In 2018, News from Science spoke with gun violence researcher Garen Wintemute about predicting and preventing gun tragedies.
chatted with him about the unique factors behind mass shootings and which policy interventions are most effective. This interview has been edited for clarity and length.Firearm violence has been seen traditionally as a crime problem. But gun violence is one of our leading causes of death and injury, and the implications of this violence are huge in terms of the safety and health of our overall population. So, we treat it as we would any other major health problem.
These orders, if properly used, would not just prevent individual tragedies but could probably drop rates of violence altogether because it's so common that a future shooter puts out unmistakable signals of intent to do harm. This can mean telling hospital staff, friends, or family that they're planning on hurting themselves or others. It can mean unusual patterns of purchasing weapons, like purchasing several firearms in a short time span.
There's always controversy with this sort of work, but to me the common ground far outweighs it. One of the policy proposals that is widely seen as highly controversial is to require a background check for all purchases of firearms. More than 90% of the population supports that measure, but so do more than 80% of gun owners and more than 70% of self-identified members of the National Rifle Association.
A mistake that is often made—it's made by the public, it's made by the media—is to pay attention to the extremes and ignore the fact that the country has basically made up its mind on this one. We just need our leadership to represent the opinions of the people and not the opinions of the extremes.