[35 year] tenure on the bench.” Stevens also noted that the proper interpretation of the Second Amendment had been “so well decided” prior to Heller that the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger had called the gun lobby’s ongoing misrepresentation of the Amendment “One of the greatest pieces of fraud – I repeat the word, ‘fraud’ – on the American public by special interest groups that I have ever seen in my lifetime.”

The Heller decision is worse, though, than even these harsh criticisms might indicate. In creating a constitutional obstacle, where none previously existed, to the adoption of stringent gun control laws in the United States comparable to the laws in all the other high income democratic countries of the world, Heller is literally a death sentence for tens of thousands of Americans annually. We should not be timid about openly stating that Heller was wrongly decided and must be overturned.

 

Myth #2: Honest, law-abiding people should own guns “for protection”

There is overwhelming evidence that guns in the homes and communities of honest, law abiding people are far more likely to be used to harm them than to protect them. The APHA cited representative examples of this evidence in its amicus brief in the 2008 Heller case. Since 2008, a large body of additional evidence has been amassed, including FBI crime data that show that guns are used in criminal homicides 34 times more often than they’re used to kill someone in self defense. Surprisingly, though, the current APHA “fact sheet” doesn’t mention the well-established fact that a gun in the home is an independent risk factor for a homicide, suicide, or accidental death in the home. There is also little information on this topic on the websites of other gun violence prevention (GVP) organizations. All public health advocates and GVP organizations should be actively involved in dispelling the myth of “guns for protection.”

 

Myth #3: We can stop our country’s epidemic of gun violence without substantially reducing the number of privately owned guns in circulation.

When we talk about stopping the epidemic of gun violence in our country, we should be talking, at a minimum, about reducing rates of gun deaths to levels at or below the average for the other high income democratic countries of the world. In the graph below, individual high income democratic countries are represented by circles, plotted according to their rates of gun deaths on the horizontal axis and their per capita gun ownership on the vertical axis. The graph also includes a computer generated “best fit” line that emphasizes the direct relationship between rates of gun deaths and per capita gun ownership. Clearly, the United States is an extreme outlier in both categories.

 

The APHA pointed out the direct relationship between lax gun laws, high rates of gun ownership, and high rates of gun deaths in its amicus brief in the 2008 Heller case. In that brief, the APHA stated:

It’s not that Americans are necessarily more violent. Nonfatal violent crime rates in this country are similar to those in most other high-income, developed countries, but every other high-income country has fewer guns (especially handguns), stronger gun control regulations, and much lower homicide rates.

In its current gun violence prevention “fact sheet,” though, despite declaring that gun violence is a “public health crisis,” the APHA doesn’t advocate any steps that would measurably reduce the pool of privately owned guns in our country. One of our country’s best known GVP organizations has gone so far as to ridicule the idea of reducing the pool of privately owned guns. In 2017, the Giffords Law Center published a pamphlet entitled Truth About Gun Violence. Under the heading, “Slippery Slope to Confiscation,” the pamphlet stated:

Nevermind that no serious organization advocates for mass firearm confiscation…or that collecting America’s 357 million firearms would be a logistical impossibility….In reality, smart gun laws are about saving lives and ensuring responsible gun ownership, not taking away guns.

Like the contradiction between the APHA’s current “fact sheet” and its 2008 amicus brief, the Truth About Gun Violence pamphlet contradicts an earlier statement published by the same organization. The Giffords Law Center grew out of the merger of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, formerly known as the Legal Community Against Violence, and Americans For Responsible Solutions, founded by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly. Ten years earlier, the Legal Community Against Violence had published another pamphlet, 10 Myths About Gun Violence in America, in which it had noted that the rate of gun violence, including firearm-related deaths in children, was far higher in the United States than in other industrialized nations, and that:

The reasons for this great disparity are clear: Americans own far more civilian firearms – particularly handguns – than people in other industrialized nations, and U.S. gun control laws are among the most lax in the world.

Americans Against Gun Violence is currently the only national GVP organization that advocates the adoption of stringent gun control laws that would reduce the number of guns per capita in the United States to levels comparable to those in other high income democratic countries. Specifically, we advocate the adoption of a complete ban on civilian ownership of handguns, comparable to the ban that Great Britain adopted after the 1996 Dunblane Primary School mass shooting, and a complete ban on civilian ownership of automatic and semi-automatic rifles, comparable to the ban that Australia adopted after the 1996 Port Arthur mass shooting. It’s inappropriate to refer to these laws as “mass firearm confiscation.” Both Great Britain and Australia required individuals who owned the banned weapons to surrender them in return for monetary compensation, and the vast majority of gun owners in both countries peacefully complied.

