How California is finally treating gun violence as the serious public health problem it is
California has taken a big step to address the scourge of gun violence. A new state law will allow scientists to generate the evidence that legislators and community leaders need to design violence prevention programs that work.
As violence researchers, we know that every Californian stands to benefit.
Violence is a public health problem. Not everyone sees it that way, but if it isn’t, as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention noted nearly 30 years ago, “then why are all those people dying from it?” Today, violence is one of America’s leading causes of injury and death.
Interpersonal violence (homicide and assault) disproportionately affects young people. Homicides, three-quarters of which involve firearms, jumped about 30% percent last year nationwide and in California — the largest annual increase in a century. Suicides get much less attention, but they outnumber homicides 2.5 to 1. They disproportionately affect older adults, especially men, and half of them involve firearms.
Just as science allows us to understand and combat the COVID pandemic, effective interventions to reduce firearm violence rely on rigorous research. California has long been out in front in this area. For more than 30 years, the state propelled this work forward by providing qualified researchers with access to uniquely rich data collected by the California Department of Justice and other agencies.
We built multidisciplinary teams at UC Davis and Stanford to conduct policy-relevant research. In 2016, the state established the first publicly funded center for research on firearm violence in the United States.
Already, California’s gun violence research has enabled studies examining risk factors for future violence among legal purchasers of handguns; the effectiveness of California’s policy prohibiting gun purchases by persons convicted of violent misdemeanors (such as assault and battery); suicide risks following a first handgun purchase; and implementation of gun violence restraining orders.
Projects in progress are developing novel methods of threat assessment to help prevent mass shootings and other forms of violence; mapping California’s criminal gun markets; measuring the risk of fatal assaults among the households of gun owners; assessing the effectiveness of gun violence restraining orders; and providing the nation’s first systematic data on criminal use of privately manufactured “ghost guns.”
Inexplicably, data access was cut off for several years under former California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. Many important studies ground to a halt. But Becerra’s successor, Rob Bonta, acted on his first day in office to repair the situation, restoring data access for legitimate research and reaffirming the importance of science in this area.
Recognizing that work with such clear public benefits needed long-term protection, Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, authored legislation (Assembly Bill 173) that was signed into law by Gov. Gavin Newsom in September and took effect immediately.
The science of gun violence is back in business in California.
As with COVID, anti-science disinformation is being spread by opponents who have labeled the new law “anti-privacy” and unconstitutional and called for extreme (and unconstitutional) responses such as “sanctuary counties that nullify statewide control.” In fact, the law specifies strict privacy and safety protections. Data may only be provided to bona fide researchers at accredited academic institutions, and only for carefully designed projects that are approved by ethics review boards and meet strict standards of privacy protection.
California relies on sound science for policy-making. This is as true for firearm violence as it is for other complex social problems. As California researchers, we look forward to a future when policymakers and community leaders again seek scientific evidence to guide their efforts to save lives.