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• Polling is clear: Americans want gun control

Politicians diverge from voters when it comes to preventing gun deaths.

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The massacre of children at an elementary school in Texas is adding fresh urgency to the conversation about gun control in the United States, which has been politically fraught and lacking in progress. That’s not because of a lack of support for gun control. That support just needs a little bit of parsing.

To be clear: Americans’ views about guns are complicated, and vary significantly by political party and geography. Overall, the vast majority of Americans support the right for private citizens to own guns, and more than 40 percent of households own at least one firearm. That doesn’t mean they’re against tighter rules on their guns. Nearly three-quarters of Americans think that gun violence is a big or moderately big problem, according to a survey last year by Pew Research Center . And a majority of Americans think that the epidemic of school shootings could be stopped with drastic changes in legislation, according to a poll this week by YouGov .

Still, when Americans are asked broadly if they support stricter gun laws, their opinions volley back and forth, and it’s hard to see a consistent majority. Slightly more than half (52 percent) of Americans in a Gallup poll last year said laws regarding firearms sales should be stricter — a number that has actually gone down in recent years — and a Quinnipiac poll last year found that just under half (45 percent) support stricter gun laws. More recently, a Politico/Morning Consult poll last week found that 59 percent of registered voters think it’s very important (41 percent) or somewhat important (18 percent) for lawmakers to pass stricter gun laws.

But these might not be the right things for pollsters to be asking. That’s because of how drastically existing gun laws vary state by state.

“The thing about those sort of generic questions: Somebody in Vermont can say yes and someone in California can say no, and they favor the exact same thing,” Chris Poliquin, an assistant professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, who studies gun legislation after mass shootings, told Recode.

When asking Americans about their opinions on more specific gun policies, the results are clearer. A vast majority of Americans supports universal background checks, keeping people with serious mental health issues from buying guns, bans on assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, and so-called “red flag laws” that would allow police and family members to seek court orders to temporarily take guns away from those considered a risk to themselves and others. A majority of Americans, of both political parties, oppose carrying concealed weapons without a permit.

In the wake of tragedies like last week’s Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting , in which 19 children and two teachers were murdered at an elementary school, there have always been calls for stricter national gun legislation, but those measures rarely pass and are often very modest when they do pass. That said, federal gun laws — which are much more popular among Democrats than Republicans — remain a particularly high priority, since many of the guns used in crimes come from states with looser gun laws .

There’s much more action at the state level, but it doesn’t typically end with progress. Poliquin’s research found that state legislatures consider 15 percent more firearm bills in the year after a mass shooting, although the existence of more bills doesn’t typically lead to stricter gun laws . In fact, Republican legislatures pass more gun-related legislation in the wake of mass shootings — but they’re laws that make gun laws less strict.

America’s increased polarization makes things difficult .

“A lot of those [gun control measures] are actually supported in the abstract by gun owners, but often not in practice,” Matthew Lacombe, an assistant professor at Barnard and author of Firepower: How the NRA Turned Gun Owners into a Political Force, told Recode . “ So people have a particular issue stance, but then that issue becomes salient and Democratic and Republican politicians start taking clear stances on it. And then people’s views tend to fall into line to match their partisan outlooks.”

Part of the issue is that Americans have somewhat conflicting stances on gun control. But what’s a bigger problem is that even when a majority of Americans agree, a simple majority of lawmakers agreeing on a bill is not enough to pass laws in our country. The Senate filibuster lets a minority of states — and Americans — veto national policy that the majority of Americans want. The result is a minority of people making the laws for the majority of Americans, regardless of what the population at large thinks.

Background checks

Background checks are by far the least controversial aspect of gun legislation, according to a whole lot of surveys . Roughly 80 to 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks, which would mean all sellers would have to verify that a person doesn’t have a history of violent crime or domestic abuse before they can buy a gun. As Robin Lloyd, managing director of the gun control advocacy group Giffords, put it, “Background checks on every gun sale polls higher than people who support ice cream.”

That overwhelmingly broad support, however, has not led to sweeping national requirements for background checks. There are currently laws requiring extended background checks for all people who buy guns in 21 states , but federal law only covers sales between federally licensed dealers. That means there’s a loophole in which about a fifth of gun sales — sold privately, online, and at gun shows — are done without that oversight. Even states that have expanded laws suffer from an influx of guns from those that don’t.

Of course, many mass shooters would have no trouble passing a background check. The 18-year-old Uvalde shooter, for instance, legally purchased his guns. The Buffalo shooter bought his guns legally . The Parkland shooter did . The list goes on . Still, according to a 2020 study , the odds of mass shootings are 60 percent lower in states with laws requiring permits for firearms — and, by extension, background checks.

Notably, many of these killers are young and don’t yet have a record. After the Parkland shooting in 2018, there was massive support for raising the legal age for buying a firearm from 18 to 21. Universal background checks are one of those rare issues that both Republicans (70 percent) and Democrats (92 percent) support, but partisanship in other areas keeps it from going anywhere. Republican senators would have to cross the aisle to vote for gun control laws — a move that would likely hurt them in their state primaries.

The Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2021 , or HR 8, which would close the background check loophole, was sketched out in rough form after the Sandy Hook elementary school massacre a decade ago. Despite lawmakers from both sides of the aisle signaling support for such bills, these bills have repeatedly passed the House only to languish in the Senate .

Red flag laws

Americans overwhelmingly support red flag laws, otherwise known as extreme risk protection orders, which work similarly to restraining orders. Again, these laws allow police and family members to petition a court — which would determine whether there’s enough evidence to do so — to temporarily keep guns from people who might be a threat to themselves or others. Some 77 percent of Americans think that a family member should be able to petition a court to do this, while 70 percent think police should, according to a survey by APM Research Lab .

And this approach to gun control has been gaining traction in recent years. A number of states adopted such laws following the Parkland, Florida, shooting , in which the gunman, like many mass shooters , displayed obvious red flags. (An acquaintance said he’d introduce himself, “ Hi, I’m Nick. I’m a school shooter. ”) Some say the red flag approach might be less controversial with gun owners, specifically, because it seems like common sense.

