keep the Federal but amend it so that it can be used for out of stare/no-resident purchases.

If I see a sweet deal in Florida whilst on vacation why do I have to wait to get back to NJ, sort out a local FFL, pay for transport and other ancillary costs then have the identical NICS check run in NJ that I can have run in FL. It's the same check for Gods' sake.

 

[foghornl]

Replacing the fed-check with none.

 

[Cannonball888]

It has been local in Florida forever. Any Florida resident getting a NICS background check is instead run through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) computer and not the NICS one. The switch is made when a Florida FFL calls NICS. The FDLE system has all the data from the NICS system but also recently updated state info. I've had delays when NICS reported the FDLE computer was down.

 

[unspellable]

"science" ?

This sort of "science" takes advantage of the common trick of confounding correlation with cause and effect. It's as if you went to an Amish community, observed the traffic for a while and concluded that buggies push horses around.

 

[scrat]

lets see if this is long enough



NO

 

[doc2rn]

Since I live in a everybody has 'em state it wouldn't be a big deal. If you where in CA or IL it would be a travesty of justice.

 

[Old Fuff]

Critics say the focus on law-abiding gun buyers doesn't address the real issue—bad guys who acquire their weapons illegally.

Crime is not commited by guns, but bad people that use them.

And because they are criminals they ignore laws that the rest of us have to follow. They steal firearms, buy them from other criminals, or make straw purchases from unsuspecting dealers.

It doesn't make any difference who makes the background check, or how it is made, because the people you are trying to catch operate outside the background check system, or they subvert it

Of course Newsweek can't figure that out...