By Sylvester Brown, Jr.
More than 800,000 people in the past 25 years have lost their lives to gun violence in the United States. Another 2 million or more have been injured.
A Washington University researcher and a new study authored by 60 leading experts offer alternative ideas aimed at reducing firearm deaths. Research and data collection are essential, but will those findings resonate with people directly affected by gun violence?
A Survivor’s Story
Patches Holmes, 57, is still haunted by an incident that occurred 33 years ago when he was 24. Holmes and a friend had just exited a liquor store at MLK and Goodfellow when a stranger walked up behind them and demanded money. Holmes set the case of beer down and grabbed the barrel of the gun from the surprised assailant.
As they tussled, he felt three hot bullets strike his arm, back and leg.
Holmes still has questions about that day.
“I hadn’t done anything to him. Why would he do that?”
Fear and Distrust
Caitlin McMurtry, an assistant professor at the Brown School at Washington University, conducted research that speaks to why people today arm themselves and new ways to reduce gun violence.
There is a rising sense of mistrust that makes people reach for guns, McMurtry wrote in “The Changing Politics of Guns in America,” published recently in the Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law.
McMurtry urges experts to focus less on weapons and more on the distrust and fear that drive people to buy them.
“Public health has long ignored the political and social aspects of gun ownership and failed to recognize that firearms are, for many people, a means of replacing fear and uncertainty with a sense of strength and self-sufficiency,” McMurtry wrote. “Before we can make progress toward a safer society, we need a better understanding of, and more research on, Americans’ motivations for self-armament.”
Her analysis focuses on the years before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic and examines how attitudes shifted during the Trump administration’s approach to the Second Amendment.
Guns During the Pandemic
One example of those shifting attitudes is Jaymi Smotherson, a St. Louis County mother of two who bought a gun and completed a firearms training class during the pandemic. In an Aug. 10, 2020 interview with KSDK, she said she did it for “safety reasons.”
“It just seemed like the crime in St. Louis is getting out of control,” Smotherson said.
That news segment also cited National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) data showing a record 10.3 million firearm sales in the first six months of 2020 and ammunition sales increases of 95% and 139% compared to the previous year.
Based on her research, McMurtry says many of those 2020 firearms were purchased by first-time buyers, like Smotherson. These new owners, she wrote, are “more diverse, politically liberal and motivated by fear of racial and political violence.” Yet they also report being more willing to engage in political violence if they deem it necessary.
“Whereas public health often focuses on the gun itself, such as how it is stored or handled, I argue we must tackle the root cause of gun purchasing: pervasive fear and distrust,” she said.
A Different View
Holmes, when told about McMurtry’s research, said “fear or distrust” had nothing to do with his assailant’s actions. He sees something deeper.
“I think it’s just a mentality. If you ask someone why they bought a gun in the first place, they’ll say ‘security’ or ‘protection,’ but where did that come from,” Holmes wondered. “When I was young and we got into fights, it was never with a gun; it was with hands and fists or whatever we came with.”
Holmes later lost his 24-year-old son to gun violence involving police. His son died after a police chase. Police claimed he had a gun, which Holmes disputes, saying no weapon was found.
Gun violence by private citizens or police, Holmes insists, still relates to mentality.
“I think firearms give people a false sense of authority … it makes them feel invincible, like, ‘OK, I got this gun now. I’m tough, I can do whatever I want,’ ” he said.
Holmes continues to struggle with pain from his shooting decades ago. He does not dismiss McMurtry’s thesis but believes the country needs a fuller understanding of why Americans obtain guns, legally or illegally, and why so many use them in ways that lead to high death rates.
New Research on Solutions
A report published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Associationaddresses a different question — how communities and policymakers can reduce firearm harm.
The report calls for stronger investments in violence-prevention programs. Motivated by grim statistics, such as gun violence now being the leading cause of death for children and teens, the experts convened last year to create an action plan.
“We do have a body of science that can inform and reduce the burden of injuries from firearm violence,” said Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the school of public health at Washington University in St. Louis and a study co-author. “For example, through laws that make sure that there is appropriate screening, that guns do not fall into the hands of people who have a history of violence.”
The authors call for sustained investment in community violence intervention programs.
“Firearm harm is a symptom of deeper structural issues when you think about poverty and segregation and trauma and lack of opportunity,” said Dr. Joseph Sakran, one of the study authors and himself a gun violence survivor. Sakran was critically injured at 17 during a shooting after a high school football game.
What Programs Show
The study highlights the outcomes of several intervention programs, including Chicago’s Create Real Economic Destiny (CRED), whose alumni had a 73% lower chance of being involved in a violent crime, and Baltimore’s Safe Streets program, which led to a 32% reduction in homicides and a 23% decline in nonfatal shootings.
Holmes, who does not dismiss either McMurtry’s findings or the experts’ call for community-driven approaches, has his own view.
He said progress begins with acknowledging the scope of the problem. IHe thinks meaningful change requires honesty from everyone involved — from policymakers and gun lobbyists to police officers — about the role their attitudes and decisions play in preventable gun deaths.
“Once we can honestly acknowledge and accept that, it’s easier to set up protocols to address what we have all collectively admitted,” he said.
Sylvester Brown Jr. is the Deaconess Foundation Community Advocacy Fellow.