There is so much fear-mongering involving guns right now.  The debate over gun violence has led media outlets to cover a lot of shootings lately.  Do not let this panic you.   Violence in America (and among humanity in general) is going down.  I repeatedly receive chain-emails that equate the government with Nazis; that tell me I will need to fight off the American Army from a bunker; that mock and vilify my fellow citizens.  These messages are designed to inflame emotions and suppress rational discussion.  Delete, delete, delete.

There are many problems that guns are a part of:  suicide is different from accident, which is different from domestic violence, which is different from mass shootings, and so on.

For any proposed gun regulation, I ask: what problem does this try to solve?  If a regulation is proposed to reduce accidents, saying it won’t stop domestic violence misses the point.  If a regulation fails in its intent, it should be repealed.

The most important change in laws that I see as possible today is to remove restrictions on government-sponsored studies of gun violence.  I oppose any attempt to enforce ignorance.  (There is research into gun violence, like this one in JAMA.  Are privately-funded studies credible to the public, or do we need publicly-funded research?)

Laws forbidding the best non-partisan public institutions, like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, from studying the role of guns in violence should be overturned.  “Hypotheses are cheap; theories are useful when tested, supported, and corrected.”

I would like to see something analogous to airplane crash investigations for mass shootings like Newtown.  Such events are rare but terrifying.  When an airplane crashes, the FAA investigates and usually figures out what happened – maybe there will be changes in regulations, maybe not.  I feel the public is well served by this approach and it would be effective for mass shootings, too.

Car safety may offer an analogy for injuries and deaths that involve guns.  Car accidents kill and injure many people every year.  We don’t ban cars.  We study the accidents; and then we improve the cars and the roads, and sometimes we deal with the drivers.

We don’t know how many people own how many guns in America, or what they do with those guns.  We especially need to understand how mental illness, privacy concerns, and individual rights interact with the background-check system.  Many of the studies cited in the nation’s current polemics were poorly designed, poorly performed, or don’t say what pundits claim.  Try reading through non-partisan fact-checks on gun related claims at, for example, Politifact, to get a feel for what we do know and don’t know.  I am struck by how many half-truths are presented to the public.  Knowledge is better than ignorance.

Take a deep breath.  Respect your fellow citizens.  Seek out information that disagrees with your current position.  How people actually behave is just as important as how you think they should behave.  Remember, reality has a habit of winning.