Newton has provided the ímpetus to get US legislators to come to grips with the dubious status of the USA as the affluent world´s society with the most fatal interpersonal violence. The announcement today of the inter-agency task force chaired by Joe Biden to look at solutions to gun violence must use the wealth of US and international knowledge and best practice.
We have the knowledge to reduce urban gun violence significantly but must go beyond US projects. We can learn from Australia and UK for mass killings but not so easy. The clearest path is to reinvest from reaction to prevention using knowledge and public health solutions.
He has some significant challenges. For instance, US firearm homicide rates for 15-to-20-year-olds are 42 higher than in other OECD countries. ! It is not just the sensational and exceptional ¨ isolated¨ young white men killing multiple victims in ¨isolated¨ incidents with military equipment. It is also disadvantaged young black men killing their brothers in larger numbers every week with illegal handguns.
The size of the problem and the failure to come to grips with it are brought home by the statistic that the 7000 handgun homicides annually equate to the combined totals for American casualties in the Afghan and Iraq wars over a 7 year period.
It is also a problem that is not going away. If we include suicide, combined annual total for homicides and suicides using a gun may exceed an equally gruesome failure – traffic fatalities by 2015.
From a victims´ rights perspective to not be killed, there is no better person than Joe Biden. While Joe Biden is important as he is vice-president, he is also well known to victims´movement for his support of the 1984 Victims of Crime Act, his leadership for the 1994 Violence against Women´s Act that embraces prevention and victim support, and the 2004 Victim Rights Act. He also fought for the ban on semi-automatic weapons in 1994.
The solutions to urban gun violence are more obvious than the isolated shootings, such as Newton or Aurora. The evidence on comprehensive violence prevention strategies that prevent urban gun violence is promising, but governments have to shift from paying for incarceration to investing in proven prevention. The failure to stop the urban gun violence so far puts in question whether outspending the rest of the world on incarceration – one in four of all prisoners in the world are incarcerated in the USA – is a solution to violence.
Incidents where one individual kills multiple innocent victims before killing himself have produced progress but with different results in different countries. What is clear is that incarceration is not a solution as most of the killers kill themselves. What is also clear is a task force investigation is essential.
Here are what happened in two other cases – note the banning of the particular weapon and particular magazines but also the amnesties and over time some encouraging results, particularly in Australia.
The murderer in Dunblane, Scotland, in 1996 used handguns to kill 16 kids close to the age of the Newton children – in less than two years, handguns – even for their sacred use in sporting – were prohibited in the UK. There was an amnesty to reduce the number of guns in circulation. Overtime gun related homicides have declined, though there Is a small resurgence in handguns and gangs.
The murderer in Port Arthur, Australia, just shortly after Dunblane used automatic weapons, including an AR15 similar to Newton, to kill 35 adults. This resulted in a comprehensive set of restrictions, including on guns that load automatically. There was an amnesty that recovered close to 700,000 guns. Some gradual decline in homicides. The results are impressive with a 40% reduction in gun related homicides.
