Daniel Webster (academic)

Daniel W. Webster (born 1960)[1] is an American health policy researcher and the director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research at Johns Hopkins University. He is also the deputy director for research at the Johns Hopkins Center for the Prevention of Youth Violence, and the first Bloomberg Professor of American Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.[2][3] In 2016, he became the director of the Johns Hopkins-Baltimore Collaborative for Violence Reduction, a joint crime-fighting effort between Johns Hopkins and the Baltimore Police Department.[4]

Daniel W. Webster
Born1960
Alma materUniversity of Michigan, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
AwardsDelta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health – Alpha Chapter, faculty induction, 2005; Educator of the Year, Maryland Network Against Domestic Violence, 2004
Scientific career
FieldsPublic health, health policy
InstitutionsJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

Education

Webster received his MPH from the University of Michigan in 1985 and his ScD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in 1990.[2] His ScD thesis was entitled, Determinants of pediatricians' firearm injury prevention counseling practices.[5]

Research

Webster is known for his research into gun violence and laws, and he has published numerous articles on these and related subjects.[2] In 2015, he and his colleagues published a study that found that the passage of a permit-to-purchase (PTP) handgun law in Connecticut was associated with a 40% reduction in firearm homicides in the state in the ten years after the law's enactment in 1995.[6][7] Later that year, Webster co-authored another study looking at changes in such laws in Connecticut and Missouri, the latter of which repealed its permit-to-purchase law in 2007. This study found that the enactment of Connecticut's PTP law was associated with a 15.4% reduction in firearm suicide rates in the state, while Missouri's repeal of its PTP law was associated with a 16.1% increase in these rates.[8][9] A previous study by Webster et al. had found that the repeal of Missouri's PTP law was associated with increased annual murders of 0.93 per 100,000 people, or about 55 to 63 per year.[10][11][12] In October 2016, he and his Johns Hopkins colleagues released a report claiming that arguments in support of campus carry laws are based on flawed assumptions, and that such laws could make college campuses less safe.[13]

Views

Webster has said that gun laws, rather than focusing on making guns illegal, should focus on restricting access to guns with respect to those who are most likely to commit gun crimes.[14] He has described gun violence as a public health issue, saying, "Like so many public health problems, you may have some communities or individuals with very low risk, but some communities where it truly is the most important public health problem that they have to deal with."[15] He has also said that a 2013 law in Maryland that requires handgun buyers get a license from the police and pass a background check might be effective, but that as of September 2015, there is not enough data to say what its full effect is.[16]

References
  1. "Daniel Webster". VIAF. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  2. "Daniel Webster". Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  3. Henry, Dori (2018-01-18). "Gun violence prevention researcher Daniel Webster named first Bloomberg Professor of American Health". The Hub. Retrieved 2018-02-08.
  4. Staff (22 February 2016). "Johns Hopkins researchers, Baltimore police to work together to study, reduce violent crime". Hub. Johns Hopkins University. Retrieved 25 April 2017.
  5. Webster, Daniel (1990). Determinants of pediatricians' firearm injury prevention counseling practices (ScD thesis). Johns Hopkins University.
  6. Rudolph, KE; Stuart, EA; Vernick, JS; Webster, DW (August 2015). "Association Between Connecticut's Permit-to-Purchase Handgun Law and Homicides". American Journal of Public Health. 105 (8): e49–54. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2015.302703. PMC 4504296. PMID 26066959.
  7. Guo, Jeff (12 June 2015). "Gun killings fell by 40 percent after Connecticut passed this law". Washington Post. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  8. Crifasi, Cassandra K.; Meyers, John Speed; Vernick, Jon S.; Webster, Daniel W. (October 2015). "Effects of changes in permit-to-purchase handgun laws in Connecticut and Missouri on suicide rates". Preventive Medicine. 79: 43–49. doi:10.1016/j.ypmed.2015.07.013. PMID 26212633.
  9. Johnson, Carolyn Y. (3 September 2015). "The death toll from guns no one talks about". Washington Post. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  10. Webster, D; Crifasi, CK; Vernick, JS (April 2014). "Effects of the repeal of Missouri's handgun purchaser licensing law on homicides". Journal of Urban Health. 91 (2): 293–302. doi:10.1007/s11524-014-9865-8. PMC 3978146. PMID 24604521.
  11. Dahl, Julia (19 February 2014). "Study: Gun murders rise in Mo. after background check repeal". CBS News. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  12. Tavernise, Sabrina (22 December 2015). "In Missouri, Fewer Gun Restrictions and More Gun Killings". New York Times. Retrieved 29 June 2016.
  13. Schuppe, Jon (2016-10-25). "More Guns on Campuses Won't Make People Safer, Researchers Say". NBC News.
  14. Torbati, Yeganeh June (25 January 2011). "Gun policy scholar wants shift in firearm control laws, discussion". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  15. Dennis, Brady (2 October 2015). "Why we should think of gun violence as a disease, and study it accordingly". Washington Post. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
  16. Knezevich, Alison (30 September 2015). "Officials urge other states to adopt Md.'s gun licensing laws". Baltimore Sun. Retrieved 7 January 2016.
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