The science of gun violence
Some things to talk about when we talk about Newtown, mental health, and guns.
The science of gun violence
Janet Golden, a Rutgers University history professor, specializes in the histories of medicine, childhood and women.
By Janet Golden
Things to talk about when we talk about Newtown, mental health, and guns:
1. “The vast majority of violence in our society is not perpetuated by persons with serious mental illness.”
This comes from a 2009 the American Psychiatric Association (APA) Resource Document entitled "Access to Firearms by People with Mental Illness."
2. Under the Affordable Care Act, mental health will become more accessible and people with mental health conditions won’t be denied coverage because it is a pre-existing condition.
This is a good step, but we must be certain that quality treatment and follow up care is widely available. And we must work with communities and institutions to end the stigma of mental illness. And we need elected officials to step up and ensure that there is adequate funding for the training of mental health professionals and the provision of services.
3. More than 38,000 Americans die by suicide every year, more than half of them using firearms, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Firearms, the organization notes, are used in more suicides than homicides. Suicide is a leading cause of death in young people, and it is preventable.
4. Firearms are the most commonly used weapons in domestic homicides. In 2010 intimate partner violence took 1,336 lives and led to thousands of injuries and long-term health problems.
As we begin to talk about preventing events like the mass slaughter in Newtown, Conn., and the daily incidents of lethal violence in our homes and communities, let’s learn from the public health data and ask the public health question: How can we prevent these deaths? Let’s talk about individuals, families, communities, and access to mental health and family counseling services.
Finally, let’s get back to some serious research. As explained in a recent post from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a 1996 amendment to an appropriations bill contained an explicit stipulation that halted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence.
Public health is advanced by knowledge; let’s stop pretending that what we don’t know won’t hurt us. Recent events have made clear that this position is no longer acceptable. We must go back to ensuring that there is a steady and sufficient stream of support for scientific public health research on firearm violence and its prevention.
Read more about The Public's Health.
Diversity: Your posts are full of falsehoods invented as a justification for gun craziness. I'll take them one by one: Just about everybody in Afghanistan or Somalia is armed, and I wouldn't cite those countries as paragons of freedom. In the United States, it is very rare that mobs threaten to take anyone's liberty and property. Has it ever happened to you, or anyone you know? Your hypothetical of the thug and the little woman, if it ever happened, would just as likely end with the woman having her weapon taken away and used against her. As for guns ending rule by brute force, I refer you to the armed dictatorships of Hitler and Stalin. As for social democracies, those in Europe, Canada and Australia/New Zealand all work better than ours at producing the greatest health and prosperity for the greatest number (see a number of rankings including the recent one by the Legatum investment banking group). And all of those countries either severely restrict or ban private ownership of firearms. Finally, with your remark about firearm confiscation (which has been advocated by NO ONE in our government) you seem to advocate armed rebellion. That would put you and your opinions outside the pale for most Americans who do not want our country going up in smoke.— Dave Clemens- Mental illness may not be the major cause for violence in our society but for some VERY STRANGE Very Ill Reason it's the most glorified & most magnified by our MEDIA! Always smh wondering just Why this is?— Lyrra
- People should learn to read and comprehend. The article is about conducting scientific research on why a small percentage of the members of society cause so much harm by using firearms? Its not about protecting "Freedom". You know that farce that knuckleheads kling too to justify their stupidity. The 2 percent are truly the Free. They can afford it. The rest of the 98 percent is bound and gagged by a Constitution that not worth the paper its written on. Get a clue!— A. Martinez
- Well said Dave Clemens, well said.— masterncommander
- Diversity, I like to think your posts are unintentionally hilarious, but this one is so far out that I have to wonder if you're deliberately dealing in satire:
"social democracy is a hollow farce without an armed populace to make it work"
I just wet my pants a little re-reading it. Superb.
The idea of you and your ilk forming an effective armed coalition is ludicrous, something even the most active imagination could never conceive. Your revisionist history suggests Colonial Americans were such a "populace." I wasn't there, but my modest knowledge of 1700s firearms suggests otherwise.
Thank God, at no time in our history has an ill-informed, reactionary minority group of gun-wielding maniacs ensured our "social democracy." In reality, they threaten it by forcing us to endure a society where battlefield-caliber firearms are available for the taking regardless of the greater harm they cause.
The only hollow farce here is you and your fellow dimwits shrugging off scientific clinical research for fear it might hinder your plans to build doomsday underground arsenals. Meanwhile, we bury the innocents, and very, very few (almost none) actual protect themselves from legitimate harm by using guns.— So_many_haters - If the CDC lost its appropriation for studying gun violence in 1996, How come Michael Bloomberf and Diane Feinstein are waving CDC gun crime studies in front of the TV cameras? Are these studies being done outside of the agency's authority?— DonQ
- Anyone care why "More than 38,000 Americans die by suicide every year"? If people are not taught or have access to resources that will teach them how to handle their emotions constructively, the mind typically will make a failed attempt to figure things out. Unfortunately that can lead to depression, anxiety, phobias and ultimately contribute to those 38,000 American suicides. As a culture we keep a lot of things to ourselves. WHY? Media is a big one. Fears of backlash. Being a burden is another big fear if they are dependent upon someone else. We need to re-evaluate mental health in the country. You may be raising your child properly but if the next parent is not thats just as important and requires immediate action— Yes_General
- "Public health is advanced by knowledge."
That's why I shared this informative post on my FB page.— RozWarren
