Preventing Gun Violence by Designing Safer Products

Several incidents of fatal gun violence have captured the media's attention this year, including the shooting of a judge in Atlanta, Georgia and mass killings at a church meeting in Brookfield, Wisconsin and at a high school in Red Lake, Minnesota.

In two of the shootings, the shooter did not own the guns used. The gun in Atlanta was grabbed from a courthouse guard, and the guns in Red Lake were stolen from the shooter's family - including one from his grandfather, a retired law enforcement officer. According to a Medical College of Wisconsin researcher, those killings would have been prevented had the guns included a "personalization" safety feature that makes firearms inoperable by anyone other than the owner.

"Injury control and prevention is based on a broad public health approach, that not only focuses on addressing unsafe/violent behaviors but also examines ways to make the environment safe, and when products are involved, in making the products safer," said Stephen W. Hargarten, MD, MPH, Medical College Professor and Chair of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Hargarten is a leading national researcher on injury prevention. He is director of two major injury research programs located at the Medical College, the Firearm Injury Center and the National Injury Research Center for the Upper Midwest.

Life Saving Potential of Technology
A study co-authored by Dr. Hargarten looked at firearm deaths in Maryland and Milwaukee ("Unintentional and undetermined firearm related deaths: a preventable death analysis for three safety devices," published in the journal Injury Prevention, 2003).

The research focused on three gun safety technologies: personalization devices, loaded chamber indicators and magazine safeties.

"A personalized gun is a firearm that will fire only for an authorized user," Dr. Hargarten explains. "This can be accomplished through a variety of user-recognition technologies - for example, fingerprint readers - that can be built into the design of the gun. Unless the firearm recognizes its authorized user, it is unable to fire."

"A loaded chamber indicator is a device designed to indicate that the gun's firing chamber contains ammunition, and a magazine safety blocks a semiautomatic pistol from firing when its ammunition magazine is removed, even if there is still a round in the chamber."

In a nutshell, the study concluded that 44% of the deaths in the sample were preventable by at least one of the devices, with personalization and loaded chamber indicators showing the most life saving potential.

"We have made tremendous strides in reducing car crash deaths and disability by designing cars to be safer," said Dr. Hargarten. "We can reduce firearm-related deaths and injuries by reducing unsafe behaviors and by designing safer guns."

All three safety technologies are available to gun manufacturers, and the study noted a national poll that showed strong public supporting for requiring all new handguns to contain a loaded chamber indicator (73% of those polled in favor) or personalization (71% in favor).

Protection without Behavior Change
"Personalization holds the most promise," said Dr. Hargarten. "This is classic injury control science. This is a passive prevention strategy, similar to airbags in cars: it protects without behavior change.

"Having personalized guns would have prevented the recent shooting deaths in Atlanta, where the prisoner grabbed the security guard's gun, and prevented a troubled youth in Minnesota who used his family's and grandfather's handguns."

As the media tends to focus on user behavior when it comes to gun violence, Dr. Hargarten said that manufacturers and government safety regulators have been slow to move on gun product design issues and the application of preventive technology to new guns.

"I really don't know why that is," said Dr. Hargarten. "I suspect that it's a combination of not having any obvious market for them, police not yet recognizing the occupational benefits of personalized guns, and the lack of government regulations. Remember, the federal government had to step in and require airbags to be installed in cars because the manufacturers wouldn't do it."

Dan Ullrich
HealthLink Contributing Writer

MCW Health News presents up-to-date information on patient care and medical research by the physicians of the Medical College of Wisconsin.