So when we talk about illegal guns, mostly we are talking about individuals prohibited by law from having guns, having those times. So that is difficult to estimate because we dont necessarily have access to measure and survey those individuals. Are most gun crimes committed with registered or unregistered guns . Well, it may be surprising to many, but we actually dont have a registry. Its actually written the federal law that the federal government may not maintain a registry. There are a few states that have their own registries mostly those registries are for handguns only. States like california although they recently expanded their registry to include long guns as well. Maryland, new york new jersey, few states. By and large under federal law we do not have a registry. In the book that you collected it so they reducing gun violence in america, you announced there were 31,000 gun deaths last year in the United States. How does that break down between suicide homicide by its rate. Roughly 11000 of those deaths are from homicides. Approximately 19,000 are suicide in the remainder being mostly accidental types of shootings. Professor webster come your forward is done by michael bloomberg. Is this an antigun book . No, not at all actually. This book was written for the purpose as the title indicates to inform policy making. We actually have a child there on the Second Amendment in interpreting the Second Amendment. We are pretty clear the Supreme Court rollings you may not be in possession of guns within the home. The policies that are discussed in this book and the evidence examined we do not focus on broadband to guns. We focus on a set of policies that are constitutional that by and large do not disarm people who would legally possess guns. What is one of the policies you advocate . Well, first we went through the process of identifying the experts around the world to bring the best evidence together on key policy issues and then we held a symposium where they presented their evidence and then we had a meeting among those experts to determine what should we recommend based upon the evidence available. I would say top of the list is that we need a comprehensive background system that we probably lack of least of the federal level and in most states. We have what most of the experts agree to be a pretty logical system in which we say here is a set of conditions that would prohibit someone from possessing the guns. And we are required background checks for someone as going to purchase a firearm from a licensed gun dealer. But we do not require such a background check for recordkeeping if you want to buy a gun from someone whos not a license dealer. It is hard to see the logic in that if the goal is to keep guns from dangerous people. So we examine some of the evidence relevant to that. And some of my own research i found very consistent evidence that in states that have the more comprehensive background check requirements to cover prior sales as well as those from licensed dealers, fewer guns being diverted to criminals and recent studies showing a there was a relationship also with when those policies are in place that theres fewer homicides as well. Wended background checks start . So there are some states here for the state policy of federal policy. Ill talk about them separately. Some states have background checks separately for many, many decades. Almost a century in some cases. Of course the recordkeeping systems for what they are now but a general idea that you had to be investigated in a sense what your background was a Law Enforcement before you could legally purchase firearms. Those laws were in place in new york, new jersey massachusetts and other states for many, many decades. At the federal level wouldve required background checks for federally licensed gun dealers beginning with the brady act in 1994 and that is really only a piece of federal legislation on background checks at this time. And somebody from new york city or chicago has more regulations when it comes to ownership from virginia and purchase a firearm . Not legally, no. By not . The idea again is the state should have an ability to regulate viral arms. Its a matter of Public Safety. So you have to be a resident of the state you are living in and you have to purchase it in that state. Is that correct . Yes for handguns. A bordering state you can make a purchase, but for handguns you can only purchase within the state you reside. All right. So here in the Washington Area without he maryland, virginia. Maryland and d. C. Have much to gun laws than those state of virginia. So how does that work when we are also interconnected . Again the laws apply as we were just discussing for handguns in particular. You may not legal if youre president a resident of the District Of Columbia go to a neighboring state. We do see a pattern within the area regional and come of this something you can see more broadly across the United States. In states with less comprehensive measures for what i refer to as firearms seller accountability measures. But as a background check requirement. If there is no accountability measures, you can sell your guns and make a lot of money on the illicit market. When states have a few of those measures, they dont have comprehensive background checks. They dont have appropriate regulation and oversight of licensed dealers for example. Pc, and trafficking channels from places that have weaker laws interfaces that have stronger laws. Now that is something that clearly we could best address by stronger federal legislation the even though some guns are coming across the border. The reason is a mess since there is a cost to interstate trafficking. It turns out that criminals most criminals anyway are elected to purchase guns from people they dont know. They really stick with people they know and trust. They dont want to be set up and so on. If they are going to get guns from faraway they are reluctant. So there are costs and risk associated with that in generally we see less of gun availability of criminals in places that have more comprehensive regulations designed principally to keep guns out of the hands of prohibited individuals. Should fewer people be allowed to legally purchased guns . Yes, so this gets to the critical question that im disappointed rarely, rarely gets discussed in any intelligent way. Most discussions sort of the sand that you have this on category of hardened criminals and they are all prohibited in another category of lawabiding gun owners who will never do