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EDITORIAL: California steps in to fill gap in gun research

The Press Democrat - 7/1/2017

July 01--When Rep. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and four other people were shot and wounded two weeks ago on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, it was the 155th mass shooting in the United States this year.

Why are mass shootings so much more common in this country than elsewhere? Are there any warning signs that could identify a potential gunman? Which laws and gun safety programs are effective? Which ones aren't?

Don't look for answers to any of those questions in research funded by the federal government. Some 30,000 people die from gunshots each year, but, for more than two decades, Congress has barred the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from using federal dollars to research gun-related violence. Five years ago, the research ban was extended to the entire U.S. Health and Human Service Department.

This head-in-the-sand approach is foolish, even dangerous -- the equivalent of barring auto-safety research because of highway fatalities.

There's next to no chance that Congress will buck the National Rifle Association and change the rule any time soon, so California is stepping into the breach.

Beginning today, UC Davis will be home to the first state-funded firearms violence research center in the nation.

UC allocated $5 million over five years, which will help underwrite the work of Garen Wintemute, an emergency room physician at the UC Davis Medical Center who has studied guns and gun violence for nearly 30 years.

His work has contributed to the enactment of laws banning toy guns that closely resemble real firearms and the closure of a half-dozen manufacturers of Saturday night specials -- low-cost handguns that lack safety features and frequently are used in crimes. To help keep firearms research going since the federal funding ban took effect in 1996, Wintemute has donated about $1 million of his own money.

"There came a point when I decided that the work we do is as important as the work of the other nonprofits to which I gave donations," Wintemute told the journal Nature in a 2013 interview. "I decided I'm going to keep the lights on."

The first state-funded projected at the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center is slated to be a survey to determine who owns guns, why they own them and how they use them. A study of this kind hasn't been conducted since the mid-1970s, Wintemute told the Sacramento Bee last year. He also wants to study the effectiveness of existing gun laws.

Students and other faculty members from Davis and other UC campuses will take part in research projects at the institute. The funding was sponsored by former state Sen. Lois Wolk, who represented parts of Sonoma County before being termed out last year.

Academic research isn't going to infringe on the rights of gun owners. But it can provide better information for legislators, policymakers and voters who want to reduce the death toll from mass shootings in this country.

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(c)2017 The Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, Calif.)

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