Reducing gun violence in America: informing policy with evidence and analysis

Abstract

suing those who sold guns to our straw purchasers.Straw purchasers are those who lie about who is the actual purchaser of the gun, standing in for somebody who could not pass a background check.Twenty-four of the most problematic dealers settled or were put under a court monitor.Dr. Webster found that in New York City the likelihood of recovering a gun at a crime scene from one of these dealers dropped almost overnight by 84 percent.Ninety-nine percent of the gun dealers in our country do obey the law; one percent do not, and those are the ones that we have to go after.And the results are dramatic and almost instantaneous.Our investigation never would have happened without the data that allowed us to identify the problematic dealers.And yet, if it were up to the NRA, we would never have had access to it.More guns would have flowed onto our streets and, in all likelihood, more people would have been murdered.The undercover investigations we've conducted are just one example of how we've worked to crack down on gun violence.At our urging, the New York state legislature enacted the toughest penalties in the nation for illegal possession of a handgun: a 3 1 ⁄2-year mandatory minimum prison sentence.We have also worked with our city council to adopt a law enabling the NYPD to keep tabs on gun offenders in our city, in the same way that they track sex offenders.We enforce those laws and other laws rigorously, which is an important reason New York is the safest big city in the country.In 2012, New York City had the fewest murders in nearly half a century (comparable rec ords started to be kept back in 1963).We've never had a year remotely as safe as this past one.As hard as we've worked, however, and as much as we've achieved, the reality remains that, in New York during 2012, there were still 418 murders in the City, and a lot of the people that were killed were kids.While shooting incidents are down in New York City, as well as murders, I recently visited three NYPD officers who'd been shot by criminals in two separate incidents on the same night.Thankfully, the officers are all expected to fully recover.But I think the events of that night really do demonstrate a flaw in an argument we've heard lately.That argument is that the solution to "bad guys with guns is good guys with guns."The problem is that sometimes the good guys get shot.Sometimes, in fact, they get killed.And I think the hardest part of my job, the part that I dread the most as mayor, is talking to the family of a police officer at a hospital to tell them that their husband, wife, mother, father, son or daughter won't ever be coming home again. This page intentionally left blankOne month-to the hour-after the harrowing and unfathomable massacre of 20 children and 6 adults in a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school, Johns Hopkins University convened a summit that brought together preeminent researchers on gun violence from across the country and around the world.This was a moment when advocates, lobbyists, and politicians on both sides of the gun-control debate were beginning to mobilize and spar.In this unruly mix, Johns Hopkins seized the opportunity to discharge a critical role of research universities and provided principled scaffolding for the debate.We wanted to use the opportunity to cut through the din of the shrill and the incendiary, the rancorous and the baseless, and provide rigorous, researchbased considerations of the most effective gun regulations and the appropriate balance between individual rights and civic obligation.At Johns Hopkins, our scholars and researchers have been investigating the public health effects of gun violence for well over two de cades.For the past seventeen years, the Center for Gun Policy and Research has provided a home for that study, producing nationally recognized research and recommendations aimed at understanding and curtailing the impact of gun violence.