Editor’s note: This commentary is by Paul Manganiello, MD, who is emeritus professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. He lives in Norwich.
Well, the 2015 Vermont legislative session is over, and I think we should give a huge shout-out of gratitude to our elected officials! There were 76 bills passed by both the Senate and the House, none of which were vetoed by the governor. The bills covered a lot of territory: acts related to licensure; generating revenue; economic development; environmental issues; and educational reform to name just a few.
When I retired from the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in 2012, I enrolled in The Dartmouth Institute’s master’s in public health program. My internship this year was spent working with the gun safety advocacy organization GunsenseVT (Gunsense). The vision of the organization is to create a safe “gun culture” in Vermont. It was an eye-opening experience into the legislative process, and made me appreciate the hard work of our elected officials, making difficult decisions and at times even more difficult compromises for the public’s welfare.
Gunsense was advocating for the passage of legislation that would address the issue of instituting comprehensive background checks on the transfer of all firearms with certain exceptions. I can vividly remember the raucous public hearing of the joint Senate judiciary and health committees at the Statehouse in Montpelier this past winter when they were taking testimony from proponents and opponents of comprehensive background checks.
It seemed as if both sides were talking past each other. It was apparent that individuals on both side of the issue really love Vermont and want to see its heritage and culture honored and preserved. It was interesting to note that both the supporters and opponents of gun safety legislation agree that Vermont citizens have a constitutional “right to bear arms.” Where they disagreed was on whether or not an individual’s Second Amendment right is absolute, and on whether or not the Legislature has the right to regulate firearms for public safety.
It seemed as if both sides were talking past each other. It was apparent that individuals on both side of the issue really love Vermont and want to see its heritage and culture honored and preserved.
The opponents of gun safety legislation felt that this proposed legislation was addressing a non-issue, that Vermont is a very “safe state.” But all things are relative. Even if Vermont was the safest state in the nation (and we are not) from a gun violence public health standpoint, there would still be room for improvement.
Opponents of gun safety legislation claimed that Gunsense was “cooking the numbers.” However, Dr. Chris Barsotti, an emergency room physician, pointed out in a commentary published in VTDigger, that Vermont crime data is available through the Vermont Domestic Violence Fatality Review Commission Report, the Vermont Crime Information Center, the FBI Uniform Crime Report and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). He had compared the reported data for 2012. Depending upon the source, the number of homicides in Vermont were 13, 7, 8 or 9 respectively. That was an 85 percent variation in the reported data just for homicides, which you would think, since it is “hard” data, would be relatively easy to track, as compared to injuries, and intimidations, which are often not even reported. Those are anecdotal incidences, which never make the light of day.
Unfortunately getting accurate data can be problematic. Although there is the National Instant Background Check System (NICS), states are not mandated to report all individuals who would be denied the ability to legally acquire firearms. Also, for some reason, in 2002 Vermont switched from having a state level check, to only performing the federal background check. Add to that, the fact that Congress in 1996 included language in the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Bill — “None of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the CDC may be used to advocate or promote gun control” — it is no wonder that data is hard to come by.
But sometimes data can get you only so far; Maria Konnikova highlighted the research of Brendan Nyhan, a professor of political science at Dartmouth, in the May 16, 2014, issue of The New Yorker magazine. She was reporting on his work with a group of pediatricians, who were looking at different ways of communicating the advantages of vaccinations in an attempt to change parental attitudes toward vaccinations. She stated the results were “dramatic” … nothing. None of the tested interventions worked. In some situations, it had the opposite effect; the subjects became more firmly entrenched in their opposition to vaccines. Nyhan called it the “backfire effect.”
Nyhan has apparently been trying to debunk false ideas for quite some time. He and two college classmates founded Spinsanity, a fact-checking site that predated venues like Politifact. What Nyhan and other investigators found, was that if an individual held a strong position on an issue, the contrary attitude, even if factually correct, made the subject even more distrustful of the source. So how does factual information change strongly held beliefs, opinions, and misconceptions? The research is unclear. So how can we reach consensus on extremely polarizing issues?
It was quite apparent at the public hearing at the Statehouse in Montpelier this past February that individuals can be very passionate on both sides of an issue. So, how do we come to some kind of consensus on an extremely polarizing issue, issues which are important to all of Vermont’s citizens? We know we will never get universal agreement, but to use the vaccine analogy, can we at least attain a “herd immunity”?
What the internship has helped me realize is how important it is to engage individuals on an interpersonal level, i.e., public forums, community functions, via email, or telephone. But at the same time, as Nyhan has pointed out, I have learned how difficult it is to influence individuals at the intrapersonal level, especially those who have formulated strong, preconceived ideas or opinions on an issue. I have learned that it is more productive to engage in dialogue with individuals who have not developed hardened attitudes on a topic, i.e., individuals who see gun safety legislation solely as an absolute Second Amendment issue seemingly, will never allow themselves to consider the public health dimension of gun ownership. So I guess we need to keep these societal “conversations” ongoing, and hopefully, just hopefully, we will be able to make incremental changes for the good of society.
