A more effective way to combat gun crime may be to work at reducing social exclusion and deprivation, while at the same time increasing the protection of children, rather than focusing on just gun control, according to an article in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), this week’s issue.
Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychotherapist, and team explain that reading in the newspapers about violent crime and gun crime in the UK is alarming and tragic – people are understandably anxious about the danger of guns. However, statistics behind these headlines might put the problem into context.
Of all recorded crime in the UK, firearms offences account for 0.4%. If you exclude airguns from the figures, firearm offences account for 0.2% of all recorded crime. In fact, the overall frequency of gun crime in Great Britain has been falling – during the year 2005-2006 there were a total of 50 homicides involving firearms, the lowest figure for a decade.
Fifty deaths is still too many deaths, write the authors. The most common victims of homicide are children under the age of 16. The killer is usually one of the parents, or someone the victim knows. No suspect is ever identified in 21% of cases.
A 2006 Home Office review on illegal firearms use suggested a picture of socially isolated young men looking for an identity. Of the 80 men the review studied, 59 came from disrupted family background, while over 50% had bee excluded from school.
Such young men, disconnected from society, could be highly fearful, or highly fearless – both states of mind are defenses against negative affects, such as shame, humiliation, anger and distress. These affects raise the likelihood of violence, especially if the young person does not have to ability to think about and regulate his feelings.
This leads one to the question – how can gun crime rates be changed – the authors ask.
According to evidence from around the globe, there is a close link between gun ownership and the suicide and homicide rates. Even though ownership of handguns in the UK has been restricted since 1997, fatal gun crimes still take place.
It may be more effective to improve the welfare of young people who are at risk of acting violently, the authors believe. Being raised in a disrupted family increases the risk of later violence. However, most interventions focus on community groups and school, not abusive parents or families.
The authors suggest initiatives to help improve young people’s mental health, focusing on a small group of children who are at risk of acting violently, rather than the much bigger group of children who will never pose such a risk.
If children who at most at risk were identified early the development of a paranoid and dangerous mindset would be significantly reduced, explain the authors. This mindset is one that makes a gun one of the easier answers to a conflict.
“Violence and gun crime”
Gwen Adshead, Peter Fonagy, Sameer P Sarkar
BMJ 2007;335:837 (27 October), doi:10.1136/bmj.39365.683877.BE
Written by: Christian Nordqvist