“Red flag laws are promising because they’re specifically targeted at people or cases or instances in which there’s reason to believe that there might be a problem,” Lacombe said. “So it’s not like a blanket rule that treats gun owners like a particular class of citizen.”

Of course, for red flag laws to be useful, they have to be used. If police had decided to seek such an order against the shooter in the Buffalo supermarket earlier this month, who had been referred to police for threatening violence , 10 gun deaths could have been prevented. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has since announced an executive order that would compel police to do so.

Mental health restrictions

There’s also overwhelming support on both sides of the aisle ( 85 percent of Republicans and 90 percent of Democrats ) for stopping those with mental illness from buying a gun. But in the case of gun sales that happen through a licensed dealer, that’s supposed to already be happening (though the same loopholes occur for online and private sellers). If a court has had someone involuntarily committed or otherwise determined that they are incapable of managing their life, that person is not supposed to be able to buy a gun, since they should be flagged by the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) database.

In practice, that has not always happened.

After a student with a documented history of court-ordered mental health treatment shot and killed 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech in 2007, there was a major push to make sure state-level records were entered into NICS. George W. Bush signed the NICS Improvement Act into law in 2008, but it still had huge holes where relevant state and federal records were not uploaded to the database . Some of those were remedied by the Fix NICS Act that was signed into law in 2018, but the system is far from perfect.

Additionally, mass shooters generally wouldn’t be considered to have mental illness severe enough to show up in the federal gun database in the first place.

“There’s sort of this perception about mass shooters that they are severely mentally ill people,” Poliquin said. “Although they might have mental health issues, the level of mental health issues doesn’t necessarily lead to institutionalization.”

Additionally, there’s a lot of debate over mental health and mass shooting coming from Republicans that might be in bad faith. It’s not as though Americans have a higher rate of mental health problems than other countries — what makes the US exceptional is the number of guns in the country and the corresponding number of gun deaths.

“I’m not aware of any instance in which a Republican saying that this is really a mental health issue has actually then come forward with a proposal to invest additional resources in our public health and mental health infrastructure, which I think sends a signal just how serious they are,” Lacombe said.

Assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines

Bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines have an approval rating of over 60 percent in the US, according to Pew .

Assault weapons are a poorly defined class of firearms, but generally refer to military-style semi-automatic weapons. High-capacity magazines are generally ammunition clips that hold more than 10 rounds. AR-15s, the preferred style of weapon in recent mass shootings, are assault weapons, which can be modified to accept a number of after-market parts, including high-capacity magazines, that make it even deadlier.

While it has majority support, banning assault weapons is much more divided by political party. While 83 percent of Democrats approve of banning assault-style weapons, just 37 percent of Republicans do; 83 percent of Democrats would like a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines compared with 41 percent of Republicans.

Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, both of which allow murderers to kill more people in a short span of time, used to be illegal in the US. A federal law passed in 1994 banned assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, but Congress let the legislation lapse in 2004. Even though the 1994 law had its issues — it didn’t make illegal or confiscate the 1.5 million assault weapons and 25 million large-capacity magazines that Americans already owned — the bans did significantly reduce death tolls while they were in effect .

“After that, we’ve just seen like an explosion of assault weapons all across the country,” Lloyd said, estimating the number to be in the tens of millions.

Cassandra Crifasi, an assistant professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said gun laws should go beyond simply listing which specific guns are restricted or not by making it harder to get deadly gun accessories.

“In response to some of these bans, you can buy a rifle that falls into the approved list, and then you can find accessories online or at gun shows that allow you to customize it and then it may become in violation of the ban,” she said. “Once you have the rifle, if you can then buy those accessories after-market, you can skirt around the ban.”

The Buffalo shooter, for example, purchased his AR-15-style gun legally but modified it to accept a large-capacity magazine that is illegal in New York.

However it’s defined, Lloyd says, limiting guns, ammo, and accessories would limit the extent of gun violence in mass shootings.

“It is impossible to ignore the fact that assault weapons are extremely dangerous because of how many people they can kill in such a short amount of time,” she said, referring to the death tolls in Buffalo and Uvalde.

There is proposed legislation, including the Keep Americans Safe Act ( HR 2510 / S 1108 ), that would ban high-capacity magazines, and the Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 , which would ban military-style assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. All of these bills have been introduced but not voted on, and thanks to the filibuster, would be unlikely to pass without a lot more Republican support.

Concealed carry

Though it varies by party, the vast majority (81 percent) of Americans oppose laws that would allow people to carry concealed handguns without a permit, according to a recent poll this month by Marquette Law School . And generally, support for the wider ability to carry guns — in schools, without permits — has been declining, according to Crifasi.

At the same time, laws allowing people to carry weapons in public have become much more commonplace in the last decade. The effort, however, began decades before in the 1980s as the NRA, beginning in Florida, sought to get states to slowly roll back their concealed carry laws from something that was a special dispensation to something that was expected as a way for gun owners to express their Second Amendment rights. Just last year, the Texas legislature passed a law making it so that people no longer need a license or training to carry a handgun .

“The NRA put forth a pretty strategic, organized, and concerted effort to change state laws, one state at a time,” Lacombe said. “As it became increasingly normalized to be in the law, voters also became more likely to see it as acceptable.”

The thinking behind these Republican and NRA talking points is that having a concealed weapon would allow the “good guys” to take down the bad guys. In practice, that doesn’t actually happen . Though there are a handful of anecdotes in which a person with a concealed weapon successfully stops a mass shooter, adding more guns to the mix is more dangerous . To wit: a man who stopped a mass shooter with his concealed weapon last year in Colorado, only to be mistakenly shot and killed by police .

As the conceal carry issue shows, gun policy reflects the influence of NRA lobbyists more than everyday Americans.

“We have an exceptionally powerful gun lobby that works on behalf of gun manufacturers to make it easy for gun dealers and gun manufacturers to sell a lot of guns really easily,” Crifasi said. “And many of our elected officials are more beholden to the gun lobby than they are to their own constituents.”

