A Shrinking Minority: The Continuing Decline of Gun Ownership in America

Contrary to public claims by the gun industry and the gun lobby, firearms ownership has declined dramatically over the past 35 years according to new survey data from the General Social Survey (GSS) released today by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. Except for the U.S. Census, the GSS is the most frequently analyzed source of information in the social sciences and is the only survey that has tracked the opinions of Americans over an extended period of time. The NORC data comes out the same week that the National Rifle Association (NRA) begins its annual convention this Thursday in St. Louis, MO.The NORC data shows that during the period 1972 to 2006, the percentage of American households that reported having any guns in the home has dropped nearly 20 percentage points: from a high of 54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006. The data also shows that during the period 1980 to 2006, the percentage of Americans who reported personally owning a gun dropped more than nine percentage points: from a high of 30.7 percent in 1985 to a low during the survey period of 21.6 percent in 2006

Toward a digital library strategy for a National Information Infrastructure

Bills currently before the House and Senate would give support to the development of a National Information Infrastructure, in which digital libraries and storage systems would be an important part. A simple model is offered to show the relationship of storage systems, software, and standards to the overall information infrastructure. Some elements of a national strategy for digital libraries are proposed, based on the mission of the nonprofit National Storage System Foundation

The United States digital recording industry

The recording industry resembles the semiconductor industry in several aspects. Both are large (greater than $60 Billion/year revenues); both are considered critical technologies supporting national objectives; both are experiencing increased competition from foreign suppliers; they recognize significant opportunities for both technological and market growth in the decade to come; and both realize that a key to this future growth lies in alliances among industry, academia, and government. The semiconductor industry has made significant investments in alliances relating to manufacturing technologies (SEMATECH) and to joint long-term technology research centered in universities (SRC). The federal government has provided funding support of these efforts in recognition of the critical roles semiconductor technologies play in national interests. The recording industry is now also forming critical alliances, but has been slower in starting and in gaining broad recognition by government agencies and legislators that the industry needs federal support. Traditionally, the recording industry has been viewed as mature, stable, and, while critical to national interests, able to chart and fund its own course toward future national needs. That perception is fortunately changing

The Urgent Need for Legal Scholarship on Firearm Policy

Restrictions on federal funding for research pertaining to firearm policy have stymied academic inquiry by social science and public health researchers for over two decades. As a result, most researchers agree that our public discourse about this urgent issue is woefully under-informed, or even ill-informed, on both sides of the debate. Legal academia, which does not operate under the same grant-writing regime as most other disciplines, can and should help fill this gap in researching and theorizing the unresolved questions related to firearm policy. In fact, theoretical development and clarification from the legal academy is often a necessary antecedent for empirical researchers in other fields to frame and develop their own studies properly, especially about the real-world effects of competing policy approaches to firearms. This Essay sets forth a plea to law professors to undertake much-needed research in this area and offers suggestions of understudied topics with low entry barriers for legal commentators. Recommendations for interdisciplinary collaborative efforts round out this discussion. A brief conclusion reaches the endgame issue: ensuring access to the work we produce

What do primary school principals from the Yamaji region or Mid West Education District say about their school\u27s bullying prevention and management guidelines and practices and how they support the strengths and needs of Aboriginal students and their families?

