The Smartest Way to Address Gun Violence? Research

[SecularMotion]

The most re­cent mas­sacre in San Bern­ardino and oth­er hor­rif­ic acts of vi­ol­ence en­countered in the U.S. and abroad spur the po­lar­iz­ing de­bate around gun own­er­ship and its easy ac­cess. There would be little de­bate if the num­ber of fire­arms-re­lated deaths was small, but that is not the case. Fire­arms con­trib­ute to over 30,000 deaths by hom­icides and sui­cides an­nu­ally. This does not in­clude the more than 70,000 non­fatal in­jur­ies. The per cap­ita rate of gun in­jur­ies and deaths in the U.S. far ex­ceeds all European coun­tries and Ja­pan com­bined.

While re­search on ad­verse health ef­fects is re­quired for most con­sumer goods, from toys to cos­met­ics, none ex­ists for guns.

To il­lus­trate the pos­it­ive ef­fects of re­search, we can ex­am­ine the ad­vance­ments made in mo­tor-vehicle safety. In 2013, mo­tor vehicles con­trib­uted to 33,804 deaths, about the same num­ber as guns (33,646). In con­trast to gun-re­lated deaths, this is the low­est deaths per cap­ita ever and half that of 1975, ac­cord­ing to the In­sur­ance In­sti­tute for High­way Safety. This im­prove­ment was pos­sible be­cause of the tre­mend­ous re­sources that went in­to col­lect­ing data on vehicles, the people who drive them, and the roads.

The Na­tion­al High­way Trans­port­a­tion Safety Ad­min­is­tra­tion 2015 budget for safety re­search and de­vel­op­ment is $122 mil­lion. This does not in­clude the re­search fund­ing im­bed­ded in its budget for vehicle safety ($152 mil­lion) and High­way Traffic Safety Grants to states ($577 mil­lion). It also does not in­clude the vast amounts of re­sources auto man­u­fac­tur­ers in­vest in safety. Re­sources for data and re­search en­able NHTSA to know that 50 per­cent of people killed in crashes are un­belted; 30 per­cent of high­way fatal­it­ies in­volve an im­paired driver; and 90 per­cent of crashes in­volve an ele­ment of hu­man er­ror. The re­search leads to in­nov­a­tions like airbags, high-strength oc­cu­pant cages and crumple zones; laws and reg­u­la­tions such as drunk-driv­ing laws, seat-belt and cell-phone use laws; and en­vir­on­ment­al im­prove­ments like bet­ter street light­ing, safer guard­rails, and im­proved sig­nage.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/next-america/criminal-justice/smartest-way-address-gun-violence-is-research