Slayings Draw Attention to National Gun Control Policies
On
February 29, six-year-old Kayla Rolland was shot and killed in a Michigan
classroom by a schoolmate who had allegedly retrieved the handgun from
a bedroom in his uncle's house. The next day, a man in a Pittsburgh suburb
opened fire in a Burger King, McDonald's, and an apartment complex, killing
one person and injuring others. Decrying the violence, President Bill
Clinton called for Congress to pass a gun-safety law before the April
20 anniversary of the Columbine High School shootings.
Does a gun culture exist in the United States?
No question, says David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center. It does. But an appalling lack of data exists about gun-related injuries and deaths, gun owners, and gun storage. Hemenway has made it his mission to help fill the void. He and other researchers at the center want the public and politicians to think of gun use not just as a social issue but also as a public health issue. The first step, he said, is to collect the data.
"If you are killed by a firearm in the US, it is most likely the result of suicide, but there are no data systems for either suicides or unintentional firearm fatalities," said Hemenway. "There is nothing to tell us the circumstances of the injury or about the firearm. For unintentional shootings, for example, we don't know whether you are more likely to be injured indoors or outdoors, with a handgun or long gun, or whether the victim shot himself or was shot by another person."
To help collect information, the Harvard Injury Control Research Center has received financial backing from five foundations to start a surveillance system of firearms that would track data.
In the US, nearly 90 people die from gunshot wounds every day, said Hemenway. The deaths do not result from an American citizenry bent on violence. Crime and violence rates in the US are similar to those of other developed nations. "We do not seem to have higher rates of assault or sexual violence," said Hemenway, "yet we are out of line in terms of homicide and gun accidents."
Americans own more guns than citizens of many other developed countries. Nearly 40 percent of US households contain at least one gun, but that does not mean that household members know of guns in the home. Hemenway and his colleagues conducted random sample studies of adult populations in 1994, 1996, and 1999 and found that women were less likely to report a gun in a house, which suggests they were unaware of its presence. Surprisingly, gun owners who had been trained in safe gun storage were less likely to store their guns unloaded and locked away, said Hemenway.
Currently, any US citizen over the age of 21 who is not a convicted felon can apply for gun ownership. Loopholes exist in secondary markets, however. People can buy guns at trade shows, flea markets, and online without the same background checks that exist in gun shops.
People who die under the age of 40 in the US are more likely to die of injuries than diseases, said Hemenway. In most developed countries, including America, motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of such injuries, but "only in the US are gun-related injuries the second leading cause," he said.
Hemenway would like to see the creation of an agency that would regulate
gun policy in the same way that a motor vehicle agency controls cars.
Creating such an agency would not mean stopping people from owning guns,
said Hemenway. But he hopes it would promote responsibility and answer
questions about a public health problem that claims the lives of more
than 30,000 US citizens every year.
