By R. Blake Brown  

This report provides a legal history of firearm regulation to help understand the current debate over gun control policy in Canada, particularly regarding semi-automatic firearms. Debate over the regulation of such guns has been particularly heated since 1 May 2020, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that the federal cabinet had issued an Order in Council (PC 2020-298) to ban several models of semi-automatic firearms. 1 This report describes some of the key technological developments in handguns and long guns that have spurred debates about the kinds of firearms that should be available for certain uses in Canada. It identifies weapons employed in mass casualty events in Canada with reference to specific examples and notes the policy response to those events. The report explains the legislative tools used to address the dangers associated with semi-automatic firearms and considers the public policy debates about these regulatory approaches. It also identifies the strengths and shortcomings of past legislative approaches and considers policy options concerning the availability of semi-automatic weapons. This report demonstrates that the federal government has used a somewhat piecemeal approach to regulating handguns and semi-automatic firearms. Governments have historically sought to balance public safety and the interests of gun collectors, hunters, and target shooters. Efforts to limit the availability of some kinds of firearms have often resulted from their use in domestic and international mass shootings. Changes in firearm technology have contributed to attempts to limit the ownership or use of firearms deemed especially dangerous. The federal government has prohibited some semi-automatic rifles, declared others to be restricted firearms,   and left others as non-restricted firearms. This has complicated the enforcement of Canada’s gun laws. It has also permitted firearms with the capability to cause substantial harm to remain in circulation. Similarly, the federal government has prohibited some handguns but left many others available for purchase, thus contributing to the movement of firearms from the legal market to those wanting handguns for illegal purposes.

Halifax, NS: The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2022. 112p.

Nuclear Threat Initiative

From the document: "NTI [Nuclear Threat Initiative] convened a dialogue among nongovernmental U.S. and Russian cyber/information security and nuclear weapons policy experts. Following initial conversations in Moscow in 2019 about the findings from NTI's Cyber-Nuclear Weapons Study Group, the Track II dialogue was established and proceeded virtually in plenary and small-group sessions in 2020 and 2021. The participants are listed in Appendix 1. Expert participants built on a shared understanding that nuclear weapons systems must be protected from cyber threats, as well as other threats involving information and communications technologies (ICT), and that despite the current geopolitical environment, the unique U.S.-Russian nuclear relationship requires bilateral cooperation to maintain stability. They addressed topics including possible crisis scenarios and escalation pathways, opportunities for building confidence and predictability in the relationship, and bilateral cyber-nuclear norms that could mitigate the risks. The group generated ideas for joint and parallel actions to reduce cyber-nuclear weapons risks for both governments to consider and adopt. The following recommendations are designed to help avoid or mitigate the risks of a cyberattack prompting a nuclear crisis. The recommendations in this paper offer policymakers in Russia and the United States--and in other countries--options for reducing the risks of a cyber or information security attack that could lead to nuclear war." This record contains a Russian version following the English publication.

Nuclear Threat Initiative . 2023. 40p.

By Pew Research Center

In an era marked by deep divisions between Republicans and Democrats, few issues are as politically polarizing as gun policy. While a few specific policy proposals continue to garner bipartisan support, the partisan divisions on other proposals – and even on whether gun violence is a serious national problem – have grown wider over the last few years.

Today, just over half of Americans (53%) say gun laws should be stricter than they currently are, a view held by 81% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents but just 20% of Republicans and Republican leaners. Similarly, while nearly three-quarters of Democrats (73%) say making it harder to legally obtain guns would lead to fewer mass shootings, only 20% of Republicans say this, with most (65%) saying this would have no effect.

The new national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted from April 5-11, 2021 among 5,109 adults, finds that 73% of Democrats consider gun violence to be a very big problem for the country today, compared with just 18% of Republicans who say the same. The current partisan gap on this question is 11-percentage-points wider than in 2018 and 19 points wider than in 2016.

Washington, DC: Pew Research Center, 2021. 29p.