Background: Australia‟s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders are over represented in poor health and education outcomes. Little is known about the bullying experiences of Aboriginal school age children and young people. This Master\u27s study aimed to investigate the policies and practises school principals use for bullying prevention and management in primary schools located in the Yamaji region or Midwest Education District of Western Australia.This study was conducted in conjunction with the Child Health Promotion Research Centre‟s Solid Kids, Solid Schools project. Solid Kids, Solid Schools is a four-year study that aimed to contextualise the bullying experiences of Yamaji school-age children and young people; and develop a locally relevant and culturally secure bullying prevention and management resource. Method: Thirty-one principals and four deputy principals of primary school aged students participated in either a semi-structured telephone interview or survey. Instrument items asked principals: how often staff at their school used 12 bullying management strategies; to describe and rate the effectiveness of 25 bullying prevention guidelines and strategies; and to describe enablers and barriers to working with Aboriginal students who are bullied or who bully others.Participant responses were matched for compliance with evidence-based recommendations (Cross, Pintabona, Hall, Hamilton, & Erceg, 2004, p. 11) and national policy as set out in the National Safe Schools Framework (NSSF) (Department of Education Science and Training; DEST, 2003) for school bullying prevention and management. Participant responses were also compared to a culturally secure bullying prevention and management model to determine if their guidelines and strategies are culturally secure and could respond to the strengths and needs of Aboriginal students

An Interactive Web-Based Lethal Means Safety Decision Aid for Suicidal Adults (Lock to Live): Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial

BACKGROUND: Counseling to reduce access to lethal means such as firearms and medications is recommended for suicidal adults but does not routinely occur. We developed the Web-based Lock to Live (L2L) decision aid to help suicidal adults and their families choose options for safer home storage. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to test the feasibility and acceptability of L2L among suicidal adults in emergency departments (EDs). METHODS: At 4 EDs, we enrolled participants (English-speaking, community-dwelling, suicidal adults) in a pilot randomized controlled trial. Participants were randomized in a 13:7 ratio to L2L or control (website with general suicide prevention information) groups and received a 1-week follow-up telephone call. RESULTS: Baseline characteristics were similar between the intervention (n=33) and control (n=16) groups. At baseline, many participants reported having access to firearms (33/49, 67%), medications (46/49, 94%), or both (29/49, 59%). Participants viewed L2L for a median of 6 min (IQR 4-10 min). L2L also had very high acceptability; almost all participants reported that they would recommend it to someone in the same situation, that the options felt realistic, and that L2L was respectful of values about firearms. In an exploratory analysis of this pilot trial, more participants in the L2L group reported reduced firearm access at follow-up, although the differences were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: The L2L decision aid appears feasible and acceptable for use among adults with suicide risk and may be a useful adjunct to lethal means counseling and other suicide prevention interventions. Future large-scale studies are needed to determine the effect on home access to lethal means. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03478501; https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03478501

New Jersey Executive Order 83: Preventing Gun Violence through the Power of Procurement

State and local executives can — and must — act decisively to ensure that firearm sellers, distributors, and manufacturers adopt safe business practices that prevent guns from being diverted to the illegal market. In 2019, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy did just that when he exercised his procurement powers to issue Executive Order 83 (EO 83), a policy designed to guarantee that firearm industry businesses and financial institutions providing services to the state are committed to gun safety principles. Toward that end, New Jersey state offices sent Requests for Information (RFIs) to the state's firearms and finance vendors to assess their commitment to public safety principles.Brady subsequently submitted open records requests for the vendor responses to these RFIs, and our analysis of their content found that EO 83 was successful both in promoting gun safety and laying a strong foundation for future action on its behalf. The firearms industry responses show how seriously different vendors approach their obligation to minimize the public safety risks posed by guns — information which can be used to better inform the state's procurement decisions. The responses from the finance industry revealed that merely sending an RFI to its members can promote gun safety by giving them good reason to assess their approach to working with the gun industry, educate their executives on gun safety, and even adopt new policies regarding their relationships with gun industry clients.This report shows how EO 83 established a broad foundation for future actions that will further advance the state's commitment to gun violence prevention, providing concrete recommendations to state and local executives around the country who wish to replicate and expand on New Jersey's landmark approach to procurement and gun safety. With the epidemic of gun violence claiming more than 40,000 lives a year, states should focus on measures they can take to promote legal compliance and safe business practices by leveraging their procurement powers — a life-saving, indeed necessary, tool that should be adopted by every state in the nation. This is particularly true in the current national climate, where a few states, such as Texas, are implementing regressive policies that seek to dissuade financial institutions from adopting gun safety strategies. If more jurisdictions follow New Jersey's lead, however, the industry will face mounting pressure to adopt practices that ensure compliance with the law and protect public safety, leading to less gun violence and more saved lives.

