well gun rights Advocates frequently argue that private citizens who own and use a firearm for self-defense can help save lives but new research from Rutgers finds gun owners rarely use their weapons for protection in fact the study from the gun violence research center revealed less than 1% of more than 3,000 gun owners surveyed across the country have used their firearm for self-defense within the last year the study also found that people who view the world as unsafe are more likely to be distrustful of others and may be more likely to want a gun and adults with Firearms access are more likely to be exposed to gun violence than they are to use it for their own defense for more on that I'm joined by Mike Anestis executive director of the New Jersey gun violence research center and co-author of the study Mike good to talk to you when you look at the research and it shows an overwhelming majority of folks are not using their weapons for personal safety what do you think think it says about the broader narrative in the us um about self-defense and self- protection I think that it says that people are buying Firearms to keep themselves safe that that's their motivation for purchasing but that maybe they've been misled about how frequently that happens and they've been undersold about how frequently these same folks are actually exposed to gun violence so they're making a cost benefit decision without all the right numbers in hand yeah I mean your research has often pointed to the fact that not only does access to Firearms lead to more gun violence but also things like suicide um unintentional injuries did any of the the published study that just came out touch on that um and did you ask firearm owners about that absolutely so you know for instance we found that less than 1% of folks with firearms in our sample had engaged in defensive gun use in the past year um but a substantial number of them had know someone who died by firearm suicide or know someone else who had been shot or witnessed the shooting in their neighborhood and so these same folks are rarely using the firearms and self-defense but it does happen but they're frequently being exposed to gun violence which in turn has all sorts of mental and physical tolls it inflicts upon people and communities so how do you then balance you know as a public health researcher the legitimate concerns of gun owners things like wanting to be able to protect their family to have the option of self-defense with it being linked to uh increased exposure for that violence right well so it's important to point out that I'm not saying people never defend themselves or the guns are bad but the idea here is that if you're going to bring a firearm into your home understand the risks that come with it and take steps to lower those risks store the Firearms securely if someone's in crisis store it outside of the home legally temporarily voluntarily but don't leave yourself in a situation where the tool you brought into your home to keep yourself safe actually creates the exposure to risk for things that nobody was hoping would happen is that something that you'd like to see shift in the conversations uh around firearm use and and ownership yeah I'd like to see the debate be less about um rights and the Second Amendment it more about understanding that hundreds of millions of Americans have chosen to have firearms so what can we all do as communities to make sure that we're all safe which is a veryable very reasonable thing to want to be um considering what this research shows and what the gun violence research center does um what are you all up against right now in terms of being able to put on these studies and and carry out your work so we've got a couple of things working against us one is that the federal government has Unleashed what you could probably call a war on science and essentially eliminated Federal funding for things like gun violence research but also closer to home the current budget proposal in New Jersey is proposing to slash our budget by a million dollars in the coming year we won't be able to fund grants we won't be able to gather data like this if our budget is slashed and slashing our budget at the state level when all budgets are being slashed at the federal level is really the opposite of what you should be seeing in this moment when New Jersey could lead on gun violence prevention science we shouldn't be running away from it I mean talk to me a little bit about the importance of that in light of the Bruin case and what's shifted just in our public discourse how much does that matter it matters a ton I mean in New Jersey since the Bruin case the number of folks applying for uh permits to carry Firearms has gone through the roof the number of folks who are engaging in potentially unsafe practices have gone through the roof even as we've seen wonderful progress and actual shooting numbers within New Jersey cities there are a lot of unknowns about who has now acquired Firearms how safe are they being what can we do to further improve uh gun violence prevention within and Beyond New Jersey it's almost impossible to do that without science and slashing science budgets doesn't get us further along all right Mike Anestis is the executive director of the New Jersey gun violence research center Mike good to talk to you thanks for sharing your findings thank you so much [Music]