By The National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform

In 2021, gun violence killed 20,984 people in the United States, more than any single year in the preceding two decades.1 Daily shootings in communities across the country are the most common form of gun violence. On average, 14,062 people are murdered every year by someone using a gun.2 Gun violence is disproportionately concentrated in urban centers, usually in underserved communities of color. Of the more than 13,000 firearm related homicide victims in the US in 2020, 55.8% were Black men.3 Although Black men and boys between the ages 15 and 34 make up just 2% of the nation’s population, they accounted for 37% of gun homicide victims in 2019,4 making homicide the leading cause of death for Black males in this age range.5 According to the American Journal of Medicine, US residents are 25 times more likely to be killed from gun violence than the citizens of any other developed country.6 In addition to its human toll, gun violence imposes a substantial economic cost on society. Direct costs include law enforcement and the criminal justice system, hospital and rehabilitation, incarceration, and victim support. Indirect costs include lost tax revenue, lost business opportunities, reduced property values, and neighborhood population decline and destabilization. When someone is shot, there is an immediate, multifaceted response from an array of government agencies. The fire department dispatches emergency medical technicians (EMTs), government-contracted ambulances respond, and several police department units as well as staff from a city’s office of violence prevention or contracted outreach workers descend on the scene. Investigators from the district attorney’s office also often arrive, and if the victim is declared dead on the scene, the coroner is called. And this is only the immediate aftermath of the shooting. Costs accumulate for many months, even years following a shooting. For surviving victims this includes hospitalization and, in the case of serious injury, rehabilitation–both of which are often paid for by tax dollars. This also includes victim compensation and a protracted investigation by the police department and prosecutors. When there are multiple victims and/ or multiple suspects, the cost of a single shooting incident will increase accordingly.

NICJR has calculated the costs of shootings in numerous cities across the country, deliberately using conservative estimates and only counting documentable direct costs.7 Using these studies as a starting point, this report aggregates the city-specific data and combines it with other data sources to model the direct unit costs and the direct average costs of gun violence nationwide.8 Unit costs reflect all of the potential costs of a single incident of gun violence, while average costs take into account the fact that certain costs are not incurred for every incident. For example, this report estimates the costs that gun violence imposes on the courts, district attorney, and public defender when a suspect is charged and goes to trial. However, because many incidents of gun violence do not result in prosecution or a trial, these estimates, or unit costs, are deflated to calculate the average cost per shooting

NICJR calculates that the unit cost of a single gun-related homicide is just over $1.2 million, while the average cost, or the cost per homicide, is approximately $625,000. This means that, on average, the total direct cost of gun-related homicides in the United States is more than $8.7 billion each year. For non-fatal injury shootings, NICJR calculates the unit cost at almost $700,000, with an average per-shooting cost of about $337,000, for an annual total of $11.7 billion.9 Combined, the total cost of gun homicides and non-fatal shootings is over $20 billion per year. If indirect expenses were included, the total cost of shootings would be much higher.

National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform, 19p.

By Emile LeBrun and Aline Shaban

The fight against illicit firearms proliferation and misuse in the EU and its neighbors is a multifaceted challenge. This challenge encompasses the diversion of arms from national stocks and actors; trafficking from inside and outside the region; the illicit manufacture or transfer of parts, components, accessories, and ammunition; and the conversion of alarm, signal, acoustic, and air guns.

An equally important dimension is the administration, management, and control of legally held small arms through civilian firearms registries. Ensuring national authorities have visibility and insight into the import, sale, use, export, or destruction of all legally held firearms across their life cycle is essential in preventing civilian firearm movement into the illicit market and subsequent misuse or violence.

Effective and Innovative Practices among European Civilian Firearm Registries—a new report co-published by the Survey and its REGISYNC project partners Arquebus, the Centre for the Study of Democracy (CSD), and Ecorys—provides an assessment of current civilian firearm registry standards and practices, and identifies particularly innovative and effective measures to enhance firearms registries beyond common standards in the EU.

Sofia, Bulgaria: Centre for the Study of Democracy , 2023. 75p.

By Anne-Séverine Fabre, Nicolas Florquin, Aaron Karp, and Matt Schroeder

The Caribbean region suffers from some of the world’s highest rates of violent deaths, with firearms used in the majority of these crimes. Although most homicide victims are men, the Caribbean as a region also faces one of the world’s highest rates of violent deaths among women. While much emphasis has been placed on firearms control at both the political and operational levels, illicit firearms and the dynamics of illicit arms markets in this region have received little research attention. In response, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Implementation Agency for Crime and Security (IMPACS) partnered with the Small Arms Survey to carry out a comprehensive evidence-based study of illicit arms trafficking to and within the Caribbean, and the socio-economic costs of firearm-related violence in the region. This Report examines these issues by drawing on data and information collected from 13 of the 15 CARICOM member states and from 22 Caribbean states in total. The study also incorporates the results of original fieldwork undertaken by regional partners, including interviews with prison inmates serving firearm-related sentences, and research in selected hospitals related to gunshot wounds and the associated medical costs and productivity losses for patients..