Many of the gun control ideas above are part of kitchen table discussions being had right now across the country, as Americans mourn yet another senseless tragedy at the hands of a mass shooter. Specific gun control measures have bipartisan support and could go a long way toward stopping the next mass shooting before it happens.

Unfortunately, what Americans want is not being reflected in America’s laws. The ability of the minority in small, mostly rural, and mostly white communities to outweigh the majority has vast repercussions for the way we live and the way we die. The Senate filibuster is undermining democracy, and in turn is undermining the American government’s legitimacy . It’s possible tragic events like the one last week in Texas could help turn the tide, but for now. tide-turning would require support from Republican lawmakers that actually matches the desires of their Republican constituents.

For that to change, Republicans in addition to Democrats will have to vote out politicians whose stances on guns don’t align with theirs. If not, these conversations begin and end at the kitchen table.

Clarification: Changed mentions of “assault rifles” to “assault-style weapons” to reflect the language used in Pew’s polling.

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June 23, 2022

Research on Gun Violence Has Been Thwarted: It’s Now More Urgent Than Ever

We need to make firearms safer, and to do that, we need more robust research funding

By Asheley Van Ness & Evan Mintz

Javier Zayas Photography/Getty Images

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen represents the latest shattering of once routine norms around gun safety laws in the U.S. In this case, a 6–3 majority concluded that New York State’s requirement for a license to carry a concealed handgun violated the constitutional right to bear arms, which the jurists believe is guaranteed by the Second Amendment.

New York’s regulatory system required applicants to show “proper cause”—a specific reason—to carry a concealed gun. Six other jurisdictions (California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Washington, D.C.), encompassing a population of 80 million people, have similar regulations. This decision casts grave doubt on all those laws, as well as on other rules where a future court might conclude that a policy is not consistent with a historical tradition of regulation. State legislators now face the challenge of passing regulations that comport with the Supreme Court’s newly crafted approach to rules.

With multiple mass shootings within just weeks of the ruling, everyone knows what’s at stake. The few statistics we have are stunning. Gun deaths are hitting record levels, whether by homicide, suicide or accident. More than 45,000 people died from firearm injuries in 2020. Firearms have also become the leading cause of death for children. These deaths come amid a surge in the domestic sale of firearms. The most recent Small Arms Survey estimates there are nearly 400 million guns in the U.S. That international study predates a surge of nine million firearms purchased during the first five months of the COVID pandemic—85 percent higher than expected.

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Despite these mounting deaths, partisan deadlock often stands in the way of passing gun legislation, and opponents of new laws often point to a lack of evidence that proposed policies would reduce the harm caused by gunfire. The most effective tool to overcome such assertions would be objective research—if we had more of it. Unfortunately, there is not enough rigorous evidence about the best ways to reduce gun violence.

This is by design.

For more than 20 years the federal government failed to properly support research into gun violence. We spent about $63 in research dollars per life lost to gun violence, compared with roughly $1,000 per life lost to car crashes and nearly $7,000 per life researching sepsis, a life-threatening response to infection.

Two decades without these critical investments have left us with myriad open questions about the effects of gun policies. This gap in funding originated with the Dickey Amendment, which was imposed in 1996 to prevent the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from advocating or promoting gun control. That rule was treated as a prohibition on all gun violence research. Although Congress clarified the law in 2018 to allow for research funding, there remains a vast gap where data were never collected. We have limited rigorous evidence about the issues discussed in the Bruen case, such as gun licensing, concealed carry and permitless carry. We even lack basic data on issues as fundamental as the number of nonfatal gun injuries in each state.

Trying to reduce gun deaths without this information is like trying to decrease freeway deaths without having any information on the number of car crashes or research on the effects of seat belts.

Fortunately, universities and private philanthropies, such as our organization, Arnold Ventures, have stepped up to try to fill the research gap. The nonpartisan National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, which was launched in 2018 with support from Arnold Ventures and other funders, has awarded more than $21 million for more than 44 research projects on topics ranging from intimate partner violence to suicides to self-defense. But even this is a drop in the bucket for a public health problem so pervasive and unrelenting in its death toll.

A 2021 report by Health Management Associates, supported by Arnold Ventures and the Joyce Foundation, found that it would cost approximately $600 million over five years to conduct the most critical pieces of research and build out the necessary data infrastructure to collect accurate information on deaths and injuries caused by firearms.

To put that sum in context, NASA is spending $600 million on a new space telescope to detect potentially dangerous asteroids. In other words: $600 million is a perfectly reasonable price tag for a better understanding of how we can prevent one of the leading causes of death in the U.S.

Most of the proposed funding—roughly $475 million—would be needed to answer the 100 critical gun research questions identified by a Joyce Foundation Expert Advisory Panel. The rest would support implementation of the NORC Expert Panel’s recommendations for improving U.S. firearms data infrastructure at state and federal levels (NORC is a social research organization based at the University of Chicago). This includes steps such as supporting local compliance with the National Incident-Based Reporting System, tracking nonfatal gunshot injuries and improving the timeliness of available data.

As the body of evidence begins to build, the RAND Corporation’s Gun Policy in America program, which is also supported by Arnold Ventures, is working to document the highest-quality research and determine what gun safety policies are most likely to save lives. So far the clearest results point to child-access prevention laws—which make it a crime to allow children to have unsupervised access to firearms—as the best way to reduce suicide and unintentional injuries, and they indicate that “stand your ground” laws increase violent crime. There is also evidence that background checks and prohibitions based on domestic violence may prevent violent crime, and waiting periods may reduce suicides and violent crime.

It is critical to note that the absence of high-quality evidence does not mean we should ignore basic logic. For example, even as we continue to research red flag laws, lawmakers should not hesitate to ensure that people suffering from suicidal ideation can’t readily access a firearm. This is not only common sense but compassion.

