what steps have been taken to create gun control
Public wellness expert calls Biden'due south orders 'good beginning steps'
In the wake of several mortiferous mass shootings, President Biden announced a list of executive orders terminal Thursday aimed at reducing gun-related violence, and called for Congress to ban assault weapons and loftier-capacity magazines. Biden'due south orders included better regulation of "ghost guns" — homemade weapons that lack traceable serial numbers — and stabilizing braces that transform pistols into more lethal, curt-barreled rifles. They besides called for increased support for violence-intervention programs, and model "ruby-red flag" legislation to make information technology easier to get guns abroad from people who pose a danger to themselves or others.
Stopping gun violence volition take myriad approaches, including a range of public health efforts, according to David Hemenway, professor of wellness policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Eye, and author of the 2006 book "Individual Guns, Public Health." Hemenway, who is working on a new book about firearms and public health while the Elizabeth S. and Richard Chiliad. Cashin Fellow at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, spoke with the Gazette near what needs to be done to curb gun violence in the U.South.
GAZETTE: What was your impression of Biden's executive orders around gun control?
HEMENWAY: Biden's overall plan seems fantabulous—a response that is more simply more than law enforcement — and these executive actions are proficient beginning steps to reduce the terrible problem of firearm violence in the U.Southward. At that place are various specific actions taken, such as beginning to address the problems of ghost guns (which aren't subject to background checks), and they are all important. He could practise more, but there are so many important things he can't practise by himself with executive orders. Overall, I remember it's a nice first pace, but he needs Congress to work with him to do many of the near important things.
GAZETTE: What are some of those things?
HEMENWAY: Universal background checks need to be passed by Congress, but fifty-fifty more than of import than that would exist universal gun-licensing laws (which implies universal background checks) and handgun registration. But as anybody who drives a motor vehicle needs to have a license and vehicle registration, the same should be true for anyone who owns a firearm. Only a few U.S. states have gun licensing, but every bit far every bit I can tell, virtually every other developed country has some form of gun licensing, and their levels of gun violence are all far lower than ours. Licensing and registration helps continue guns out of the wrong hands.
There are so many other actions the federal authorities could take to aid further reduce firearm violence. For example, the federal government could model what skillful grooming for gun owners should wait similar. In our piece of work at the School of Public Health, we sent people out to take dozens of basic gun training classes throughout the Northeast. Some of the trainings were excellent, but some were horrible. Only one-half of the trainers discussed how you should store your guns appropriately, while a few said if you have kids y'all can just hide your guns. Nigh no 1 discussed the part of guns in suicide, the curiosity of children, methods of de-escalating conflict, alternative methods of self-defense, or the type of continual grooming one needs to effectively utilise a gun in self-defense. The federal authorities could play an important part in helping to create and model rules around training.
We too need better gun-safety standards. Many children (and some adults) don't know that when you take out the magazine from a semi-automated pistol, the gun is notwithstanding loaded, not realizing that there is a bullet left in the chamber and that if you pull the trigger you could kill somebody. This is the most common way that children are killed unintentionally with guns in this country. Fifty-fifty better than educational activity every child or fifty-fifty having guns that get in apparent when they tin can all the same be fired, semi-automated pistols can be made so the gun won't fire when the magazine has been removed. We should likewise take childproof guns. Many two- to 4-year-olds kill themselves when they discover a loaded firearm. We fabricated childproof aspirin bottles considering children would detect aspirin bottles and dice from ingesting the aspirin, only nosotros all the same go far also easy for toddlers to find guns and kill themselves.
I besides think we need strict liability laws for gun owners. One of the reasons adventitious pool drownings decreased in many parts of the earth is considering people who don't properly fence and protect their pools became liable in the instance of accidental injury, especially to children who gained access to the puddle and drowned. The same should exist true for something as unsafe as a gun. If you lot own TNT, or anything which is extremely unsafe, you have to be safe and responsible with information technology. Right now, that's not the instance for many guns, which are too commonly stored insecurely. Roughly 350,000 guns are stolen each year and terminate upwardly in the incorrect hands.
"Y'all often need to bear witness people that it'southward not just gild that is paying an enormous price, merely that the gun violence is likewise negatively affecting them personally," said David Hemenway, a professor of health policy.
Rose Lincoln/Harvard file photo
GAZETTE: Picking up on the issue of liability, Biden said during his press conference if he could do one thing it would be to eliminate amnesty for gun manufacturers.
HEMENWAY: That's certainly important. The reason the police force was passed during the Bush administration was to protect the gun manufacturers and distributors who saw what had happened in the tobacco loonshit, and they didn't want information technology to happen to them, so they got Republicans to pass a constabulary giving them incredible immunity compared to other products. And then yes, that would be a useful thing.
GAZETTE: Why do yous think at that place is so little appetite in America, even afterward and so many mass shootings, for any additional controls on the sale and use of guns?
HEMENWAY: I think it'south a combination of misinformation and the culture wars. I looked at Google news this morn, and the headline near the Biden initiatives was from Play a joke on News: "Sen. Hawley: Biden ultimately seeks civilian gun confiscation while permitting rioters and crime."
