Massachusetts weapon-related injury surveillance system

Unintentional Gun Injuries, Firearm Design, and Prevention: What We Know, What We Need to Know, and What Can Be Done

“…37 In addition, some medical examiners now apply restrictive criteria for classifying a shooting death as unintentional and code every death resulting from one person intentionally firing a shot that kills another person as a homicide even when there is evidence that the shooter thought the gun was not loaded. 38 If this coding practice has increased over time, this could potentially explain a significant portion of the decline in unintentional firearm deaths.…”

Using injury data for violence prevention

“…Combined police and emergency department data have been used to develop a comprehensive system for tracking weapon related injuries in Massachusetts 13. The under-reporting of motor vehicle crashes to the police and the different data available from health and police records14 have led to the development of integrated record systems in the US, such as the fatality analysis reporting system.…”

An international comparison of 'youth' (15–24) and 'adult' (25–34) homicide 1974–94: Highlighting the US anomaly

“…18 Whilst there is fierce debate over whether decreased availability of guns in the USA would reduce the homicide rate, 1,8,14,26,27 in Australia, Canada and Sweden there is evidence that changes in the availability of rearms coincided with a lowered homicide rate. 11,25,26 There is, however, little International comparison of 'youth' and 'adult' homicide 89 disagreement about the beneficial effect of restricting guns on the suicide rate, especially among angry, impulsive youth, as the easy access of guns in US homes accounts for more than half the deaths of these young adults.…”

“…[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] The recent spate of murders of young people in the USA, however, has led to 'gun control' beginning to be considered as a public health problem, [8][9][10][11][12] not least because the US homicide rate is the highest in the Western world. 12,13 Nonetheless, after 'a virtual epidemic of youth violence' over the last decade, 1 there are encouraging signs, as the overall homicide rate, and the carrying of rearms by male 'youth' (15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24) and 'adults' (25)(26)(27)(28)(29)(30)(31)(32)(33)(34) has declined a little, 2,[14][15][16][17] , though variations between states and locale remain. 4,18,19 Whilst the role of rearms in homicides is an issue, there is a need for balance, as there is an apparent public 'acceptance' of a high mortality which does not attract the same level of controversy, for example that of road deaths.…”