As for the impact of the Bruen case, RAND has found limited evidence—at least one high-quality study and no contradictory findings—that licensing and permitting requirements lead to a decrease in suicides, as well as other evidence that concealed carry laws lead to an increase in violent crime. Data are hard to come by, and the evidence could be more extensive if we decided at the federal funding level that these questions are worth answering. Philanthropy and university funding alone can’t answer these questions.

We’re already seeing progress on the funding front. After clarifying the meaning of the Dickey Amendment, Congress allocated $50 million over the past two federal budgets to the CDC and the National Institutes of Health to further gun violence research. A bill that would install some firearm safety measures is also moving forward in Congress. It’s an admirable start, but the absence of 20 years’ worth of research into gun violence—and the public policy it might have led to—has left us without lifesaving answers at a time when we need them the most.

Scientists and researchers have a critical role to play in helping policy makers and the general public understand the task facing us when it comes to fighting the scourge of gun violence. While all too frequent mass shootings and the resulting political debates may dominate the headlines, the reality is that our fundamental understanding of gun violence fails to meet the moment. Guns can be safer, and once and for all, we need to rebut the engineered idea that they can’t be, or that they shouldn’t be, with evidence.

We hear about the people who suffer from gun violence and the politicians charged with setting things right, but there is another story that needs to be told, too. This is a story about how data, research and evidence have been used throughout history to address critical matters of public health and save American lives. It is a story about how we can help stop gun violence. The Bruen decision leaves plenty of room for evidence-based gun regulations. No matter what the Supreme Court has ruled, a well-grounded scientific basis for gun policy is more important than ever—and only the federal government has resources at the scale needed to meet the challenge.

Public Policy

Pew Report Puts Numbers on American Gun Violence

Monday night in his first-ever State of the Union address, U.S. President Joe Biden criticized barriers to lowering gun violence, a social plague which a data-rich paper from The Pew Research Center reports has attained new levels of perniciousness in the United States. 

Citing statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “more Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2020 than in any other year on record,” Pew reports in What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.  

Despite this clear instance where social and behavioral research could help reduce the carnage, much as legislation prevents manufacturers from being sued legislation has long hamstrung federally funded research into gun violence. And while $25 million was set aside for research in 2020 (split between the CDC and the National Institutes of Health), most of the research lift has come from outside-funded groups like Pew. 

Pew combed through data from the CDC, which gets its statistics from official death certificates, and the FBI, which is from voluntarily submitted information from police departments across the country. The CDC’s WONDER database was used to calculate the number and rate of gun deaths over time by creating three distinct time periods: 1968 to 1978 ,  1979 to 1998  and  1999 to 2020 .  

While most of the full timeline is similar, the CDC categorized gun murders and suicides between 1968 and 1978 as involving firearms and explosives, but narrowed from 1979 to 2020 to only include firearms. Deaths have been adjusted in this analysis for age changes over time. The FBI’s statistics about the types of firearms used in gun murders from the expanded homicide tables of the agency’s  2020 Crime in the United States report on the bureau’s Crime Data Explorer website . 

In 2020, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 45,222 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S. The total number of gun-related deaths was a 14 percent increase from 2019 and a 25 percent increase from five years earlier. While 2020 saw the highest total number of gun deaths in the U.S., this number has not been adjusted for the U.S. growing population. On a per capita basis, there were 13.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2020, which although the highest rate since the mid-1990s, is still well below the peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 1974. 

The 19,384 gun murders in 2020 were the most since at least 1968, exceeding the previous peak of 18,253 recorded by the CDC in 1993. The 2020 total in gun-related murders represented a 34 percent increase from 2019, a 49 percent increase over five years and a 75 percent increase over 10 years. The 24,292 gun-related suicides that took place in 2020 were the highest in any year except 2018, when there were 24,432. The number of gun-related suicides has climbed 10 percent over five years and 25 percent over 10 years. 

While the rate of gun fatalities varies widely between states, the highest states included Mississippi (28.6 per 100,000 people), Louisiana (26.3), Wyoming (25.9), Missouri (23.9) and Alabama (23.6), while New York (5.3), Rhode Island (5.1), New Jersey (5.0), Massachusetts (3.7) and Hawaii (3.4) had the lowest rates.  

Additionally, there is no recognized definition of a “mass shooting,” however, The Gun Violence Archive, an online database of gun violence incidents in the U.S., views mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are shot, even if no one was killed (excluding the shooters). Using this metric, 513 people  died in these incidents in 2020 . The FBI found an  increase in active shooter incidents  between 2000 and 2020. In 2000 there were three, but by 2020 it had increased to 40. 

Maxine Terry

Maxine Terry is a corporate communications specialist with SAGE Publishing. She previously covered judiciary and housing policy as a legislative assistant to U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

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A new report from the Royal Society about the effects on Brexit on science in the United Kingdom has our peripatetic Daniel Nehring mulling the changes that will occur in higher education and academic productivity.

How Do Firms Create Government Regulations?

In this post, Jun Xia, Fiona Kun Yao, Xiaoli Yin, Xinran Wang, and Zhouyu Lin detail their research from their new paper, “How Do Political and Non-Political Ties Affect Corporate Regulatory Participation? A Regulatory Capture Perspective,” appearing in Business & Society.

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Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence in the Complex Environment of Megaprojects: Implications for Practitioners and Project Organizing Theory

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2024 Holberg Prize Goes to Political Theorist Achille Mbembe

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Edward Webster, 1942-2024: South Africa’s Pioneering Industrial Sociologist

Eddie Webster, sociologist and emeritus professor at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, died on March 5, 2024, at age 82.

Political scientist Charles V. Hamilton, the tokenizer of the term ‘institutional racism,’ an apostle of the Black Power movement, and at times deemed both too radical and too deferential in how to fight for racial equity, died on November 18, 2023. He was 94.

National Academies Seeks Experts to Assess 2020 U.S. Census

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Will the 2020 Census Be the Last of Its Kind?

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The Importance of Using Proper Research Citations to Encourage Trustworthy News Reporting

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Research Integrity Should Not Mean Its Weaponization

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What Do We Know about Plagiarism These Days?

