Introduction

About MPPGV

 The Michigan Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence (MPPGV) was established in 1995 in response to growing national and state concern over the epidemic of gun violence that each year claims the health, lives and happiness of thousands of individuals and their families. The MPPGV brings together the professional communities of law (including law enforcement), medicine, and public health in a collaborative effort to educate the public on the problem of gun violence, and formulate and implement policies that address this problem on a local, state, and national level. 

The MPPGV is committed to addressing the problem of gun violence using a public health model, whereby an analysis of the entire life cycle of a problem is used to identify points where interventions can be made to save lives.  In general, emerging strategies for gun violence prevention can be categorized as follows:

• Regulating Guns as Consumer Products
• Firearm Owner Responsibility and Accountability
• Law Enforcement

Before reviewing these strategies, it is important to gain an understanding of the extent of the problems they are designed to address.

An Overview of The Nature and Extent of Gun Violence in the United
States

Gun Violence in the United States has reached epidemic proportions. Comparing the death toll from gun violence with that of other recognized epidemics such as polio and HIV/AIDS makes clear that we must look at gun violence as public health emergency. The polio epidemic 50 years ago claimed 3,145 lives¹ and caused over 21,000 paralytic cases,² spurring a comprehensive national response to eradicate the disease. In the past twenty years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the United States has claimed close to 450,000 lives.³  Over roughly the same 20-year period, between 1979 and 1998, firearm violence in the United States claimed 687,324 lives, an average of 34,366 lives lost annually.⁴

 Although no reliable data is available on firearm injuries, research suggests that there are approximately three nonfatal injuries for every firearm fatality.⁵  Using simple math, we can estimate that almost 2.75 million firearm fatalities and injuries occurred between 1979 and 1998, leaving no doubt that firearm violence is an epidemic.  And, we currently do not have any means of estimating how often a firearm is used to intimidate, threaten, or coerce, or any means of measuring the psychological harm caused by gun violence.  

During the past two decades, the number of deaths from firearms nationally has fluctuated. In 1980, there were 33,780 gun related fatalities, a rate of 14.9 per 100,000. By 1985, the number had dropped to 31,566, and the rate fell to 13.3 per 100,000. Following a steady increase starting in the late 1980s, the number of gun deaths peaked at 39,595 in 1993, and the rate increased to 15.4 per 100,000.  Since 1993, gun deaths have been steadily declining. Final data for 1998 shows that 30,708 people died from gun injuries during that year, a rate of 11.4 per 100,000, down from 32,436 deaths at a rate of 12.1 per 100,000 in 1997.⁴

 Crime is also decreasing. The National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data indicates that U. S. victimization rates are at the lowest point since the survey's inception in 1973. Based on this survey, the U.S. Department of Justice estimates that close to 25.9 million criminal victimizations occurred in 2000, including over 6 million violent crimes. Analysis of NCVS data from 1993 through 2000 indicates a 44% decrease in violent crime and a 44% decrease in property crime over this period.⁶  A sizeable drop in firearm related crime is certainly a significant part of this trend.  According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the number of crimes committed with firearms has fallen steadily since 1993. Specifically, the rate of violent firearm crime, including murders, robberies, and aggravated assaults committed with firearms dropped from 225.5 per 100,000 in 1993 to 124.1 per 100,000 in 1999, and the firearm homicide rate fell from 6.6 per 100,000 in 1993 to 3.7 per 100,000 in 1999.⁷  Still, over 530,000 crimes were committed with firearms in 2000,⁶ and over 65% of all homicides were committed with a firearm in 1999.⁷

 Firearm suicide continues to be a significant concern, especially among young people and older men.  In fact, the majority of firearm fatalities in the United States are suicides.  In 1998, of the 30,708 firearm deaths that occurred nationally, 17,424, roughly 57%, were suicides.⁴ Suicide was the 8^th leading cause of death in the United States in 1997 and 1998, up from 9^th in 1996. Use of a firearm is the most common means of suicide overall, representing 57 percent of suicides committed in 1998. Suicide is the third-leading cause of death for young people aged 15 to 24 and firearms are used in more than 60 percent of those suicides. Firearm use in suicide is particularly prevalent among older males; nearly 80 percent of suicides by males over age 65 were committed with a gun in 1998.⁸

