You can’t have Gun-Deaths without Guns

Since the year 2000, over 30,000 Americans have died every year due to firearms. Many people and organizations have had different ideas on how to reduce this problem.

Gun rights supporters promote legislation and policies that make guns more easily accessible and allowed into more public spaces to deter crime. Meanwhile, gun control advocates encourage restricting who can carry and where to limit access to prevent crime.

Who is right? To figure out which laws work, researchers reviewed 130 studies published between 1950-2014 that examined how state, national, and international gun control laws affected health outcomes.

Despite limitations of design and execution of the included studies, investigators found that when several laws directed at different aspects of gun control were enacted at the same time, certain countries lowered firearm-related deaths.

The best example of this is Australia. The 1996 National Firearms Agreement included measures that banned specific weapons, launched a buyback program of banned guns, required registration of all firearms, forced a 28-day waiting period for purchase, and licensed all retailers. This broad range of laws reduced overall firearm-related deaths, especially suicides, and mass shootings.

Another major conclusion is that some clear-cut limitations are strongly associated with decreases in firearm-related deaths. Background checks that include information on and history as well as help keep dangerous weapons out of dangerous hands. Child access prevention laws that allow for felony prosecution of offenders lessen accidental deaths among children. Also, .

Furthermore, the researchers did not look at conflicts of interest. Some industry-funded studies had different findings after re-analysis by other researchers.

Clearly, there is a need for continued research to determine what works best in the United States. There must be a way to prevent firearm injuries and deaths while protecting law-abiding gun owners. Until Congress ends the ban on gun violence research and prevention, limited data will be available to create effective public health policies.

commentary by Bich-May Nguyen

Abstract

Firearms account for a substantial proportion of external causes of death, injury, and disability across the world. Legislation to regulate firearms has often been passed with the intent of reducing problems related to their use. However, lack of clarity around which interventions are effective remains a major challenge for policy development. Aiming to meet this challenge, we systematically reviewed studies exploring the associations between firearm-related laws and firearm homicides, suicides, and unintentional injuries/deaths. We restricted our search to studies published from 1950 to 2014. Evidence from 130 studies in 10 countries suggests that in certain nations the simultaneous implementation of laws targeting multiple firearms restrictions is associated with reductions in firearm deaths. Laws restricting the purchase of (e.g., background checks) and access to (e.g., safer storage) firearms are also associated with lower rates of intimate partner homicides and firearm unintentional deaths in children, respectively. Limitations of studies include challenges inherent to their ecological design, their execution, and the lack of robustness of findings to model specifications. High quality research on the association between the implementation or repeal of firearm legislation (rather than the evaluation of existing laws) and firearm injuries would lead to a better understanding of what interventions are likely to work given local contexts. This information is key to move this field forward and for the development of effective policies that may counteract the burden that firearm injuries pose on populations. PMID: 26905895

Santaella-Tenorio J et al. Epidemiol Rev. 2016; 38 (1): 140-57.