HMN 2025: How Food and housing insecurity is linked to unsafe gun storage

Tarang Parekh was preparing for work at his condo in Houston, Texas, in 2022, when he heard gunfire. He’d by no means heard the sound earlier than, besides on TV, however immediately acknowledged it. He ran downstairs and noticed a ugly scene. It wasn’t one thing he ever anticipated to see where he lived.

Parekh will not be alone. In 2022, greater than 48,000 lives had been claimed by gun violence within the U.S.

That {experience} impressed Parekh, now an assistant professor of epidemiology on the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences, to research potential hyperlinks between social drivers or determinants of well being (SDOH), equivalent to housing and meals insecurity, monetary hardship and transportation obstacles, with firearm possession and storage practices.

“Gun violence is not nearly particular person habits or psychological well being,” Parekh stated. “We want to grasp the broader social situations that drive gun possession and affect how firearms are saved.”

Parekh teamed up with fellow epidemiologist assistant professor Jee Won Park and grasp of public well being in epidemiology college students Annaliese Pena and Meghana Bhaskar to conduct a cross-sectional evaluation utilizing self-reported knowledge from the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. They examined responses from practically 63,000 adults in 5 states—California, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio—where questions on each firearm storage and social components had been included within the survey.

Their evaluation discovered that firearm possession was extra prevalent amongst non-Hispanic white households with greater incomes and better training. Unsafe gun storage was extra widespread amongst non-Hispanic Black and lower-income households, where SDOH and high-risk behaviors, together with substance use issues and despair, had been recognized. Their findings had been not too long ago published in JAMA Network Open.

Among the social components surveyed, monetary hardship and housing and meals insecurity had been considerably related to unsafe firearm storage practices.

“I anticipated to see monetary hardship and residing in an unsafe setting affect gun possession and storage behaviors, however I used to be not anticipating to see social drivers like meals and housing insecurity and transportation obstacles to have such a big affect on firearm storage behaviors,” Parekh stated.

Policy and prevention

Some states, like California and Minnesota, have Child-Access Prevention (CAP) legal guidelines that make it unlawful to depart weapons unsecured in households with youngsters. In these states, folks had been extra prone to retailer weapons safely.

According to Everytown Research & Policy, Delaware is one in every of 26 states with a CAP legislation; nonetheless, Parekh believes these legal guidelines could possibly be stronger. California, for instance, is the one state that mandates locking units with firearm purchases.

Gun buyback packages, which Delaware has beforehand held, is also useful.

“We should present extra incentives or monetary advantages,” stated Parekh, pointing to Canada and New Zealand, where buyback packages have been extra profitable.

Identifying the basis causes

Parekh’s findings name for a shift in deal with particular person psychological well being to systemic socioeconomic components as keys to understanding the behaviors that drive gun possession.

“Whenever we hear about mass shootings, the ‘harmful folks’ phenomenon arises,” defined Parekh. “We should shift our focus and decide why the individual owns a gun and whether or not housing insecurity or residing in an unsafe setting influences their habits, as a substitute of leaping to the conclusion that the individual has psychological well being points.”

The COVID-19 pandemic additionally fueled gun possession.

“After COVID, there was an enormous leap in firearm possession, particularly amongst racial minority populations, where proudly owning a gun made them really feel safer,” Parekh stated.

The simplest options, he believes, lie in community-based training and assist.

“We continually speak about altering legal guidelines, however legal guidelines alone will not clear up the issue,” Parekh stated. “We must spend money on our communities to enhance the social and environmental components that contribute to firearm possession.”

Next, Parekh plans to research variations in state gun legal guidelines and their intersection with SDOH.

“Gun possession and protected storage aren’t nearly Second Amendment rights,” he stated. “It’s about understanding why folks really feel the necessity to personal a firearm within the first place—and the way making our communities safer might change that call.”