Citation

Blackman P. J. Firearms Public Policy 2001; 13(1).

Copyright

(Copyright © 2001, Second Amendment Foundation)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

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Abstract

Over a dozen years ago, Marvin Wolfgang -- who was then perhaps the most eminent criminologist in the United States -- deplored the failure of politicians to adopt the gun control restrictions endorsed by a presidential commission's policy research. He noted that in other areas such policy research had influenced crime-control policy-making. There has certainly been a considerable amount of policy research regarding firearms since then by criminologists and public health practitioners, although much has focused on the scope of the problem of gun-related violence rather than on specific remedial policy proposals. Most actual policy initiatives, however, have been pursued without specific policy research—handgun locks and firearm personalization, for example—or in defiance of policy-research findings (e.g., gun turn-ins, and bans on small-guns, "assault weapons," and large capacity magazines). For the most part, criminologists and public health professionals have not opposed adoption of policy proposals, even when they were not backed by scientific research.