Geneva, sWIT: Small Arms Survey, 2023. 178p.

By Scott R. Kegler, Thomas R. Simon, Steven A. Sumner,

The rate of firearm homicide in the United States rose sharply from 2019 through 2020, reaching a level not seen in more than 2 decades, with ongoing and widening racial and ethnic disparities (1). During 2020–2021, the rate increased again (2). This report provides provisional firearm homicide data for 2022, stratified by race and ethnicity, presented both annually and by month (or quarter) to document subannual changes.

MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:1149–1150.

By Baklitskiy, Andrey

From the document: "The space dimension is crucial in nuclear relations between the US and Russia. Space systems support vital functions like early warning, communication, reconnaissance, and targeting directly connected to strategic stability. However, shifting geopolitics and the disappearance of arms control agreements put the space dimension under strain. The Russian invasion of Ukraine showcases modern warfare's reliance on space assets. It also influences space dynamics and US-Russian relations. Although the current impact on strategic stability is limited, it is important to consider it. The most essential element of strategic stability in the space domain--the taboo against kinetic satellite attacks--endures, but there are reasons for concern. The broad use of civilian satellites for military purposes, Russia's evolving stance regarding targeting space objects, cyber-attacks against space infrastructure, the disappearance of provisions for noninterference with space assets, and sanctions affecting space industry--all of these in their separate ways could lead to crisis and undermine strategic stability. On top of this, the lack of dedicated channels for US-Russian dialogue on space security diminishes prospects for crisis prevention or mitigation."

CNA Corporation. 2023. 34p.

By Kleemann, Aldo

From the document: "Deception and media manipulation have always been an integral part of wartime propaganda. But never before has it been so easy to create high-quality fabrications of images as well as sound and video recordings. The tendency to react emotionally to these media opens up a whole new possibility for abuse by their creators. A call to surrender by President Volodymyr Zelensky, which was immediately exposed as a deepfake, is the first attempt to use the new technology in an armed conflict. The quality of such fabrications is improving, detecting them is becoming increasingly complex and there is no end in sight to these developments. Banning deepfakes would be futile. It is therefore time to look at current and potential applications and possible counter-strategies."

German Institute For International And Security Affairs. 2023. 6p.

By Ekrem Ersen Emeksiz

ABSTRACT This research presents Istanbul, Turkey and its law enforcement as a case study for the design of a contingency plan to increase efficiency of counterterrorism efforts and coordination among the agencies. This contingency plan involves the implementation of techniques and strategies based on situational crime prevention, moral panic and crisis theories on predetermined terror targets in the city of Istanbul to reduce the impact of a mega terrorist attack. The research applies the EVIL DONE and CARVER concepts to assess current terrorism risks and threats for critical targets. In assessing risks and threat conditions, this research proposes a contingency plan for law enforcement in Istanbul. The purpose of the contingency plan is to reduce target vulnerabilities and enhance target resilience as well as control moral panic conditions during large-scale terror incidents.

BY Yuri van Hoef, Erasmus University Rotterdam

Introduction

While friendship scholarship in the humanities and social sciences has risen exponentially in the last decade, it focuses almost exclusively on the alliances of great powers.[1] This article introduces a new research agenda by drawing upon scholarship that suggests middle powers behave differently, arguing that middle powers pursue international friendship different than great powers. This example is illustrated by comparing how the Netherlands and Denmark, both considered traditional examples of middle powers and of atlanticist states, supported the US during the War on Terror, and how this affected their relationship with the US.

. Academia Letters, Article 1972. 10P.

By The Small Arms Survey

The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in West Africa expanded dramatically over the last decade. IED-building networks have established material and training links across conflict areas in West and Central Africa, and their designs have remained constant and inexpensive throughout the region—helping to increase their use in attacks against domestic and international security forces, UN peacekeepers, and civilians.

Out of Control: The Trafficking of Improvised Explosive Device Components and Commercial Explosives in West Africa—a new report from the Small Arms Survey’s Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) in West Africa project—analyses data from more than 2,200 IED-related incidents between March 2013 and September 2022, and stresses the importance of coordinated regional approaches in eliminating illegal IED use in West and Central Africa.

Geneva, SWIT: Small Arms Survey, 2023. 124p.

Institute For Defense Analyses.

