Margaret Winker On Gun Control

The prevalence of this unskilled and unaware effect has been demonstrated and discussed primarily in areas that appear to be generally harmless to those around the ’unskilled and unaware’. Writing a grammatically correct sentence, or making a profitable business decision, or being socially adept, while being poorly lacking, may be seem inconsequential. The one responsible for this lack of actual ability will be the only one facing any subsequent consequences. However, if someone was considered unskilled and unaware, would you give them a gun? I would think not. However, this point commands some attention and few have addressed the issue of how others’ incompetence can most certainly interfere in our lives in many damaging ways. With our
societies leniency on gun ownership and use, it begs the question, how does this phenomenon apply to those who use and carry firearms.
People who we share spaces with every day.
Per an editorial by Margaret A. Winker, the dangers of those who own firearms are becoming a prominent public health concern. Winker urges a release of funds, previously frozen, that are meant to be allocated to gun control. Further, she reports that one person is killed every 17 minutes by a firearm, 609 people a week on average. In 2014, 35, 599 people were killed because of guns, of these, 63% were
suicides, 34% were homicides, and 2% were accidental (Margaret A Winker, 2016). Winker reports on the 2013 Global Burden of Diseases study that in that year alone an estimated 180,000 people worldwide died from homicide by gunshot, and 91% of these were in low income countries, and the US accounted for 73% of such gun deaths in high income countries, and notes that the 840,000 suicides across the world were not included in the estimate. This article emphasizes that these occurrences aren’t just about an early death, but the widespread effect they have on the survivors in terms of education, stability, jail time, and social capital. While programs like the CDC work to find ways to approach the subject of gun violence as a public health concern and find a way to tamper it, congress has driven up walls and barriers and refuses to see it as such. In many states, there is no background check or permit required to purchase a gun. No training is necessary to own or operate one and many see the issue as an infringement of a constitutional right. However, this is a very big concern when it is someone’s son or daughter that becomes a victim of neglectful gun use.
Winker further urges that more research and work must be done to tame this issue and find better ways to evaluate and address gun control, safety, and education awareness. In a study aimed at tackling this issue, Emily Stark and Daniel Sachau performed nationally-representative survey to test if this phenomenon of firearms safety and use. This extensive survey considered people’s moral beliefs, political affiliations, gun control attitudes, gender, and firearm experience to ascertain any relevancies to these beliefs and people’s overestimation of their abilities as pertaining to firearms and safety. This study relied purely on self-reports. Stark predicted that male, pro-gun, and conservative participants would be more prone to the effect. The final sample 4,950 participants, primarily male, democrats were recruited through a Qualtrics survey across the US. Over 50% of people estimated they would be among the 90th percentile and 23% placed themselves in the top 1% of those able to be responsible gun owners. 65% of this population indicated they were above average in their knowledge of firearms and safety. Other findings
included, those with pro- or anti-gun control attitudes reported greater confidence, males slightly more than females, and conservatives were among those reporting the most confidence. The most valuable efforts made, in my opinion, by Stark and Sachau was separating and evaluating those who reported having experience with firearms, a detail I find to be extremely valid and most important. The finding indicated that those who reported having experience with guns increased their levels of confidence, though this had little impact on the effect size. Stark emphasizes that these results are not simply and artifact and even when switching to a Likert scale and running ANOVA and arrays of statistical analysis, the results come back the same. In fact, Stark reports that not only does the general populace exhibit an overconfidence, but it seems to be slightly elevated for those who reported having significant experience in the area.