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 The authors say it's evidence that firearms - even in the hands of
experienced users - are inherently dangerous and accidents don't
just happen among novices.
Dr. Anupam Jena of Harvard Medical School and Andrew Olenski of
Columbia University compared firearm injuries during the conventions
each year from 2007 through 2015 with injury rates three weeks
before and three weeks after each event.
A decline of 63 percent was seen in the states where the conventions
were being held, apparently due to large numbers of gun owners being
at the events, as well as, in some cases, gun venues such as firing
ranges or hunting grounds having closed while their staff attended
the convention.
Nationally, there was a 20 percent reduction in firearm injuries
during the convention.
In contrast, gun-related crime did not decrease during the
conventions.
The drop in injuries was only seen among men. It was most prominent
in the states with the highest rate of gun ownership, and among
people living in the South and the West.
"These findings are consistent with reductions in firearm injuries
occurring as a result of lower rates of firearm use during the brief
period when many firearm owners and owners of places where firearms
are used may be attending an NRA convention," they said. "Our
results suggest that firearm-safety concerns and risks of injury are
relevant even among experienced gun owners.”
The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The study comes at a time when Americans own an estimated 265
million to 300 million guns, which is about one for every adult.
Thirty percent of Americans say they own at least one gun, and
another 11 percent say they live in a household with someone who
owns one, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2014, 461 people
died from an accidental firearm discharge and 15,928 were injured,
nearly 2,000 of whom were children, the study authors note.
"This passes the sniff test. It makes sense that decreased exposure
and decreased usage would result in fewer events," said Dr. Stephen
Hargarten, chairman of emergency medicine at the Medical College of
Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, who was not involved in the study.
"I have worked with lifetime members of the NRA who secretly confess
that they have unintended discharges of their rifles or shotguns.
And this study doesn't account for the unintended discharges that
didn't result in injury," he told Reuters Health in a telephone
interview.
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"We're saying, 'Here's a brief period of time when people likely to
use guns are not using them,'" and the injury rates go down, Jena
told Reuters Health by phone.
The researchers used an insurance database to track firearm injuries
during conventions in Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis,
Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Phoenix, Louisville and St. Louis.
Nationally, the rate of firearm injury dropped from 1.5 per 100,000
on the dates adjacent to the convention to 1.2 per 100,000 during
the convention itself. And in the state where the convention was
held, the injury rate went from 1.9 down to 0.7 per 100,000.
With as many as 80,000 firearm owners attending a convention, "the
relationship is not just possibly due to 80,000 members not using
firearms as much during the date of the convention," Jena said. "It
could be that firing ranges and hunting grounds are more likely to
be closed. There could be a larger network effect that could be at
play here."
It’s also relevant that the effect is largest in states that hold a
meeting in a given year, he noted. "If the convention is closer to
you in a given year, the effect should be larger, and we find that."
During the NRA's Atlanta convention in 2017, 60 percent of the
81,000 NRA members traveled more than 200 miles to attend, according
to the organization’s 2018 convention website.
"I think the most sophisticated and reasoned gun supporters will not
be surprised by this," Jena said. "All we are saying is that guns
are inherently unsafe and you recognize that whenever you use a
firearm. Even an experienced user may still suffer from a
gun-related injury. That's like saying even the best drivers in the
world may still get in a car accident. Why? Because driving is
inherently an unsafe activity compared to walking around in circles
in your house."
It would seem reasonable to investigate ways to make guns safer,
Hargarten said. "We've integrated safety features into other
products, but there has not been a collective discussion about this
product, as we had with cars in the 1960s."
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2CKXQfa The New England Journal of Medicine,
online February 28, 2018.
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