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Expanded Homicide Data, Table 15) compared with over 30,000 gun deaths (NCIPC). A 2009 study found that people in possession of a gun are 4.5 times more likely to be shot in an assault (Branas). DID YOU KNOW? Assaults and suicide attempts with firearms are much more likely to be fatal than those perpetrated with less lethal weapons or means. Removing guns saves lives. There are five times as many deaths from gun assaults as from knife assaults, where the rates of assault with knives and with guns are similar (Zimring, p. 199). More than 90 percent of suicide attempts with a gun are fatal (Miller, 2004, p. 626). In comparison, only 3 percent of attempts with drugs or cutting are fatal (Miller, 2004, p. 626). DID YOU KNOW? Guns can be sold in the United States without a background check to screen out criminals or the mentally ill. It is estimated that forty percent of gun acquisitions occur in the secondary market. That means that they happen without a Brady background check at a federally licensed dealer (Cook, p. 26).
Gun violence is an urgent, complex, and multifaceted problem. It requires evidence-based, multifaceted solutions. Psychology can make important contributions to policies that prevent gun violence. Toward this end, in February 2013 the American Psychological Association commissioned this report by a panel of experts to convey research-based conclusions and recommendations (and to identify gaps in such knowledge) on how to reduce the incidence of gun violence—whether by homicide, suicide, or mass shootings—nationwide.
Antecedents to Gun Violence: Developmental Issues A complex and variable constellation of risk and protective factors makes persons more or less likely to use a firearm against themselves or others. For this reason, there is no single profile that can reliably predict who will use a gun in a violent act. Instead, gun violence is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and sociocultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence. Although many youths desist in aggressive and antisocial behavior during late adolescence, others are disproportionately at risk for becoming involved in or otherwise affected by gun violence. The most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior. Prevention efforts guided by research on developmental risk can reduce the likelihood that firearms will be introduced into community and family conflicts or criminal activity. Prevention efforts can also reduce the relatively rare occasions when severe mental illness contributes to homicide or the more common circumstances when depression or other mental illness contributes to suicide. Reducing incidents of gun violence arising from criminal misconduct or suicide is an important goal of broader primary and secondary prevention and intervention strategies. Such strategies must also attend to redirecting developmental antecedents and larger sociocultural processes that contribute to gun violence and gun-related deaths. Antecedents to Gun Violence: Gender and Culture Any account of gun violence in the United States must be able to explain both why males are perpetrators of the vast majority of gun violence and why the vast majority of males never perpetrate gun violence. Preliminary evidence suggests that changing perceptions among males of social norms about behaviors and characteristics associated with masculinity may reduce the prevalence of intimate partner and sexual violence. Such interventions need to be further tested for their potential to reduce gun violence.
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