 While gun violence touches all of our lives, certain demographic groups are at a more extreme risk. For example: 

• Gun violence disproportionately affects young males. Despite only representing 21% of the entire population,⁹ males aged 29 and under accounted for over 37% of gun deaths in 1998. While the 1998 death rate for injury by firearms was 11.4 per 100,000 for the entire population, the rate was 28.0 per 100,000 for 15-19 year old males, 42.1 per 100,000 for 20-24 year olds, and 32.3 per 100,000 for 24-29 year olds.⁴

• Gun violence continues to occur at alarming rates among black Americans: at 21.8 per 100,000, the 1998 death rate for injuries by firearms among black Americans was nearly double that of the population at large. Young black males are particularly at risk. For 15-19 year olds, firearm deaths occurred at a rate of 75.5 per 100,000, for 20-24 year olds-- 133.0 per 100,000, and for 25-29 year olds-- 93.7 per 100,000. Statistically speaking, in 1998, black males aged 15-29 were roughly 4 times as likely to die by firearm injury than white males of the same age.⁴

 The overall reduction in crime and in gun violence in America is good news, and Michigan’s experience (to be described more fully in another section of this report) largely mirrors the trends observed on the national level. However, significant emphasis must be put on determining the reasons for this decline: are gun violence prevention strategies such as the Brady background check behind these declines, or have we been feeling the effects of a robust domestic economy? Are we only experiencing a cyclical downturn in rates of crime and violence, or are current trends a sign of things to come?   Are gun owner education efforts to encourage secure storage of firearms preventing deaths or is the aging of our population a more significant factor?   There is little existing research that helps us to answer these questions.  However, despite the overall decline in crime related gun violence, it is clear that there is on-going cause for concern and action.

 How We Compiled This Information

The information provided within these pages comes from national statistics compiled by the United States Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. State statistics come from data compiled by the Michigan Department of State Police and the Michigan Department of Community Health. Information about voter attitudes comes from professional national and state polls. We have also relied on peer-reviewed articles that have investigated gun-related issues. Information about specific incidents of gun violence is taken from newspapers and confirmed through direct contact with law enforcement where possible. 

 Purpose

Emerging Strategies: Gun Violence Prevention describes national, state and local level gun violence prevention strategies that show promise for helping to reduce and prevent gun violence in our state and in our communities.  This document is not intended to constitute a set of specific recommendations, but is intended to provide an overview of the broad range of strategies that must be considered if our state and country is indeed committed to ending the current epidemic of gun violence.  It is our hope that a more complete knowledge of each major strategic area and the range of available strategies for gun violence prevention will assist national and state policy leaders and community advocates to craft and enact effective gun violence prevention laws, policies and programs to stem the loss of life and loss of quality of life attributable to gun violence in Michigan and in our country.

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Citations: Introduction

1)       Scanlan C, ‘Guns are our polio.’ Detroit Free Press, pp. 1D, 4D, April 21, 1993 

2)       Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, National Immunization Program, Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases, Course Textbook 6th Edition (2nd Printing, January 2001), Retrieved from:  http://www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/pink

3)       Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, HIV/AIDS Update, A Glance at the HIV Epidemic, Retrieved from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchstp/od/mmwr/At-a-glance%20Key%20Facts.pdf

4)       Centers for Disease Control And Prevention, National Centers for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Systems, Deaths: Final Data for 1998, National Vital Statistics Reports, Volume 48, No. 11, July 24, 2000

5)       Annest JL et al., National estimates of nonfatal firearm-related injuries: beyond the tip of the iceberg, JAMA 1995;273:1749-1754

6)       U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Criminal Victimization 2000: Changes 1999-2000 with Trends 1993-2000, June 2001

7)       U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Estimated Firearm Crime, Retrieved from: http://www.ojp/usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/guncrime.txt

8)       Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Leading Causes of Death Reports, Retrieved from:  http://webapp.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/leadcaus.html

9)       U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Population Estimates Program, Resident Population Estimates of the United States by Age and Sex: April 1, 1990 to July 1, 1999, with Short-Term Projection to November 1, 2000, Washington, D.C., Retrieved from: http://www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/intfile2-1.txt