The GVP organizations that argue – either directly, as the Giffords Law Center has done, or indirectly, by exaggerating the likely effectiveness of limited firearm regulations – that we can stop the epidemic of gun violence in our country without substantially reducing the pool of privately owned guns are essentially arguing that we can ignore the best fit line on the graph above and instead move the USA circle in the right upper corner of this graph horizontally to the left on the gun death rate axis without moving it downward on the guns per capita axis. If we were to accomplish such a remarkable shift, we would be the only country in the world that has even been able to achieve a low rate of gun deaths despite high per capita gun ownership.

Joshua Sugarmann, executive director of the Violence Policy Center, summed up the limited measures advocated by other GVP organizations in his book, “Every Handgun is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns,” in which he wrote:

America’s gun lobby would be on the run, if only the gun control advocates would bother to chase them. Instead, trapped by their perception of the politically achievable, gun control advocates are always on the defensive….They nibble around the edges of half-solutions and good intentions dramatically out of sync with the reality of gun violence in America.

As the APHA has correctly stated, gun violence is a public health crisis in our country. Rather than continue to “nibble around the edges of half-solutions and good intentions,” we should take definitive steps to address this crisis.

 

Myth #4: We need more research

In its current gun violence prevention “fact sheet,” the APHA states, “We must expand the collection of data and research related to gun violence and other violent crime deaths in order to better understand the causes and develop appropriate solutions.” Similar statements can be found on the websites of most of our country’s best known GVP organizations. But few organizations state specifically what additional research is needed. To its credit, the APHA lists some specific examples. In its “fact sheet,” it calls for more research concerning “right to carry laws;” “violence prevention programs for children;” “the link between firearms policy and suicidal behavior;” and “the effects of different gun safety technologies.” The “fact sheet” fails to acknowledge, though, that there is already extensive evidence showing that liberal “right to carry laws” not only do not reduce crime, but are associated with increased rates of gun violence; that so-called “gun safety” programs for children and youth don’t prevent firearm related deaths and injuries but are used by the gun lobby and the associated gun industry to build their future customer base; that lax gun control laws and easy access to guns are independent risk factors for suicide; and that “gun safety technologies” are largely ineffective because, as the National Research Council has pointed out, “Firearms, after all, are designed to injure.”

As an example of the value of more research, Brady – formerly known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, and before that, Handgun Control, Inc, and before that, the National Council to Control Handguns  – issued a press release in June of this year entitled, “New Stanford Study Shows That Handgun Ownership Correlates To Higher Risk of Death By Suicide,” with the subheading, “The study is the largest of its kind….” The fact that a handgun in the home increases the risk of suicide has been known for decades. And the fact that handguns are the type of firearms used in most gun related crimes has been known even longer. That’s one of the reasons why Brady’s predecessor, the National Council to Control Handguns, was founded in 1974. And with the rising rate of gun suicide, it’s little surprise that the Stanford study was the “largest of its kind.”

It was shameful for Congress to cut the CDC’s budget for gun violence research back in the 1990’s after the CDC funded studies showing that a gun in the home was 43 times more likely to be used to kill a household member than to kill an intruder; that children under the age of 15 in the United States were being killed by guns at a rate that was 12 times higher than in the other high income democratic countries of the world; and that gunshot wounds were the fourth leading cause of years of potential life lost before age 65 in our country. This being said, at this point in time, more research, in the absence of the adoption of stringent gun control laws, will only document more senseless, preventable firearm related deaths and injuries.

There was already enough research in 1968 for the late Senator Thomas Dodd of Connecticut to state on the floor of the U.S. Senate:

Pious condolences will no longer suffice….Quarter measures and half measures will no longer suffice….The time has now come that we must adopt stringent gun control legislation comparable to the legislation in force in virtually every civilized country in the world.

 

In Conclusion 

Prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, when I used to give presentations like this one in person, someone would usually come up to me at the end of the talk and say something like, “That was nice and all, but we’re never going to adopt gun control laws like those other countries.”  I would reply that I’m confident that some day we will. The only question is, how many more innocent Americans will be killed and maimed with guns before that day arrives. I hope you’ll join me in committing to do everything within our power to help make that day come sooner rather than later.

 

Thank you.

 

 

Bill Durston, M.D.

Note: Dr. Durston is a board-certified emergency physician and a former expert marksman in the United States Marine Corps, decorated for “courage under fire” during the Vietnam War.