US: Scientists find link between spike in gun violence incidents and daily temperature

Gun violence has turned into a leading cause of death among children and teens in the US. Gun rights, enshrined in the national constitution, are a divisive subject which gets limelight every time a mass shooting takes place. Many reasons are there behind gun violence but now researchers in the country have observed in a study that gun violence spiked on warmer days. The study was carried out by the Boston University School of Public Health and the University of Washington School of Social Work.

The study findings indicate that Northeast and Midwest regions in the US saw sharp increase in gun violence on days that were hotter-than-normal.

“Our study provides strong evidence that daily temperature plays a meaningful role in gun violence fluctuations,” says study senior author Dr. Jonathan Jay, assistant professor of community health sciences at Boston University School of Public Health. Dr Jay was quoted by SciTechDaily.

“Our study really highlights the importance of heat adaptation strategies that can be used all year, as well as a need for specific regional awareness and attention in regions where this relationship is strongest,” said study lead author Dr. Vivian Lyons as quoted by SciTechDaily.

The study has been published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

In this study, the researchers made use of the publicly available data from Gun Violence Archive. They analysed more than 16,000 incidents of gun violence and daily temperatures between 2015 and 2020. The researchers found that 7,973 shootings were attributable to above-average temperature.

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