• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
Wednesday, May 31, 2023
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • CONTACT US
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News

Most Californians unaware of law to prevent gun violence but would support using it

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
June 4, 2021
in Science News
Reading Time: 4 mins read
0
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

Gun violence restraining orders offer judicial pathway for removal of firearms from people at risk of causing harm

IMAGE

Credit: UC Regents

(SACRAMENTO, Calif.) — Extreme risk protection orders, also known as gun violence restraining orders (GVROs) or “red flag” orders, exist in 19 states and the District of Columbia.

The laws allow law enforcement, family and household members, some co-workers, employers and teachers to work with a judge to temporarily remove access to firearms and ammunition from people at significant risk of self-harm or harming others.

But an obstacle to implementing these preventive measures has been revealed in a new study from the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis Health. Although GVROs have been available in California for five years, two-thirds of the Californians surveyed for the study had never heard of them.

“Firearm violence is preventable, not inevitable. Raising public awareness about proactive ways for people to intervene can be crucial for preventing violence before it occurs,” said Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz, lead author of the study and an assistant professor with the Violence Prevention Research Program.

GVROs are only available if an individual has or could get a gun, and other options to protect against harm have failed or are not appropriate.

The study appears June 4 in JAMA Health Forum.

Majority, including gun owners, would be somewhat or very willing to use a GVRO

The survey was completed in July 2020 by 2,870 adults statistically representative of the adult population in California. It also assessed personal willingness to use a GVRO when a family member was at risk.

After reading a brief description of California’s GVRO law, more than 80% of the respondents said they would be somewhat or very willing to ask a judge to issue a GVRO if a family member had threatened to physically hurt themselves, someone else or a group of people.

Respondents who lived in homes with gun owners expressed the highest levels of willingness to ask a judge for a GVRO. The responses ranged from 84% who were somewhat or very willing if a family member were experiencing an emotional crisis to 95% if a family member had threatened to physically hurt someone else.

The study included five risk scenarios of a person who has or could get a gun and:

  • was experiencing an emotional crisis;
  • has severe dementia or similar condition;
  • has threatened to physically hurt themselves;
  • has threatened to physically hurt someone else; or
  • has threatened to physically hurt a group of people.

A majority of respondents who identified as gun owners — 70% to 86%, depending on the described risk scenario — said they would be somewhat or very willing to ask a judge for a GVRO if a family member had threatened to harm themselves or others.

About 30% of the respondents reported they were unwilling to ask a judge for a GVRO for a family member in at least one of the described risk scenarios. The most frequently cited reason for being unwilling was not knowing enough about GVROs. The second most common reason was the belief that the described risk scenarios are personal or family matters.

GVROs can be effective tools for preventing violence. They leverage the knowledge of those who are often the first to recognize someone they care about is in crisis or behaving dangerously and provide a tool for proactive intervention.

“Given the evidence of this and prior studies, the take-home message is clear: ‘If you see or hear something, please say something,'” said Garen Wintemute, director of the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and professor of emergency medicine at UC Davis Health.

Prevention measures gaining traction in United States

Firearms are involved in half of suicides and three-quarters of homicides in the United States, accounting for nearly 39,000 violent deaths in 2019, the most recent year in which data are available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In California, as in many other states, GVRO legislation was passed in the wake of a public mass shooting. Past research suggests that GVROs have been used successfully to prevent mass harm and that these orders are particularly effective for suicide prevention. But the use of GVROs remains relatively uncommon.

In California, the use of GVROs has grown from 70 orders in 2016, the year the law went into effect, to 700 in 2019. However, overall uptake of the law has been slow, possibly due to a lack of awareness. Given high levels of personal willingness to use a GVRO, including among gun owners and non-owners who live with owners, the current study indicates that improved knowledge of GVROs may lead to increased usage to prevent firearm injury and death in California and other parts of the country.

“GVROs are promising tools for preventing firearm-related harm. Our findings are consistent with national studies indicating that many firearm violence prevention policies have widespread public support and that general consensus exists between firearm owners and non-owners,” Kravitz-Wirtz says.

###

Additional study authors are Amanda J. Aubel, research data analyst at the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program, and Rocco Pallin, director of education for the BulletPoints Project.

This research was supported by the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center with funds from the State of California. Additional support came from the California Wellness Foundation (2017-0447) and the Heising-Simons Foundation (2019-1728).

About the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program

The UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program (VPRP) is a multidisciplinary program of research and policy development focused on the causes, consequences and prevention of violence. Studies assess firearm violence, the social conditions that underlie violence, and the connections between violence, substance abuse and mental illness. VPRP is home to the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center, which launched in 2017 with a $5 million appropriation from the state of California to conduct leading-edge research on firearm violence and its prevention. Visit health.ucdavis.edu/vprp/.

Media Contact
Lisa Howard
[email protected]

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jamahealthforum.2021.0975

Tags: Death/DyingLaw Enforcement/JurisprudenceMedicine/HealthMental HealthParenting/Child Care/FamilyPublic HealthScience/Health and the LawScience/Health/LawViolence/CriminalsWeaponry
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

Anomalodonta and vanuxemia

The clams that fell behind, and what they can tell us about evolution and extinction

May 31, 2023
Figure 1. Design of the proposed microfluidic device for observing dynamic flows in the intestine.

Shedding light on the complex flow dynamics within the small intestine

May 31, 2023

Genetic change increased bird flu severity during U.S. spread

May 30, 2023

Matthew Bailes, Duncan Lorimer and Maura McLaughlin receive the 2023 Shaw Prize in Astronomy

May 30, 2023
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • plants

    Plants remove cancer causing toxins from air

    39 shares
    Share 16 Tweet 10
  • Element creation in the lab deepens understanding of surface explosions on neutron stars

    36 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9
  • Groundbreaking study uncovers first evidence of long-term directionality in the origination of human mutation, fundamentally challenging Neo-Darwinism

    115 shares
    Share 46 Tweet 29
  • How life and geology worked together to forge Earth’s nutrient rich crust

    35 shares
    Share 14 Tweet 9

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

The clams that fell behind, and what they can tell us about evolution and extinction

Shedding light on the complex flow dynamics within the small intestine

Genetic change increased bird flu severity during U.S. spread

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 50 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In