Citation

Jena AB, Olenski AR. New Engl. J. Med. 2018; 378(9): 866-867.

Affiliation

Columbia University, New York, NY.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Massachusetts Medical Society)

DOI

10.1056/NEJMc1712773

PMID

29490173

Abstract

Despite high rates of unintentional firearm injuries,1-3 and recognition by the National Rifle Association (NRA) that firearm education is important,4 it is often said that firearm injuries occur primarily among inexperienced users and that firearm safety comes with experience and training. To investigate this contention, we conducted a study in which we hypothesized that firearm use would decline during the dates of NRA meetings — which attract tens of thousands of members from across the United States,5 including firearm owners and owners of venues where firearms are used (e.g., firing ranges and hunting grounds) — and that firearm injuries would also decline even among experienced users.

We identified emergency department visits and hospitalizations for firearm injuries during NRA convention dates and during identical days in the 3 weeks before and 3 weeks after NRA conventions in a national database of privately insured patients during 2007 through 2015. We estimated the rates of firearm injuries during convention ...

Language: en