GAZETTE: What do you think of Biden'south choice to head the ATF, David Chipman?
HEMENWAY: I know David. I remember he'south great. He'south very smart, very personable, hard-working, and quite experienced. He was an ATF agent for years — he's certainly well-qualified. It would be proficient if he could strengthen the ATF'south oversight of gun dealers. The agency has been hamstrung through the years, and there seem to all the same be besides many bad-apple tree gun dealers who make it likewise easy for the wrong people to gain access to firearms.
GAZETTE: Biden's plan likewise calls for a new report on gun trafficking to be conducted past the Justice Department. In your mind, why is that data so important?
HEMENWAY: Reports are good, but perhaps even more important would exist to make the raw information available to independent researchers. Having good data that can be analyzed by contained scientists has been important in reducing injury in many areas. We have an splendid data system for motor vehicles deaths, for example, which has been instrumental in understanding and helping to reduce traffic fatalities. Now we finally take a complete National Violent Death Reporting System for homicides, suicides, and adventitious gun deaths, which is keen. But we don't have a good information system for not-fatal gunshot injuries. The raw data on gun tracing is also likely to be highly useful. Xx to 25 years ago researchers could access the raw data so nosotros could run across in particular where the guns used in criminal offense were coming from — what kind of shops and then forth. Now, it is quite difficult for researchers to gain access to that raw data.
GAZETTE: During his press conference Biden mentioned that gun violence costs the U.South. $280 billion a year in things likes hospital and physical therapy bills, legal fees, and prison costs. Is that 1 way to assist frame the word, since the mounting decease cost seems to make no departure?
HEMENWAY: I do retrieve that is 1 way forward. You often need to show people that information technology's not just lodge that is paying an enormous price, but that the gun violence is also negatively affecting them personally. If you can convince governors that gun violence is really a drain on their budgets, then they might do something.
GAZETTE: Biden'due south orders besides included a call for national "ruby-red-flag" legislation, gun control laws that allow police or family members to petition a court for the temporary removal of firearms from a person who may present a danger to others or themselves. You've tried something like in your research but with a more grass-roots arroyo. How do they compare?
HEMENWAY: The scarlet-flag law is a useful tool, already implemented in 19 states. Evaluations propose that such laws are constructive. But one matter I would mention is that in our piece of work nosotros find that many people tend to think things piece of work meliorate when the government is not directly involved. For example, the "friends don't let friends bulldoze drunk" campaign that helped reduce booze-related motor vehicle deaths was really not a government thing, and it won real support. What we're trying to do with some of our work at the School of Public Health is similar by getting people to, when they see a friend going through a bad patch — like going through a divorce, drinking and talking crazy — offer to babysit their guns for a while. That should be the social norm, and public wellness is a lot about changing social norms. Sometimes you do it through legislation, or sometimes you can change norms without whatsoever government mandates. What you actually want everyone to sympathize is that people sometimes become through bad periods, and that they shouldn't have a gun during those periods. The red-flag law is a legal way to remove the gun from someone who is currently unsafe.
GAZETTE: Both in his press conference Thursday and in his American Jobs Programme, the president has backed more funding of customs violence-intervention plans. How volition that make a divergence in curbing gun violence?
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HEMENWAY: That'south great. We take been pushing a damage-reduction public health approach for 30 years, and information technology's increasingly being seen as the correct approach. Progressive law chiefs are increasingly understanding and saying, "We tin't just arrest our manner out of this trouble. We have to do other things." Among the many effective means to help reduce street violence are street workers or violence interrupters — people who have credibility on the street, ofttimes old gang members. When there's the threat of gang violence, they effort to talk to the kids earlier bad things happen and get them the help, back up, and services they need. These programs have been evaluated in Chicago and elsewhere and they work. That blazon of program is one reason why violence went down during the "Boston phenomenon" — the rapid reduction in youth violence here in the 1990s.
Hospital outreach has been happening in Boston and other places for many years now. If somebody comes in with a gunshot wound, instead of just fixing them up and sending them out, the goal is to try to effigy out what's going on and assist prevent further injuries. There are special teams of people, including social workers whose job information technology is to talk to and help these young people so that they don't get out and immediately again become victims, or perpetrators past retaliating. Hospitals try to connect them up with the correct social service agencies. Enquiry suggests such interventions tin can brand a real departure.
GAZETTE: In your heed, what is it going to take to muster the political will to enact real change?
HEMENWAY: I'm not a political scientist, but here's my theory. Information technology's the 25th anniversary of the Australian mass shooting in Tasmania, in which 35 people were killed. In the immediate aftermath, Commonwealth of australia passed strong gun laws that seem to take been enormously successful in helping reduce gun violence — gun homicide, gun suicide, and mass shootings. The reason Australia was able to effectively respond was because they had a conservative prime minister who finally said enough was enough. In my mind, what is well-nigh needed in the U.S. is to accept some leading conservatives stride upwards and finally say enough is enough, we need to really do something to reduce our gun violence. That'south really all you would need.
Interview was edited for clarity and length.
Source: https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2021/04/bidens-call-for-gun-control-good-first-steps-says-expert/
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