From the document: "The United States faces a strategic challenge requiring urgent action. Given current threat trajectories, our nation will soon encounter a fundamentally different global setting than it has ever experienced: we will face a world where two nations possess nuclear arsenals on par with our own. In addition, the risk of conflict with these two nuclear peers is increasing. It is an existential challenge for which the United States is ill-prepared, unless its leaders make decisions now to adjust the U.S. strategic posture. The Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States was established by the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and concludes that America's defense strategy and strategic posture must change in order to properly defend its vital interests and improve strategic stability with China and Russia. Decisions need to be made now in order for the nation to be prepared to address the threats from these two nuclear-armed adversaries arising during the 2027-2035 timeframe. Moreover, these threats are such that the United States and its Allies and partners must be ready to deter and defeat both adversaries simultaneously. We arrive at these conclusions following a comprehensive year-long review of the threats America faces and its strategy and planned capabilities to address those threats."

Congressional Commission On The Strategic Posture Of The United States . 2023. 160p.

United States. Department Of Defense. Office Of The Secretary Of Defense;

From the document: "The DoD annual report on Military and Security Developments Involving the People's Republic of China [PRC] charts the current course of the PRC's national, economic, and military strategy, and offers insight on the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) strategy, current capabilities and activities, as well as its future modernization goals. In 2022, the PRC turned to the PLA as an increasingly capable instrument of statecraft. Throughout the year, the PLA adopted more coercive actions in the Indo-Pacific region, while accelerating its development of capabilities and concepts to strengthen the PRC's ability to 'fight and win wars' against a 'strong enemy,' counter an intervention by a third party in a conflict along the PRC's periphery, and to project power globally. At the same time, the PRC largely denied, cancelled, and ignored recurring bilateral defense engagements, as well as DoD requests for military-to-military communication at multiple levels. This report illustrates the importance of meeting the pacing challenge presented by the PRC's increasingly capable military. [...] 'This report covers security and military developments involving the PRC until the end of 2022.'"

United States. Department Of Defense . 2023. 212p.

By Malhotra, Ananya Agustin; Jaworek, Patricia

From the document: "Forty years ago, findings on the global climatic effects of nuclear war first introduced the prospect of 'nuclear winter.' In the decades since, the consequences of nuclear use have remained only incidental to considerations of nuclear policy. This paper explores that history and presents new research and key questions for policymakers to address given today's increasingly interconnected world. The authors highlight the need for renewed attention to the catastrophic effects of nuclear conflict as a crucial step toward reducing the risk of nuclear use."

Nuclear Threat Initiative. 2023.

By Tobias Roemer

The United States has experienced a sharp increase in school and mass shootings in recent years. Previous research has primarily focused on the effects of these events on support for gun regulation and electoral outcomes. This paper focuses on a heretofore understudied consequence of school shootings: counter-mobilization by the pro-gun political right. I provide causal estimates of the impact of school shootings on non-electoral political participation on the right in affected counties by examining donations to the NRA Political Victory Fund (NRA-PVF). Using a staggered difference-in-differences setup, my event study indicates that school shootings lead to an approximately 30% increase in donations compared to the pre-treatment baseline, with elevated levels persisting for several years.

Preprint, 2023. 28p.

By Patrick Sharkey and Megan Kang

Background:

The recent rise of gun violence may lead to the perception that the problem of gun mortality in the United States is intractable. This article provides evidence to counter this perception by bringing attention to the period spanning from 1991 to 2016 when most US states implemented more restrictive gun laws. Over this period, the United States experienced a decline in household gun ownership, and gun-related deaths fell sharply.

Methods:

The main analysis examines the conditional association between the change in gun regulations at the state level and the change in gun mortality from 1991 to 2016. We include a range of robustness checks and two instrumental variable analyses to allow for stronger causal inferences.

Results:

We find strong, consistent evidence supporting the hypothesis that restrictive state gun policies reduce overall gun deaths, homicides committed with a gun, and suicides committed with a gun. Each additional restrictive gun regulation a given state passed from 1991 to 2016 was associated with −0.21 (95% confidence interval = −0.33, −0.08) gun deaths per 100,000 residents. Further, we find that specific policies, such as background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases, were associated with lower overall gun death rates, gun homicide rates, and gun suicide rates.

Conclusion:

State regulations passed from 1991 to 2016 were associated with substantial reductions in gun mortality. We estimate that restrictive state gun policies passed in 40 states from 1991 to 2016 averted 4297 gun deaths in 2016 alone, or roughly 11% of the total gun deaths that year.

More Americans were killed by gunfire in 2021 than in any previous year on record.1 This single statistic encompasses several social problems and challenges, including violent crime, the rise of suicides, mass shootings, intimate partner violence, and police shootings. But all of these problems are connected to each other by a common feature: guns.