In the following Q&A, Roger J. Kreuz, a psychology professor who is working on a manuscript about the history and psychology of plagiarism, explains the nature and prevalence of plagiarism and the challenges associated with detecting it in the age of AI.

Webinar: iGen: Decoding the Learning Code of Generation Z

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Year of Open Science Conference

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“How to Collaborate Across Paradigms: Embedding Culture in Mixed Methods Designs” is another piece of Sage’s webinar series, How to Do Research […]

Returning Absentee Ballots during the 2020 Election – A Surprise Ending?

One of the most heavily contested voting-policy issues in the 2020 election, in both the courts and the political arena, was the deadline […]

Overconsumption or a Move Towards Minimalism?

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To Better Serve Students and Future Workforces, We Must Diversify the Syllabi

Ellen Hutti and Jenine Harris have quantified the extent to which female authors are represented in assigned course readings. In this blog post, they emphasize that more equal exposure to experts with whom they can identify will better serve our students and foster the growth, diversity and potential of this future workforce. They also present one repository currently being built for readings by underrepresented authors that are Black, Indigenous or people of color.

Using Translational Research as a Model for Long-Term Impact

Drawing on the findings of a workshop on making translational research design principles the norm for European research, Gabi Lombardo, Jonathan Deer, Anne-Charlotte Fauvel, Vicky Gardner and Lan Murdock discuss the characteristics of translational research, ways of supporting cross disciplinary collaboration, and the challenges and opportunities of adopting translational principles in the social sciences and humanities.

Addressing the United Kingdom’s Lack of Black Scholars

In the UK, out of 164 university vice-chancellors, only two are Black. Professor David Mba was recently appointed as the first Black vice-chancellor […]

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Three Decades of Rural Health Research and a Bumper Crop of Insights from South Africa

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Why Social Science? Because It Makes an Outsized Impact on Policy

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A Behavioral Scientist’s Take on the Dangers of Self-Censorship in Science

The word censorship might bring to mind authoritarian regimes, book-banning, and restrictions on a free press, but Cory Clark, a behavioral scientist at […]

Infrastructure

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A new collaboration between the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) and the U.S. National Science Foundation has founded the Graduate Research Fellowship […]

By carefully interrogating the system of economic incentives underlying innovations and how technologies are monetized in practice, we can generate a better understanding of the risks, both economic and technological, nurtured by a market’s structure.

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Women’s History Month is, when we “honor women’s contributions to American history…” as a nation. Author Andrae Alexander aims to spark a conversation about honor that expands the actions of this month from performative to critical

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As he stands down from a two-year stint as the president of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences, or FABBS, Social Science Space took the opportunity to download a fraction of the experiences of cognitive psychologist Philip Rubin, especially his experiences connecting science and policy.

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Research for Social Good Means Addressing Scientific Misconduct

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Six Principles for Scientists Seeking Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure

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Book Review: The Oxford Handbook of Creative Industries

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Daniel Kahneman, 1934-2024: The Grandfather of Behavioral Economics

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Canadian Librarians Suggest Secondary Publishing Rights to Improve Public Access to Research

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A Former Student Reflects on How Daniel Kahneman Changed Our Understanding of Human Nature

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Four Reasons to Stop Using the Word ‘Populism’

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The Added Value of Latinx and Black Teachers

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A Collection: Behavioral Science Insights on Addressing COVID’s Collateral Effects

To help in decisions surrounding the effects and aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the the journal ‘Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences’ offers this collection of articles as a free resource.

Susan Fiske Connects Policy and Research in Print

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Mixed Methods As A Tool To Research Self-Reported Outcomes From Diverse Treatments Among People With Multiple Sclerosis

What does heritage mean to you?

Personal Information Management Strategies in Higher Education

Working Alongside Artificial Intelligence Key Focus at Critical Thinking Bootcamp 2022

SAGE Publishing — the parent of Social Science Space – will hold its Third Annual Critical Thinking Bootcamp on August 9. Leaning more and register here

Watch the Forum: A Turning Point for International Climate Policy

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Event: Living, Working, Dying: Demographic Insights into COVID-19

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Connecting Legislators and Researchers, Leads to Policies Based on Scientific Evidence

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Jane M. Simoni Named New Head of OBSSR

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Canada’s Federation For Humanities and Social Sciences Welcomes New Board Members

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Britain’s Academy of Social Sciences Names Spring 2024 Fellows

Forty-one leading social scientists have been named to the Spring 2024 cohort of fellows for Britain’s Academy of Social Sciences.

National Academies Looks at How to Reduce Racial Inequality In Criminal Justice System

To address racial and ethnic inequalities in the U.S. criminal justice system, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine just released “Reducing Racial Inequality in Crime and Justice: Science, Practice and Policy.”

Survey Examines Global Status Of Political Science Profession

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Report: Latest Academic Freedom Index Sees Global Declines

The latest update of the global Academic Freedom Index finds improvements in only five countries

The Risks Of Using Research-Based Evidence In Policymaking

With research-based evidence increasingly being seen in policy, we should acknowledge that there are risks that the research or ‘evidence’ used isn’t suitable or can be accidentally misused for a variety of reasons. 

Surveys Provide Insight Into Three Factors That Encourage Open Data and Science

Over a 10-year period Carol Tenopir of DataONE and her team conducted a global survey of scientists, managers and government workers involved in broad environmental science activities about their willingness to share data and their opinion of the resources available to do so (Tenopir et al., 2011, 2015, 2018, 2020). Comparing the responses over that time shows a general increase in the willingness to share data (and thus engage in Open Science).

Unskilled But Aware: Rethinking The Dunning-Kruger Effect

As a math professor who teaches students to use data to make informed decisions, I am familiar with common mistakes people make when dealing with numbers. The Dunning-Kruger effect is the idea that the least skilled people overestimate their abilities more than anyone else. This sounds convincing on the surface and makes for excellent comedy. But in a recent paper, my colleagues and I suggest that the mathematical approach used to show this effect may be incorrect.

