HICRC Firearms Research Team Publications:  1990-2009

Since 1990, HICRC's small team of researchers has published more than 65 peer reviewed journal articles on guns, along with book chapters and books, and dozens of editorials, letters, responses, book reviews and encyclopedia entries.  Among many accomplishments, Center research was

1. The first to describe national gun storage practices-and to show that firearm owners who have received training are not more likely to store their guns safely (Articles 32-33).

2. The first to show that members of the National Rifle Association support most sensible gun control laws (Article 26).

3. The first to document the various ways guns are used by batterers to intimidate their intimate partners (Article 45).

4. The first to document the psychological costs of gun ownership on the community (Articles 65-66).

5. The first to explain the large overestimates of self-defense gun use (Articles 37-39).

6. The first to demonstrate that most so-called self-defense gun use is illegal, and inimical to society (Articles 40-41).

7. The first to document the association between gun carrying in motor vehicles and road rage (Articles 50-51).

8. The first to provide national information on guns on college campuses, and the type of students who bring guns to college (Articles 25-26).

9. The first to document that the majority of inner-city teens who have carried guns illegally would prefer to live in a world where it was impossible for teens such as themselves to have access to firearms (Articles 28-29).

The Center also showed the contagious nature of adolescent gun carrying (Articles 46-47) and documented the strong association between household gun ownership levels and violent death to children and to women-deaths from homicide, suicide and gun accidents (Articles 20-21, 23-24).  The Center was among the first to document that boys commonly play with household firearms without adult supervision or knowledge (Articles 47, 53, 75) and among the first to advocate for bean bag guns, tasers, and other less lethal weapons for police (Article 77).  A Center study provides the current best estimate of the number of guns in America (Article 25).