Preventing Firearm Suicide Among White Men Who Own Firearms in Greater Minnesota: Findings from Interviews with Firearm Owners and National Messaging Experts

Wilder Research conducted interviews with national messaging experts and white, male, firearm owners in greater Minnesota. Respondents were asked for their suggestions for trusted messengers who could share communications about firearm suicide prevention, suggestions for framing messaging and the types of content that should be shared, safe storage practices, and how they and other firearm owners would respond to a mental health crisis and the barriers that prevent people from intervening in a crisis

Prev Med

Firearm-related injury and death is a serious public health issue in the U.S. As more Americans consume news and media online, there is growing interest in using these channels to prevent firearm-related harms. Understanding the firearm-related narratives to which consumers are exposed is foundational to this work. This research used the browsing behavior of a representative sample of American adults to identify seven firearm-related content "ecosystems" (defined as naturally occurring networks of channels watched by the same users) on YouTube; we then described the demographics and internet search patterns of users affiliated with each ecosystem. Over the 9-month study period, 72,205 panelists had 16,803,075 person-video encounters with 7,274,093 videos. Among these, 282,419 were related to firearms. Using fast greedy clustering, we partitioned users and channel interactions into seven distinct channel-based content ecosystems that reached more than 1/1000 YouTube users per day. These ecosystems were diverse in reach, users, and content (e.g., guns for self-protection, guns for fun). On average, 0.5% of panelists performed a firearm-related internet search on a given day. The vast majority of searches were related to mass shootings or police-involved shootings (e.g., "active shooter"), and virtually none were about more common firearm harm such as suicide. Searches for firearm safety information were most common among panelists affiliated with the "Hunting & Fishing" and "Guns & Gear" ecosystems, which were watched primarily by older, white men. These findings identify an opportunity for analyzing firearm-related narratives and tailoring firearm safety messaging for users affiliated with specific online content ecosystems.R01 CE003267/CE/NCIPC CDC HHSUnited States/R24 HD087149/HD/NICHD NIH HHSUnited States/P20 GM139664/GM/NIGMS NIH HHSUnited States

Diverse University Students Across the United States Reveal Promising Pathways to Hunter Recruitment and Retention

Declining participation in hunting, especially among young adult hunters, affects the ability of state and federal agencies to achieve goals for wildlife management and decreases revenue for conservation. For wildlife agencies hoping to engage diverse audiences in hunter recruitment, retention, and reactivation (R3) efforts, university settings provide unique advantages: they contain millions of young adults who are developmentally primed to explore new activities, and they cultivate a social atmosphere where new identities can flourish. From 2018 to 2020, we surveyed 17,203 undergraduate students at public universities across 22 states in the United States to explore R3 potential on college campuses and assess key demographic, social, and cognitive correlates of past and intended future hunting behavior. After weighting to account for demographic differences between our sample and the larger student population, 29% of students across all states had hunted in the past. Students with previous hunting experience were likely to be white, male, from rural areas or hunting families, and pursuing degrees related to natural resources. When we grouped students into 1 of 4 categories with respect to hunting (i.e., non-hunters [50%], potential hunters [22%], active hunters [26%], and lapsed hunters [3%]), comparisons revealed differences based on demographic attributes, beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors. Compared to active hunters, potential hunters were more likely to be females or racial and ethnic minorities, and less likely to experience social support for hunting. Potential hunters valued game meat and altruistic reasons for hunting, but they faced unique constraints due to lack of hunting knowledge and skills. Findings provide insights for marketing and programming designed to achieve R3 objectives with a focus on university students. © 2021 The Wildlife Society