Coping with Institutional Complexity and Voids: An Organization Design Perspective for Transnational Interorganizational Projects

Institutional complexity occurs when the structures, interests, and activities of separate but collaborating organizations—often across national and cultural boundaries—are not well aligned. Institutional voids in this context are gaps in function or capability, including skills gaps, lack of an effective regulatory regime, and weak contract-enforcing mechanisms.

Maintaining Anonymity In Double-Blind Peer Review During The Age of Artificial Intelligence

The double-blind review process, adopted by many publishers and funding agencies, plays a vital role in maintaining fairness and unbiasedness by concealing the identities of authors and reviewers. However, in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) and big data, a pressing question arises: can an author’s identity be deduced even from an anonymized paper (in cases where the authors do not advertise their submitted article on social media)?

Hype Terms In Research: Words Exaggerating Results Undermine Findings

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Five Steps to Protect – and to Hear – Research Participants

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New Tool Promotes Responsible Hiring, Promotion, and Tenure in Research Institutions

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There’s Something In the Air…But Is It a Virus? Part 1

The historic Hippocrates has become an iconic figure in the creation myths of medicine. What can the body of thought attributed to him tell us about modern responses to COVID?

Alex Edmans on Confirmation Bias 

n this Social Science Bites podcast, Edmans, a professor of finance at London Business School and author of the just-released “May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About It,” reviews the persistence of confirmation bias even among professors of finance.

Alison Gopnik on Care

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Tejendra Pherali on Education and Conflict

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Gamification as an Effective Instructional Strategy

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Immigration Court’s Active Backlog Surpasses One Million

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Dispatches from Social and Behavioral Scientists on COVID

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New Thought Leadership Webinar Series Opens with Regional Looks at Research Impact

Research impact will be the focus of a new webinar series from Epigeum, which provides online courses for universities and colleges. The […]

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Firearm Violence in the United States

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• The Public Health Approach to Prevent Gun Violence

Firearm violence is a preventable public health tragedy affecting communities across the United States. In 2021 48,830 Americans died by firearms—an average of one death every 11 minutes. Over 26,328 Americans died by firearm suicide, 20,958 die by firearm homicide, 549 died by unintentional gun injury, and an estimated 1,000 Americans were fatally shot by law enforcment. 1,2 In addition, an average of more than 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries each day. 3 

For each firearm death, many more people are shot and survive their injuries, are shot at but not physically injured, or witness firearm violence. Many experience firearm violence in other ways, by living in impacted communities with high levels of violence, losing loved ones to firearm violence, or being threatened with a firearm. Others are fearful to walk in their neighborhoods, attend events, or send their child to school. In short, firearm violence is public health epidemic that has lasting impacts on the health and well-being of everyone on this country. 

Overwhelming evidence shows that firearm ownership and access is associated with increased suicide, homicide, unintentional firearm deaths, and injuries. These injuries and deaths are preventable, through evidence-based solutions. 

Firearm Ownership 

Firearms remain embedded in American history and modern culture. Americans own 46% of the world’s civilian-owned firearms and U.S. firearm ownership rates far exceed those of other high-income countries. 4,5 Forty-six percent of U.S. households report owning at least one firearm, including 30% of Americans who say they personally own a firearm. 6,7 Firearm ownership varies significantly by state. For example, an estimated 64% of households own a firearm in Montana compared to only 8% in New Jersey. 8   

It has been well-documented that firearm ownership rates are associated with increased firearm-related death rates. Among high-income countries, the United States is an outlier in terms of firearm violence. The U.S. has the highest firearm ownership and highest firearm death rates of 27 high-income countries. 9

The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is nearly 25 times higher than other high-income countries and the firearm suicide rate is nearly 10 times that of other high-income countries. 10 

The Geography of Gun Violence

Gun death rates vary widely across the United States due to differences in socio-economic factors, demographics, and, importantly, gun policies. In general, the states with the highest gun death rates tend to be states in the South or Mountain West, with weaker gun laws and higher levels of gun ownership, while gun death rates are lower in the Northeast, where gun violence prevention laws are stronger.

* The total number of gun homicide deaths in New Hampshire and Vermont were less than 10 and thus repressed by CDC. Gun homicide deaths are thus listed as “other gun death rate” for these two states. Additionally, “other intents” include legal intervention, unintentional, and unclassified.

Firearm purchases increased during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic firearm sales rose at unprecedented levels with an estimated one in five U.S. households purchasing a firearm from March 2020 to March 2022. 11 The FBI reported a record high of 20 million annual firearm sales in both 2020 and 2021, up from an average of 13 million firearms sold from 2010 to 2019. 12  

Knowing the Facts About Firearm Ownership and Safety  

Over four decades of public health research consistently finds that firearm ownership increases the risk of firearm homicide, suicide, and unintentional injury. Nevertheless, more than 6 in 10 Americans believe that a firearm in the home makes the family safer—a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000. 13 This increase in perceived safety is reflected in shifting reasons for firearm ownership. In a 2023 Pew Research survey, more than two-thirds (71%) of firearm owners cited protection as a major reason for ownership. 14 This represents a notable increase from the mid-1990s, when the majority of American firearm owners cited recreation as their primary reason for ownership and fewer than half owned firearms primarily for protection. 15 

Research runs counter to these changing public perceptions of firearms providing safety.  It shows that firearm ownership puts individuals and their families at higher risk of injury and death. Individuals who choose to own a firearm can mitigate many of the risks associated with ownership by always storing their firearms unloaded and locked in a secure place, and refraining from carrying their firearms in public places. 

Firearm owners can make their homes safer through secure firearm storage practices. Unfortunately, the majority of U.S. firearm owners choose to leave their firearms unlocked, allowing children or persons, who are at risk for violence to self or others, to access them. 16 An estimated 4.6 million children live in households with at least one firearm that is loaded and unlocked. 17 These unsafe storage practices lead to countless suicides, homicides, and unintentional injuries by individuals who should not have access to a firearm. This includes children, prohibited persons with a history of violence, and family members who may be suicidal or temporarily in crisis.   

