Mar 5, 2018 08:27 PM
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/g...ationships
EXCERPT: . . . For decades, social scientists and other researchers have pointed to a profound, and purposeful, lack of federal funding for gun research and a lack of federal data-gathering on guns as enormous impediments to studying gun violence. The federal government has spent much less on research into gun violence than on similarly lethal issues, such as motor vehicle crashes, liver disease and sepsis.
"Most of the effects that we were looking for evidence on, we didn't find any evidence," says Andrew Morral, a behavioral scientist at RAND and the leader of the project.
They found, for example, no clear evidence regarding the effects of any gun policies on hunting and recreational gun use, or on officer-involved shootings, or on mass shootings or on the defensive use of guns by civilians.
There were some categories with better data, however, Morral says. There is relatively strong evidence, for example, that policies meant to prevent children from getting access to firearms — such as laws that require guns to be stored unloaded, or in locked containers — reduce both suicide and unintentional injury and death.
Previous work has also found that places that require a permit (issued by law enforcement) for the purchase a firearm do reduce violent crime.
There is also some evidence that prohibitions against purchase by people who have been diagnosed with mental illness reduce violent crime, and that "stand your ground" laws, which allow citizens who feel threatened in public to use lethal force without retreating first, lead to an increase in violent crime.
In general, however, good studies were few and far between, the RAND researchers say....
MORE: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/g...ationships
EXCERPT: . . . For decades, social scientists and other researchers have pointed to a profound, and purposeful, lack of federal funding for gun research and a lack of federal data-gathering on guns as enormous impediments to studying gun violence. The federal government has spent much less on research into gun violence than on similarly lethal issues, such as motor vehicle crashes, liver disease and sepsis.
"Most of the effects that we were looking for evidence on, we didn't find any evidence," says Andrew Morral, a behavioral scientist at RAND and the leader of the project.
They found, for example, no clear evidence regarding the effects of any gun policies on hunting and recreational gun use, or on officer-involved shootings, or on mass shootings or on the defensive use of guns by civilians.
There were some categories with better data, however, Morral says. There is relatively strong evidence, for example, that policies meant to prevent children from getting access to firearms — such as laws that require guns to be stored unloaded, or in locked containers — reduce both suicide and unintentional injury and death.
Previous work has also found that places that require a permit (issued by law enforcement) for the purchase a firearm do reduce violent crime.
There is also some evidence that prohibitions against purchase by people who have been diagnosed with mental illness reduce violent crime, and that "stand your ground" laws, which allow citizens who feel threatened in public to use lethal force without retreating first, lead to an increase in violent crime.
In general, however, good studies were few and far between, the RAND researchers say....
MORE: http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/03/g...ationships