With a stroke of his pen, President Barack Obama yesterday ended a de facto freeze on US government research into gun violence as a public health problem – in place since the mid-1990s.
"We don't benefit from ignorance," Obama said, directing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, to assess existing strategies to reduce gun violence and identify pressing questions that should be answered.
The executive order is one of 23 Obama signed as part of measures drawn up in response to the horrific killing last month of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Obama also wants the US Congress to release $10 million for new research, including investigating whether playing violent video games and being exposed to other violent media makes people more likely to commit gun crimes.
With gun violence claiming some 11,000 lives in the US each year, you might imagine that reducing this toll would be near the top of the public health agenda.
For a while, in the early 1990s, it was – with CDC-backed research finding, for instance, that people with guns in the home were more likely to become victims of homicide.
Budget cut
But in 1996, after lobbying by the National Rifle Association, Congress passed language preventing the CDC from using its funds to "advocate or promote gun control". Simultaneously, it slashed $2.6 million from the agency's budget – precisely the CDC's annual funding for gun violence research.
Fearing further cuts, CDC officials have since steered away from investigating the consequences of gun ownership. "It's incredible that the CDC has been so hampered in doing research on this terrible public health issue," says David Hemenway, director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.
Noting that "research on gun violence is not advocacy", Obama's order stresses that the CDC is not prohibited from following his directions. It also specifies one initial priority: getting Congress to provide $20 million to expand coverage of the CDC's National Violent Death Reporting System from 18 states to the entire nation.
The NVDRS collects data on the circumstances of homicides from police, coroners' reports and other sources. It could be used to help investigate whether gun control laws are having the desired effect, but its patchy coverage means that many actions taken at the state level cannot easily be studied.
No lack of questions
Gun violence researchers have no shortage of questions that the CDC could now investigate. Garen Wintemute, who heads the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis, wants to examine the value of California's efforts to recover firearms from people who bought them legally, but subsequently became ineligible to own a gun because they were convicted of a serious crime.
"We need to know whether that intervention – which is expensive and potentially risky – actually works," Wintemute says.
Another important question is over the degree of risk posed by people with a history of alcohol abuse owning guns. That could be studied if the CDC restored questions about gun ownership to its Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the main survey used by the agency to investigate how risky behaviours may lead to disease, injury and death. These were removed after Congress pressured the CDC to abandon gun research.
While the CDC should now be able to study gun violence once again, its budget must be approved by Congress, which is why Obama is also requesting $10 million in new funding, in addition to the $20 million for the NVDRS. The new research, the White House plan says, should include "investigating the relationship between video games, media images, and violence".
It is well established that playing violent video games causes a short-term rise in aggression – measured, for example, by testing volunteers' willingness to subject others to unpleasant blasts of sound.
Definitive answer
What is unclear is whether prolonged exposure to violent games translates into an increased risk of real-world violence. Getting a definitive answer would mean following the behaviour of thousands of children into adulthood so that any link between gaming and violent crime can be identified, says Craig Anderson, who heads the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames.
Given the gun lobby's powerful influence in Congress, it is unclear whether gun studies will earn the CDC additional funds, or whether they will have to compete with existing priorities.
Obama's main proposals on gun control similarly hang in the balance, requiring congressional approval. The president wants Congress to impose bans on assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines, and to close a loophole that allows individuals to sell guns privately without background checks on the buyer.
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Obama to scientists: tell us how to curb gun violence
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Obama to scientists: tell us how to curb gun violence