Leaving firearms unsecured also fuels theft—a primary avenue in which firearms are diverted into the illegal market and used in crime. There are an estimated 250,000 firearm theft incidents each year resulting in about 380,000 firearms stolen annually. 18 In recent years, as more Americans carry firearms in public, theft from cars has skyrocketed. Firearms stolen from cars now make up the majority of thefts. In fact, one analysis of crime data reported to the FBI found that on average, at least one firearm is reported stolen from a car every 15 minutes. 19 

Carrying firearms in public also increases the risk for violence by escalating minor arguments and increasing the chances that a confrontation will become lethal. Research has found that even the mere presence of a firearm increases aggressive thoughts and actions. 20 

Some believe that carrying a firearm will act as a deterrent and help prevent conflicts or minimize harm. While there are specific examples where this was true, there are many more cases where firearm carrying escalates conflict and leads to firearm injury or death. In aggregate, research shows firearm carrying increases levels of violent crime. 21  

It’s important for individuals to know the risks of firearm ownership, and the reality that higher levels of firearm ownership and carrying do not reduce violence or enhance public safety.  

How does access to firearms affect deaths? 

Higher levels of firearm ownership and permissive firearm laws are associated with higher rates of suicide, homicide, violent crime, unintentional firearm deaths, and shootings by police.  

More than 55% of all firearm deaths are suicides. 22 Evidence consistently shows that access to firearms increases the risk of suicide. 23,24 Access to a firearm in the home increases the odds of suicide more than three-fold. 25 Firearms are dangerous when someone is at risk for suicide because they are the most lethal suicide attempt method. Eighty-five percent of suicide attempts with a firearm are fatal compared to the most widely used suicide attempt methods, which have case fatality rates below 5%. 26 

Research shows that individuals often do not substitute means for suicide if their preferred method is not available. In other words, when individuals who have planned a suicide by firearm cannot access a one, they often not do attempt suicide by another method. 27 Even if they substitute firearms with another method they increase their chances of survival because virtually every other method is less lethal than firearms. 28 Delaying a suicide attempt can also allow suicidal crises to pass and lead to fewer suicides. Ninety percent of individuals who attempt suicide and survive do not go on to die by suicide. 29 The use of a firearm in a suicide attempt often means there is no second chance. Reducing access to lethal means, such as firearms, is critical to saving lives.  

Policies and practices that temporarily restrict access to someone at elevated risk for suicide can save lives. These interventions include Extreme Risk Protection Orders, safe and secure firearm storage practices, and lethal means safety counseling.  

Homicide and violent crime 

Over 40% of all firearm deaths are homicides. 30 Access to firearms—such as the presence of a firearm in the home—is correlated with an increased risk for homicide victimization. 31 Studies show that access to firearms in the household doubles the risk of homicide. 32 States with high rates of firearm ownership consistently have higher firearm homicide rates. 33   Firearms drive our nation’s high homicide rate, accounting for 8 out of every 10 homicides committed. 34    

Lax public carry laws which allow individuals to carry firearms in public places with little oversight are linked to increases in firearm homicides and assaults. 35 Similarly, states with permissive firearm laws have higher rates of mass shootings. 36 Firearms also contribute to domestic violence with over half of all intimate partner homicides committed with firearms. 37 A women is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a firearm. 38  

Firearm homicide is a complex issue that includes different types of firearm violence—domestic violence, community violence, and mass shootings—and requires an array of policies. These policies include: firearm purchaser licensing laws which build upon universal background checks, firearm removal laws, safe and secure storage laws, community violence intervention programs, and strong public carry laws. 

Unintentional Shootings 

Each year more than 500 people are killed and thousands more are injured by unintentional shootings, also commonly referred to as accidental shootings. 39,40  

Easy access to unsecured firearms increases the risk of unintentional injury and death by firearm. Children are often impacted by unintentional firearm injuries by gaining access to an unsecured firearm owned by a parent. In fact, every six days a child under the age of 10 is killed by an unintentional shooting. 41  

Laws that promote safe and secure firearm storage practices can prevent unintentional shootings. For example, state Child Access Prevention laws, which hold gun owners accountable if a child accesses an unsecured firearm, are linked to reductions in unintentional shootings among children and teens and may also reduce unintentional shootings among adults. 42,43   

Shootings by Police 

Each year, more than 1,000 people are shot and killed by police officers, and thousands more are injured. 44,45 Black people are disproportionately impacted by this physical violence. Unarmed Black people are over three times more likely to be shot and killed by police compared to white people. 46 

Permissive firearm laws are associated with increases in shootings by police. Specifically, research finds that state permitless concealed carry laws increase shootings by police by 13%. 47 Conversely, strong state firearm laws, like Firearm Purchaser Licensing laws, are linked to reductions in shootings by police. 48 

Better data on police-involved injuries and deaths are sorely needed. Compulsory and comprehensive data collection at the local level, reporting to the federal government, and transparency in public dissemination of data will be critical for understanding this unique kind of firearm violence and developing evidence-based solutions to minimize police-involved shootings. 

1. Davis A, Kim R, & Crifasi CK. (2023).  A Year in Review: 2021 Gun Deaths in the U.S. Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions . Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

2. Tate J, Jenkins J, & Rich S. (2021). Fatal Force.  Washington Post . 

3. Schnippel K, Burd-Sharps S, Miller T, Lawrence B, Swedler DL. (2021). Nonfatal firearm injuries by intent in the United States: 2016-2018 Hospital Discharge Records from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.  Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health .

4. Bangalore S & Messerli FH. (2013). Gun ownership and firearm-related deaths.  American Journal of Medicine.

5. Karp A. (2018). Estimating global civilian-held firearms numbers. Small Arms Survey.

6. One in Five American Households Purchased a Gun During the Pandemic. (2022). NORC at the University of Chicago.  

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Is gun violence an epidemic in the U.S.? Experts and history say it is

Destinee Adams

Six months into the year, more than 21,000 people have died because of gun-related injuries in the United States.

Doctors and public health officials have a word to describe the rising number of people killed or hurt by guns in recent years: epidemic.

