Violence in California

The 2018 California Safety and Wellbeing Survey (CSaWS) is publicly available to facilitate additional scientific research and informed decision-making about strategies for preventing violence and improving safety and health equity outcomes. The dataset and supplemental materials are located in the University of Michigan's Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention (IFIP) Data Repository on openICPSR. Access the dataset here.

BACKGROUND

Firearm violence is a major public health problem in the United States, yet most states lack a mechanism to temporarily remove firearms from individuals who are at high and imminent risk of harming themselves or others and are not otherwise prohibited. Extreme risk protection order (ERPO) laws are intended to close this gap. The current study examines the passage of California’s gun violence restraining order (GVRO) bill using Kingdon’s multiple streams framework.

METHODS

Identifying community characteristics associated with firearm assault could facilitate prevention. We investigated the effect of community firearm dealer and alcohol outlet densities on individual risk of firearm assault injury.

Suicide is a major public health problem with immediate and long-term effects on individuals, families, and communities. In 2020 and 2021, stressors wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, stay-at-home mandates, economic turmoil, social unrest, and growing inequality likely modified risk for self-harm. The coinciding surge in firearm purchasing may have increased risk for firearm suicide.

Firearm availability has been linked to firearm self-harm, but the joint relationship with alcohol availability, while supported by theory, has not been examined. This study sought to quantify the separate and joint relations of community firearm and alcohol availability with individual-level risk of (fatal and nonfatal) firearm self-harm.

Most research on exposure to violence focuses on direct victimization, offending, or witnessed violence, yet many people also experience concerns about potential violence in their environments and social networks.

Gun-violence research experts at UC Davis Health say that despite a significant drop in firearm injuries in recent years in California, there has been a substantial increase in the state’s overall death rate among those wounded by firearms.