The succession of incidents of gun violence in the USA seem
to be set to continue. This CLD explores what might be the major drivers behind
these incidents and what could be leverage points of intervention. The deeply
rooted believe that guns offer protection against assault with firearms has
been identified as a major factor perpetuating the current situation. This
false belief impedes sensible legislation
to introduce tougher measures to control gun purchases. Proof of the existence
of this belief is that the purchases of guns reliably increase after every mass shooting.
There
have now been a number of research papers
that have shown that an increase in the access of firearms leads to an increase
in gun violence. Guns kept in the home lead to children being injured or killed
by guns, more suicides and killings -
the opposite of increased security. Please see the article below. Successfully
challenging this cultural belief would probably reduce opposition to effective control
on the acquisition of guns and in all probability the number of gun victims.
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0804-hemenway-defensive-gun-home-20150730-story.html
