Amid the Black Lives Matter movement, COVID-19 and the climate crisis, Deirdre Quinn, PhD ‘17, and Samuel Allen, PhD ‘20, have spotlighted another public health epidemic, gun violence in the U.S.
Their July policy brief, “A Family Health Impact Analysis of Current United States Gun Policy,” published in the National Council on Family Relations Policy Brief Series, offers a look into the status of gun violence prevention policies, details how policies may be sparking more violence and provides recommendations for policymakers.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearm-related injuries are “one of the top five leading causes of death for Americans of all ages.” Additionally, Black Americans are 10 times more likely than white Americans to be victims of gun violence, according to the brief.
Despite the research, stats and studies, legislation aimed to reduce gun violence at federal and state levels has been limited, while legislation that expands access to guns “has flourished,” the brief argues.
At the federal level, there hasn’t been a policy restricting gun access or usage that has made it through both chambers of Congress, despite past initiative proposals.
The most recent legislative attempt was H.R.8, the Bipartisan Background Checks Act of 2019, which would require a background check for every firearm sale. It passed the House but has become stagnant in the Senate. It’s been on the Senate’s Legislative Calendar since March 4, 2019, the brief said.
At the state level, however, there’s been more legislative activity.
Since 2012, heaps of gun-related initiatives have been proposed nationwide, and nearly 600 have been passed in various states. Yet, “more than 60% of those enacted were supported by the National Rifle Association, reflecting gun policies that expand access to and use of guns,” the brief said.
The brief’s goal is to focus on the “often-overlooked family and community health” impacts of gun violence policy rather than the violence itself.
Improving families’ health and well-being requires a “family-centered, multifaceted and equity-focused approach” because gun violence policy affects diversity, as well as families’ structures and functions, the brief said.
The brief uses a family health impact analysis (FHIA), which adapts the principles of a traditional family impact analysis to evaluate how a health-related policy affects elements of family structure and functioning.
One gun policy example the brief highlights is the “Stand Your Ground” law, which is tied to the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. At least 25 states have enacted “Stand Your Ground” laws.
The gun policy doesn’t integrate the FHIA principle of family support, the brief states.
“These laws expand an individual’s right to use deadly force in self-defense in public, even when that force could safely be avoided, and they upend historical precedents for the use of lethal force only as a last result,” the brief explained.
Research suggests that stand-your-ground laws may be linked to an increase in homicides and gun-specific homicides, the brief included.
This type of policy “thwarts family and community health by protecting the use of violence, a dangerous precedent, particularly in the context of family violence or civilian community, policing,” the brief said.
Two policy recommendations from Quinn and Allen are to adopt and streamline universal background checks at the federal level and to expand community-specific gun violence awareness campaigns.
Effective advocacy and prevention tactics must “recognize the disproportionate impacts of gun violence and engage those most vulnerable to gun violence victimization in the U.S.,” the brief concluded.
Read the full policy brief, A Family Health Impact Analysis of Current United States Gun Policy, which includes the complete list of recommendations and other gun policy impacts on family health examples.
About the authors: Samuel Adam is a postdoctoral fellow at the Family Institute at Northwestern University, and Deirdre Quinn is a postdoctoral fellow in women’s health at the Center for Health Equity Research & Promotion (CHERP) at VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System.