This MD spent $1-million of his own money to research gun violence
As the US election nears, other issues have overshadowed a pressing problem that continues to plague our neighbours to the south: gun violence.
While high-profile mass shootings have led to a lot of talk about addressing the problem and closing loopholes in legislation, moving forward has been difficult.
Yet one of America's foremost researchers on the subject says he's still optimistic that change is coming.
"For people who work in this field, the world did change in 2012," Dr. Garen Wintemute tells Dr. Brian Goldman, host of White Coat, Black Art on CBC Radio, in reference to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty children and six adult staff members were killed.
"I think that we are potentially a year or two away in the U.S. from meaningful policy reform at the federal level and it's already happening at the state level," says Wintemute, an ER physician and the Director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at the University of California, Davis.
Dr. Wintemute's optimism is remarkable given that he was forced to spend about a million dollars of his own money to keep his research into the causes of gun violence going. Much of the money for research dried up in 1996, when the US Congress passed a measure known as the Dickey Amendment.
It's named for Congressman Jay Dickey (R). He introduced the amendment after lobbying by the National Rifle Association which was concerned that, as Wintemute says, "Research on violence might lead to proposals for changes in policy that might prevent firearm violence, but might also hurt the economic interests of the industry."
Jay Dickey has since had a change of heart about the amendment. But back then, he described himself as "the point person for the NRA."
While Wintemute was able to access some state and private funds, about 10 years ago his program was close to collapse. It was then he opened his own wallet.
"Not to do work on this problem is tantamount to saying, 'Let's stop doing research on motor vehicle injuries, lets stop doing research on heart disease or cancer.' That just wasn't acceptable."
His research wasn't limited to gathering statistics, Wintemute also visited gun shows to document how firearms are bought and sold and saw hundreds of 'private sales' which allow buyers to legally purchase guns without a background check.
Wintemute is a member of the NRA who grew up around guns. He says despite the strong rhetoric from the NRA leadership, most Americans, and gun owners, support closing that loophole.
He's also an advocate of having doctors ask patients about whether they own a gun - as a means to prevent gun violence.
His experience as an ER doctor, dealing with the families who lost loved ones led him to see gun violence as a public health issue.
"There's no such thing as getting used to it. Every one is as fresh as the first. For firearms it's not so much the families we talk to, it's the families we never get a chance to talk to."
"Most people who die from gunshot wounds die where they're shot. It doesn't matter how fast the ambulance gets there, it doesn't matter how good we are, how good the surgeons are. They're just dead."
He says the fact that the California decided to use state funds to for gun violence research is evidence that the tide may be turning.
California voted to spend US $5M to set up the California Firearm Violence Research Center at UC Davis Sacramento, which Wintemute will run.
He admits to getting some satisfaction out of knowing that one of the people who added his voice to support that measure was the politician who successfully got the federal government to stymie gun research 20 years ago.
"One of the supporters of that bill, furnishing a very strong letter in support of that bill to fund firearm violence research, was Jay Dickey."