anything wrong. But the world looks a lot messier. The way most gun laws have been written in the United States, we allow a lot of individuals who have criminal backgrounds to legally purchase and possess guns. Not only that in most states actually allow them to legally carry loaded concealed guns in public. So this is something we address in the book. We showed there was a relationship between Higher Standards for legal gun ownership and lower levels of violence that generally the target groups were the standards are increased whether it has to do with Domestic Violence related prohibitions or misdemeanor crimes of violence, we see lower levels of violence when there are firearm prohibitions for the highrisk groups. What is your view of the nra . Feedback the nra is less interested in Public Safety and more interested in a particular ideology. I think that unfortunately they sell themselves as a group that is principally looking out for the interest of gun owners. But if you actually look at practices, and they really are more in line with the gun sellers. One of the things we did in our boat is weak in a National Survey to in essence take the pulse of the nation about a pretty broad range of gun policy. Over 30 specific policies we asked people their opinion, their support or opposition to those. We oversampled gunowners. We know it will be hard to get anything done on this issue if you have a really stiff opposition from gunowners. What we found that might be surprising to us tom is almost every policy reexamined to strengthen our thomas to keep guns out of the wrong hands gunowners supported a fairly large majority of gunowners supported and in many cases, nra members support of those such as comprehensive background checks. So more often than not the policies that gunowners prefer anything and ra members prefer very much out of step with the nra line. So their policy agenda. In my opinion, i think they have not really truly represented gunowners and what they want. Gunowners do value their Second Amendment right. But they also value Public Safety. They dont want dangerous people to get guns in their perfectly fine with many measures to achieve that goal. So i think too often the nra has sort of muddied the waters and almost really changed what the question on the table is one that question on the table or should we have comprehensive background checks to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. They change the subject to should we take away everybodys guns. That is not what the question is. If they tell their members that is about taking away peoples guns, people will say no we dont want that. Of course that is not what these policies are. Policies are designed to identify those highest risks for committing violence, keep guns from none and in some cases only temporarily when it comes to Domestic Violence. Restraining orders and in some cases misdemeanor convictions for violent crimes. Many times as ive shortterm prohibitions nni since an individual gets an opportunity to demonstrate that they can live violence and crime free and regain the right to possess a gun. Many of the measures we examined both with our research and with our Public Opinion polling and subsequently our recommendations are ones that really frankly are controversial. People think of gun control and gun policy is a controversial topic. What are Public Opinion data suggest is most of the measures that are really being discussed are controversial because guess what. The vast majority people agree with them including in many cases we thought no statistical difference between gunowners and nongunowners are between democrats and republicans. This isnt a matter of one party in terms of their constituents. Elected official is a separate question. When you go to constituents themselves the American People and for most of these measures keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people no difference by political party, no differences by government. So what we try to focus on in this book is whats Available Evidence in the case in terms of what is effective, what is legal in terms of constitutionally and what do the American People want . We think there are very common sense evidencebased solutions that are illegal and very politically acceptable and not controversial that could be adopted right now and save a lot of lives. What is your position at Johns Hopkins . Im a professor of Health Policy and management. I direct the center for gun policy and research there. Im also Deputy Director for research for this and our prevention of Youth Violence. Ive been there for almost 24 years now on the faculty devoting most of my time adding violence and ways to prevent it. How did you get interested in gun policy . Actually when i was a doctoral student at the Johns Hopkins school of Public Health in the late 1980s and early 90s, i cant bear not to study violence. I was interested in other issues related to preventing injuries broadly and sort of looking for something that seemed to be important to the public south. At that time our country was in the midfederal epidemic of gun violence mostly involving the use and in baltimore it was particularly acute. We had nearly 400 murders one year that i was doing my doctoral studies. It was apparent to me then that this was the issue. This was a leading leading killer of many groups and really a reason why we have at least men have a huge disparity in longevity based upon race and where they happen to live. So this is a problem that at least on the homicide side of the equation is really devastated in many communities on the suicide part of the problem. It is a problem largely of white males and very preventable as well. So that is how i got interest it. It was around me in our campus. Im happy to say there is much lower of violence now in baltimore, actually in the rest of the country. Our firearm homicide rates are about 50 of what they were at the peak time when i was doing my doctoral studies. Whitey think that is . That is something researchers have been wrestling with . Lane. There is no one factor of course just that no one determine if the violence. Many people believe myself included that part of it had to do with changes in the drug market. Generally speaking violence increases sometimes quite substantially when theres a great deal of instability in the drug markets in the instability so make it worked out through violence. So some of that have to do with changes in the drug markets. I do think there are other things that occurred that