Assignment 16 - Anna Baskin

Sandy Hooks Elementary School: 27 killed, one injured.

Orlando, Florida: 49 killed, 58 injured.

Las Vegas: 59 killed, over 500 injured.

In the wake of each tragic mass shooting resurrects the contentious question of gun control. Following the Las Vegas shooting, Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin posted on Twitter, “To all those political opportunists who are seizing on the tragedy in Las Vegas to call for more gun regs…You can’t regulate evil.”

Most of the Republican Party seems to be in agreement. Republican Senator Mike Lee, Utah: “There is an absence of certain proof as to the efficacy of gun ownership laws in the past.” Arizona Senator John McCain says, “To think that somehow gun control is the answer, in my view, that would have to be proved.”

And they’re right; the research is lacking. But not the research supporting gun control – I mean gun research in general.

In relation to mortality, gun violence is the least researched cause of death and second least funded cause of death, behind falls. It’s true, gun violence research is given only barely more federal funding than drowning, and drastically less than motor vehicles, which cause close to the same number of deaths.

So why the gap in funding?

It started with one research paper. In 1993, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study by Arthur Kellerman, funded by the Center for Disease Control, with controversial results. The study found that gun ownership, rather than protect the owner from criminals, was actually “strongly and independently” associated with increased risk of homicide by family member or intimate acquaintance. In response to the study, the National Rifle Association attempted the only logical course of action: shut down the CDC’s Center for Injury Prevention, which researches how to prevent falls, vehicle crashes, and homicides. In other words, shoot the messenger. After failing to shut down an entire branch of the CDC, the NRA instead championed the Dickey amendment, named after its author, Republican congressman Jay Dickey. This amendment prohibits the CDC from spending any federal funds to “advocate or promote gun control,” which seems innocuous. No federal funding should be used to advocate legislative action. However, this clause was accompanied by the forced movement of the CDC’s $2.6 million gun violence research budget to another unit, sending a clear message to scientists – hands off the issue. Dr. Kellerman, author of the controversial paper, wrote, “Precisely what was or was not permitted under the clause was unclear. But no federal employee was willing to risk his or her career or the agency's funding to find out.”

The Dickey amendment has since been reauthorized yearly in Congress, and in effect has shrunk the CDC’s firearm injury prevention funding to 96% its original state. Even outside federal funding, researchers hoping to secure private funds for nonpartisan scientific research into gun violence must avoid the words “gun” or “firearm” for fear of backlash. This serves to demonstrate the reach of the looming shadow of the NRA on the public health research community. In fact, in 2011 the New York Times reported the CDC would request that the researchers it funds give them a “heads-up” before they publish studies relating to firearms. Then, as a courtesy, the CDC would pass on this information to the NRA. 

It is perhaps not entirely accurate to portray the NRA as a hulking beast, bullying timid scientists to preserve its public image. The NRA absolutely recognizes the lethal dangers of firearms, but it sees the problem not as a public health issue, but a criminal justice one. The NRA believes in the capability of law enforcement to deal with gun violence, and fears the potentially partisan approach of scientists may influence their research. 

However, without the facts required to debate reasonably, Republicans and Democrats alike are stuck in an endless argument. Republicans will rant about their right to bear arms and the security their guns give them; Democrats will point to homicide after homicide and lecture about the need for gun control to stop the violence, but in the end neither side has proof to back up their arguments. This isn’t an issue of liberal versus conservative; it’s an issue of fact versus fiction.

Meanwhile, we could have had scientists solving these problems decades ago. What small amounts of research exists is already instrumental in determining the effectiveness of gun control policies. For example, multiple studies found that child access prevention laws, which mandate guns be stored in safe firearm storage out of sight of children and penalizes those who disobey, effectively reduce unintentional deaths of children. However, the 1994 US ban on assault weapons (considered a major victory for Democrats) was found to have no association with reduced homicide in 15 different states. 

Through this sort of research, we can weed out what gun control legislations work, and which are ineffective, without infringing overmuch on the average man’s right to bear arms. Even Jay Dickey came to this conclusion. In the years before his death, Dickey came to regret his role drafting the Dickey amendment, and appeared in multiple interviews, newspaper columns, and editorials, testifying against the legislation. He even authored a piece in collaboration with Mark Rosenburg, director of the CDC’s Center for Injury Prevention during the time of the scandal, to emphasize the importance of gun control research today. Dickey likens the research to the development of barricades on interstate highways following intense scientific research, which have severely reduced the number of head-on collisions and saved countless lives. 

And here lies the flaw in the argument, “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.” After all, cars don’t kill people, bad drivers kill people, but we can still identify the issues with the car and the driving system, research control measures, and implement a solution that doesn’t require everyone to walk to work in the mornings. In the same way, it’s possible to research gun control measures and make an educated decision to save lives without taking away people’s right to own firearms.

Senator Marco Rubio: “There’s just no evidence that gun laws would prevent these shootings.”

He’s right. Now let’s fix that issue.