"I would certainly consider the problem of firearm injuries and firearm violence as an epidemic in the United States," said Patrick Carter, director of the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention , whose research is partly funded by the National Institutes of Health.

"When we think about what the term epidemic means, it means a sudden increase in the numbers, or incidents, of an event over what would be considered a baseline level," Carter told Morning Edition .

Since the mid-2000s, the United States has seen year-after-year increases in the number of deaths and injuries from guns "that would mirror what we would consider to be a sudden increase consistent with an epidemic," Carter said.

Firearms overtook auto accidents as the leading cause of death in children

The "epidemic" label and what it means.

For those charged with protecting public health in the United States, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an epidemic is defined as a sudden outbreak or an unexpected spike in an illness in a single country or area. Because COVID-19 spread around the world, it was considered a pandemic.

The label — which has been applied to infectious diseases as well as things like opioid addiction — creates a sense of emergency or crisis.

The top public health official in the country, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, has long called the deaths and injuries from firearms an "epidemic."

"Whenever you have a large number of people dying from preventable reasons that constitutes a public health crisis," he told NPR's Here and Now in January . "And that has been the case for gun violence, sadly, in our country for a long time."

President Biden has also referred to the increase in gun violence in the United States as a "gun violence epidemic" several times, including on National Gun Violence Awareness Day .

So have doctors and health researchers.

The UCLA Center for Health Policy Research held a symposium in February titled "Addressing Gun Violence as a Public Health Epidemic."

Experts at the symposium took an approach reminiscent of how health officials approach epidemics of disease. They discussed "expanding our lens beyond prosecuting gun crime to prevention, harm reduction and even culture-shifting."

Gun deaths increased by 23 percent , from 2019, before the coronavirus pandemic, to 2021, according to Pew Research Center.

Gun deaths hit their highest level ever in 2021, with 1 person dead every 11 minutes

The number of gun deaths in 2021, 48,830, was the largest on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The level of violence "most definitely is a public health emergency," said Daniel Webster, an American health professor and director of the Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy at Johns Hopkins.

Should gun violence be framed as an illness — using terms like epidemic?

"It is a leading cause of death for large segments of the population, including young people," he said. "And it also has enormous impacts beyond fatalities that really affect mental health and well-being, even for those who are not directly shot."

Students from Philadelphia hold photos of gun violence victims at a rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol pressing for stronger gun-control laws, March 23, 2023, in Harrisburg, Pa. Marc Levy/AP hide caption

Students from Philadelphia hold photos of gun violence victims at a rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol pressing for stronger gun-control laws, March 23, 2023, in Harrisburg, Pa.

Numbers still high in 2023

Gun violence appeared to slightly ebb last year as the COVID-19 pandemic subsided. The final number of gun-related deaths in 2022 is still being tallied as places like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pull together numbers on suicides. There were an estimated 20,138 firearm deaths , excluding suicides, according to The Trace.

But gun violence continues to shake American life this year, especially during holidays when people are in large gatherings. There have been more than 300 mass shootings this year . And half of gun-related deaths this year were suicides.

Chicago was struck by gun violence over the Juneteenth and Memorial Day weekends, which both turned out to be some of the deadliest spans the city has seen in years, Sophie Sherry, Chicago Sun Times reporter, told Morning Edition .

Authorities say a peaceful gathering in suburban Chicago turned deadly

Over the Juneteenth weekend 75 people were shot in the city and 13 people died.

"What the count is right now would be the most people shot in a single week," Sherry said on the Tuesday after Juneteenth. "Memorial Day weekend was also one of the most violent since 2016 with 61 people shot here in the city. But unfortunately, obviously, this past weekend, we saw far more shootings than that."

Over the same weekend, four people were shot in an apartment complex behind a church in Kellogg, Idaho; they all died from gunshot wounds. There were also mass shootings in California, Maryland, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Washington state and Wisconsin.

Multiple mass shootings leave dead and injured across the U.S. during holiday weekend

The united states has been here, or close to it, before..

There were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021, which is the highest rate since the early 1990s , and just below the historic peak of 16.3 deaths per 100,000 people in 1974, according to Pew Research.

In the 1990s, the rise of gun deaths were also referred to as an epidemic by the National Institutes of Health.

In 1993, gun manufacturers increased the production of guns priced at $100 or less, while the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms slacked off, according to " The Role of Supply in 1980s and 1990s Youth Violence ." That year murders, with weapons such as guns, arson and poison, reached its highest point on record at the time.

The next year, the federal government doubled ATF law enforcement funding from $2 million to $4 million , which reinforced the Brady Background Check and reduced gun purchases, according to The Trace . As the 1990s unfolded, cheap gun manufacturers went out of business because of liability lawsuits, and gun suicide and murder rates decreased.

Taking the public health approach

"It is a public health issue. It mirrors every other public health issue that we've had in this country," Carter said. "Like any other public health problem, it is possible to solve with data-driven solutions."

Surgeon General Murthy said that viewing gun violence as a public health emergency will lead to more insight and data on the causes of violence and possible ways to curb it. Still, he's resisting a push from the California Medical Association to publish a Surgeon General's report on the hazards of gun violence similar to the major 1964 report on the dangers of smoking.

After declaring gun violence a "public health crisis" in 2016, the American Medical Association has regularly put forward ways to help bring down the number of deaths and injuries.

Most recently, in early June, it officially called for strengthening background checks and limiting the sale of multiple firearms. This allows more doctors to petition courts for protective orders for patients at risk of gun violence, and pushes social media companies to remove posts "glorifying firearm violence."

Meanwhile, Webster says establishing purchaser licensing requirements reduces gun-related homicides, suicides and mass shootings.

He also suggests community violence intervention programs in low-income communities. These programs put individuals with "street credibility" in positions to promote non-violent alternatives to conflict.

Carter says identifying gun violence as an epidemic is just a step in the right direction to addressing the fatal problem in America, because it leads to thinking about how to use scientific and public health resources "toward addressing all facets of the problem."

"I think it is an important label. But I don't think it's sufficient to address the problem," Carter said.

Lisa Lambert edited this digital story.