Epidemiology 34(6):p 786-792, November 2023.

By Terry L. Schell, Samuel Peterson, Brian G. Vegetabile, Adam Scherling, Rosanna Smart, Andrew R. Morral

To understand how rates of firearm ownership may be affected by public policy and how they may affect crime rates or other key outcomes in the United States, researchers need measures of firearm ownership at the state level. As part of the Gun Policy in America initiative, RAND researchers developed annual, state-level estimates of household firearm ownership by combining data from surveys and administrative sources. First, they used a small-area estimation technique to create state-level ownership estimates for each of 51 nationally representative surveys assessing household firearm ownership rates. They then used structural equation modeling to combine these survey-based estimates with administrative data on firearm suicides, hunting licenses, subscriptions to Guns & Ammo magazine, and background checks into the final measure of household firearm ownership. The resulting measure represents the proportion of adults living in a household with a firearm for each state in each year between 1980 and 2016. Other researchers can use these annual, state-level measures to test theories about the relationship between firearm ownership and crime, injury, and public policy.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2020. 78p.

By Connor Brooks

This report is the 18th in a series produced by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. It details the number of applications for background checks for firearm transfers and permits received by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and state and local checking agencies. It also describes the types of permits or checks used by each state, the number of denials issued by these agencies, and the reasons for denial.

Highlights

• The FBI and state and local checking agencies received about 16.7 million applications for firearm transfers and permits in 2019 and 25.0 million applications in 2020.

• About 243,000 (1.5%) applications for firearm transfers and permits were denied in 2019, and 398,000 (1.6%) were denied in 2020.

• The FBI received about 12.8 million applications in 2020 and denied 185,000 (1.5%), while state and local checking agencies received more than 12.2 million applications and denied about 212,000 (1.7%).

• In 2020, state checking agencies denied 2.7% of purchase permits, 1.8% of instant checks, 1.2% of exempt carry permits, and 0.2% of other approvals.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 33p.

By Nicholas Corsaro, Robin S. Engel, Tamara D. Herold,. Murat Yildirim

The gang and gun violence reduction project implemented in Las Vegas consisted of three components: hot spots deployment, focused deterrence, and place network investigations. This report focuses on the development, implementation, and evaluation of the hot spots strategy. The hot spots strategy involved the strategic deployment of additional saturation police patrols in high-crime locations. Specifically, to address violent street crime, the LVMPD engaged in a 6- month (Nov 1, 2018 to Apr 30, 2019) cluster randomized controlled trial (RCT) design of street segments receiving additional hot spots deployment (saturation patrols) and streets receiving patrol as usual (control segments). All potential street segments were identified from an analysis of persistent violent crime hot spots (where intensive police focus has been paid by the violent crime unit officers since January of 2018). Researchers stratified highest risk and independent segments within chronic and persistent hot spot locations. Specifically, 22 treatment segments and 22 control segments were selected to form the evaluation. No treatment segment was within a block or intersection of another treatment or control segment to reduce potential contamination of findings. Deployment of officers to the treatment hot spots occurred via calls for service every day, randomly for a total of two hours of exposure at each hot spot. Officers were instructed to remain at the hot spot for a total of 15 minutes, which is the optimum time for deployment to achieve effects as identified by researchers (Koper, 1995). When reaching the hot spot, officers were also randomly instructed to either stay in their vehicle with the lights on, or patrol the segment on foot. Interviews with arrestees have shown police presence is understood and alters criminal behaviors in patrolled areas (Golub et al., 2003). However, hot spot patrols such as walking are likely to go unnoticed by ordinary citizens (Weisburd, Hinkle, Fameaga, & Ready, 2011). Therefore, using both treatment types (stationary with lights and foot patrol) likely leads to increased awareness of police, thereby reducing criminal activity. The control treatment was for business to occur as usual at the control street segments. Center researchers conducted fidelity assessments during the project implementation phase, in order to ensure that the strategy was being implemented properly. These assessments indicated a strong adherence to the research design. Specifically, the research design called for a total of 2 hours of saturation patrol (in 15-minute increments) each day. Analysis of all hot spot patrols revealed that approximately 1.5 hours of additional patrol was observed each day for 90% of all hot spots. A total of 2 hours of additional patrol as observed for 55% of all hot spots. These findings demonstrate that the LVMPD carried out the hot spots strategy as designed.

Alexandria, VA: International Association of Chiefs of Police, 2019. 43p.