Can We Unite Around Gun Safety? Yes, Think Local And Get The Data

Earlier this week, as I was checking in at the Aspen Ideas Festival, a man approached me unexpectedly. He said, “Excuse me, Dr.-Senator Frist. I am a pastor in North Carolina. I want to bring people together on gun issues, right and left, Republican and Democrat, rural and urban. Is it possible? And how can I do it?”

Already late to my first meeting, I gave him my short, but direct, answer: “Yes. You must start locally. Most important, you must open the conversation with specific data that accurately describes their local community, information that they can relate to. Bring eight or ten people to the table and begin simply by asking specific, thought-provoking questions about gun safety in their own neighborhood. Likely they will not know the answers, but you will quickly establish a rapport and common foundation for a civil, mutually respectful discussion that can lead to deeper understanding, possibly even a change in culture and attitude, and, eventually, progress.”

I left him with these four, specific questions that I successfully use in starting similar conversations:

• “Are any firearms kept in or around your home?”
• “If so, are these firearms now loaded?”
• “Are any of these loaded firearms unlocked?”
• “Do you feel safer or less safe when there are firearms in your home or vehicle?”

This is a technique I use often, and almost always people stay at the table, no matter how extreme their original positions on guns might be. The key is to center the conversation around community-specific facts and data, and then listening. Everyone in every community wants their neighborhoods and schools safer. Thoughtful conversation and trust will follow.

But here’s the rub. Do you, the reader, know the answers to these four key questions for your own community? Probably not. And that’s our call to action: to identify the local facts in your neighborhood or city — to find the answers to basic questions on gun safety and ownership, such as those listed above or to other questions you might think of.

We are fortunate here in my hometown to have the answers.

NashvilleHealth, a collaborative nonprofit that identifies Nashville’s health and wellness challenges and works to improve health outcomes, prioritized acquiring statistically significant data on gun ownership and gun safety centered around these four key questions in its most recent Community Health and Well-being Survey.

Gun safety, without a doubt, is a public health issue and needs to be addressed as such. Gun violence is the number one cause of premature death in the United States and has a tremendous impact on the physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being of our communities. Because of this, community and public health minded organizations with accurate, data informed insight like NashvilleHealth are the perfect partners in shaping conversations on gun safety.

Thanks to NashvilleHealth’s locally derived insight, Nashville is one of the few cities that has these data available. Here is what they found (and the response I give after posing the questions and soliciting guesses from audiences to open conversations on gun safety in my own community):

1. 27% of Nashvillians kept firearms in or around their homes.
2. 42% of these firearms were loaded at the time of survey completion.
3. 51% of loaded firearms were kept unlocked.
4. 63% of Nashvillians felt safer with firearms in their home or vehicle (only 2% felt less safe, while 34% were neutral).

Why is this information so fundamental? Because knowledge of regional data leads to a shared understanding of community culture and, frequently, inspires local community solutions. But we have been missing this type of data, not only at the local level but, even more shockingly, at the federal level for far too long.

Until recently, federally funded firearm and gun violence research was prohibited, preventing insightful gun analyses that could translate to well informed policy updates. In 2019, Congress clarified this ambiguous prohibition, paving the way for research on gun violence for the first time since 1996.

For over 20 years, government funded research on the leading cause of premature death in the U.S. was prohibited. This simply does not make sense. Due to such shortsighted policy, we remain far behind other countries when it comes to understanding the causes, catalysts, and impacts of gun violence. This must change immediately.

We are beginning to see long overdue bipartisan progress at the federal level. Today, Congress passed a bill that, pending President Biden’s signature, will require more rigorous background checks for gun buyers under the age of 21 and will increase funding to encourage states to incorporate “red flag” laws and improve youth mental health resources and programs.

This is a positive step at the federal level, especially in view of the partisan character of today’s Congressional climate, but it is just a baby step in more completely addressing gun safety and gun violence as a public health issue affecting every neighborhood in the nation.

As I told the pastor from North Carolina, to change the culture we need to promote and accelerate conversations at the community level supported by sound, reliable, local data that people can relate to. Thanks to NashvilleHealth, the city of Nashville is in a great place to engage in local conversations on gun safety, to educate its community on how to safely store and use guns, and to cultivate an environment and culture where everyone – those with and without firearms, those in school and in their homes – can feel and be safe.

Not all cities are fortunate to have a community organization like NashvilleHealth to take the helm in acquiring these data. You can do your part by identifying organizations, whether it be a Rotary, The Chamber, or your local public health department, to conduct similar, factual-based surveys accurately. And, sharing the findings widely will empower conversations in your community.

Local listening and acquiring local data are the best ways to more completely understand the landscape and culture of gun safety and to encourage our neighbors to engage in conversations on gun violence and on mental health, irrespective of political ties. A community empowered with specific local health data can move mountains.