Death by the Barrel

[SecularMotion]

This particular gun story took place, ironically enough, at the 1997 convention of the American Public Health Association in Indianapolis. There, among a group of white-collar professionals and academics, a seemingly minor incident quickly led to mayhem. While eating dinner at the Planet Hollywood restaurant, a patron bent to pick something up from the floor. A small pistol fell from his pocket, hit the floor, and went off. The bullet struck and injured two convention delegates waiting to be seated; both women went to the hospital.

"Why manufacture guns that go off when you drop them?" asks professor of health policy David Hemenway '66, Ph.D. '74. "Kids play with guns. We put childproof safety caps on aspirin bottles because if kids take too many aspirin, they get sick. You could blame the parents for gun accidents but, as with aspirin, manufacturers could help. It's very easy to make childproof guns."

Logic like this pervades Hemenway's new book, Private Guns, Public Health (University of Michigan Press), which takes an original approach to an old problem by applying a scientific perspective to firearms. Hemenway, who directs the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at the School of Public Health (www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc), summarizes and interprets findings from hundreds of surveys and from epidemiological and field studies to deliver on the book's subtitle: A Dramatic New Plan for Ending America's Epidemic of Gun Violence. The empirical groundwork enables Hemenway, whose doctorate is in economics, to sidestep decades of political arm-wrestling over gun control. "The gun-control debate often makes it look like there are only two options: either take away people's guns, or not," he says. "That's not it at all. This is more like a harm-reduction strategy. Recognize that there are a lot of guns out there, and that reasonable gun policies can minimize the harm that comes from them."

Hemenway's work on guns and violence is a natural evolution of his research on injuries of various kinds, which he has pursued for decades. (In fact, it could be traced as far back as the 1960s, when, working for Ralph Nader, LL.B. '58, he investigated product safety as one of "Nader's Raiders.&quot Hemenway says he doesn't have a personal issue with guns; he has shot firearms, but found the experience "loud and dirty—and there's no exercise"—as opposed to the "paintball" survival games he enjoys, which involve not only shooting but "a lot of running." He also happens to live in a state with strong gun laws. "It's nice," he says, "to have raised my son in Massachusetts, where he is so much safer."

http://harvardmagazine.com/2004/09/death-by-the-barrel.html

[ileus]

1. I thought this was going to be about mustard gas.

[pablo_marmol]

4. !

[Straw Man]

2. Right.

"Why manufacture guns that go off when you drop them?" asks professor of health policy David Hemenway '66, Ph.D. '74. "Kids play with guns. We put childproof safety caps on aspirin bottles because if kids take too many aspirin, they get sick. You could blame the parents for gun accidents but, as with aspirin, manufacturers could help. It's very easy to make childproof guns."

Virtually every handgun produced today is drop-safe, despite there being no federal mandate to make them so. You can send your "Thank You" cards to the individual manufacturers or simply send one card to all of them in care of the NSSF.

[pablo_marmol]

3. "It's nice," he says, "to have raised my son in Massachusetts, where he is so much safer."

Yup --- there's that famous Hemenway "logic"! I'm guessing that our pal Dave didn't raise his son in one of the rougher sections of Boston.

[benEzra]

5. You dredged up a story from eleven YEARS ago?

Since that was written, at least a hundred million new guns were purchased by U.S. gun owners, and the murder rate dropped. The "assault weapon ban" expired, and rifle murders dropped. Now, eleven years later, the U.S. murder rate is at historic lows.

It's ironic that even back in 2004 in that article, gun control advocates acknowledged that modern-looking rifles weren't a crime problem, even though rifle crime was higher then than it is now. Though that hasn't stopped you guys from trying to outlaw them...

[Eleanors38]

6. Well, it ages better in a "barrel."

BTW, the latest ed. of Outdoor Life has a big spread on the evolvement of the AR into a popular and widely-accepted firearm.