were probably pretty important. We didnt start to use much more evidencebased Law Enforcement practices. Many of those practices focus specifically on decreasing illegal gun possession particularly for highrisk individuals. These practices became far more common and used i think today fact. I also think that they are certainly some changes in social norms. Theres some Interesting Data to indicate that the generation before when violence was peaking, was far more effective by ladd lead poisoning when they were young. In many urban areas, you not only have old housing in lead paint in the homes that poisons the children, the critical point in their development, which affects their verbal i. Q. Of an importantly their impulsivity. Theres a lot of research connect in lead poisoning to later violence. So through Environmental Policies that we adopt it but to get lead out of gasoline as well as lead out of pain we are thankfully far fewer children, urban children affected by this problem. That may also contribute to much lower rates of Youth Violence today than we thought roughly generation ago. Whitey described gun violence is a Public Health issue . Well, the First Response is simply it has been on this impact on mortality particularly certain groups. Its a losing cause of that for young males, for example. And also leads to incredible morbidity and disability on top of that. More important actually is what does public outsprinted us. Its one thing to say okay a lot of people die as a result of guns. That is pretty obvious. Or get injured. What does Public Health offered to this. My response to that is we offer an orientation that is different from more than criminological examination of those are how we view this more broadly in our culture. Many people view violence in terms of msns evil individuals. Derek got people that are violent and the problem rests with them as individuals. Theres something about them. The moral failing character flaws that lead them to be violent. They are certainly part of an element of truth to that, but its far more complex. A Public Health of the examination problem realizes how people behave depends a lot upon the environment in which they live. If we lived in an environment in which guns are ubiquitous that is going to be fact d. L. Violence and principally will make our violence far more lethal. That is the interesting thing that research shows, that when you compare the United States to other high income countries, you can look at almost any measure of violent behavior. Urban violent crime, olean in schools, adolescents fighting measures and other risk factors for violence such as Substance Abuse for severe mental illness. We are averaging you compare to other high income countries. Yet our homicide rate is roughly seven times higher than average high income western democracy. That is largely explained because our violence is far more lethal. If you look at our homicide rate involving methods other than firearms, again, were right in the middle. The United States is not inherently violent nation and a violent culture when you look at all these other different measures. What we are as a nation with far more lethal violence and that is largely explained by the fact we have pretty inadequate measures to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. Who is your code editor . A longtime colleague he is an attorney with Public Health background. Hes been working in this area along with me and many of my colleagues at Johns Hopkins for more than 20 years. We have teamed up on a number of studies to look at the effect of gun policies. Hes really an expert in knowing everything there is to know about state and federal gun policy. So you spend a Great College to work with. He contributed an important chapter in this book looking out ways to regulate licensed gun dealers and what impact that has on the diversion of guns to criminals. The short answer is theres a pretty direct and strong correlation when theres adequate regulations and oversight of such dealers coming though far fewer guns they very quickly get into the hands of criminals. For whom is this book written . You know, we wrote this book probably for two kinds of people in mind. One was policy makers. I actually got a call from the president at Johns Hopkins, ron daniels the day after the new town shooting. He had an idea for doing precisely what we did there was a Brilliant Ideas based upon some experience he had when there were events occurring 9 11, katrina, those kinds of events that prefer nation. Their decisions and policy makers are faced with and they will make policy very rapidly or consider policy very rapidly. He had Great Success in bringing scholars together to do this very quickly and get the scholarship into the hands of policymakers. So we started this book december 15th of 2012. We started through email and phones, calling colleagues to say what you contribute to this book . Nobody said no. We held a symposium at Johns Hopkins 30 days after the new town shooting in which we presented the bulk of what is in this book. I believe 11 days after that we had a book available in the delivered it directly to every member of the United States congress. Key individuals in the Obama Administration as well as to many state legislative bodies who requested and were considering what they should do to overcome violence in their states. So we wrote this knowing not policymakers needed evidence. They needed to know what the law was. He needed to know what do constituents think about these issues. And of course we wanted to educate the American Public about these critical things that really were dominating discussions in the wake of the tragedy of new town. Reducing gun violence in america is the name of the book to a Johns Hopkins University Professor Daniel Webster is coeditor. Foreword by former new york city mayor, michael bloomberg. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Heres the look at books being published this week. Jonathan horn is next on booktvs. He recounts robert relieved decision to join the Confederate Army after being sought by the north and the south. It is about an hour. Now it is my pleasure to introduce john up in warren. He is an author and former white house president ial speechmaker who spent years researching and writing this new robert e. Lee biography. The man who would not be washington published in january of this year. Jonathan has appeared as a commentator on msnbc and bbc radio
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