Firearm Researcher Surveys

Expert Survey 1: Gun in Home & Suicide

Expert Survey 2: Relative Number of Self-defense & Criminal Gun Uses

Expert Survey 3: Concealed Carry Laws & Crime

Expert Survey 4: Gun in Home & Female Homicide Victimization

Expert Survey 5: Safe Storage of Firearm in Home & Suicide

Expert Survey 6: Eddie Eagle Gun Safety Program & Gun Accidents

Expert Survey 7: Does a Gun Make a Home Safer?

Expert Survey 8: Strong Gun Laws & Homicide

Expert Survey 9: Background Checks & Gun Access

Expert Survey 10: Gun on Person Outside Home & Risk of Being Killed

Expert Survey 11: Guns Used in Crime & States’/Nations’ Gun Laws

Expert Survey 12: Guns, Robbery and Burglary

Expert Survey 13: Gun Proliferation, Permissive Gun Policies, & Public Health

Expert Survey 14: Citizens Carrying Firearms & Public Safety

Expert Survey 15: Interpersonal Violent Acts with a Gun by Individuals with Mental Illness

Expert Survey 16: Gun Buyback and Reduction in Violent Deaths (Australia)

Expert Survey 17: Licensed Handgun Purchases and Firearm Violence

Expert Survey 18: Annual Self-Defense Gun Uses

Expert Survey 19: Contagion of Gun Carrying

Expert Survey 20: Improvements in Medical Care

Expert Survey 21: Guns in Community and Safety Perceptions

sponders are asked to give their level of agreement with a statement: (a) strongly disagree, (b) disagree, (c) neither agree nor disagree, (d) agree, or (e) strongly agree (or “I don’t know”). Respondents are then asked to rate the quality of the scientific evidence about this issue/statement. Then they are asked their level of familiarity with the issue/statement, and finally their area of research (e.g., public health/medicine; sociology/criminology; public policy).

The surveys are conducted on Qualtrics.

Expert firearms researchers were defined as those individuals that 1) publish in peer-reviewed journals and 2) publish specifically about firearms in the public health, public policy, sociology, or criminology literature. Expert researchers were defined as first authors on at least 1 peer-reviewed journal article from 2011 to the present (February 2014). It was felt that including all authors would overweight the public health/medicine area of research since articles there tend to have more authors.

Papers were identified through keyword searches using databases including Web of Science, Sociological Abstracts, Criminal Justice Abstracts and MEDLINE. Authors included scientists from criminology, public health and social science.

In March 2014, a total of 1180 citations were reviewed. The following categories of citations were removed:

• Book reviews
• Case studies
• Articles without a clear author

Certain journal categories were also excluded:

• Law journals – not peer-reviewed
• Forensic journals – it became too subjective to ascertain which forensic articles were relevant (e.g., studies of bullet types in certain crimes)

Certain topics were deemed to be irrelevant based on keywords. These included:

• History articles – e.g., “military history” or “civil war”
• Engineering and manufacturing articles
• Medical treatment articles – e.g., “treatment,” “management,” “procedures”
• Psychology and psychiatry of gun users and victims – e.g., “resilience”
• Different types of guns including nail, air, mole or electron guns

A total of 468 citations were included. Duplicate entries were removed and 358 distinct first authors were found. Of these, a total of 287 working email addresses were found and included in this survey study.