UC Davis Researcher: Next Mass Shooting Is Inevitable Without Changes
SACRAMENTO (CBS13) — A UC Davis researcher who studies guns and violence says when it comes to mass killings in the United States, it will happen again.
Garen Wintemute and his critics both agree more needs to be done to stop mass shootings, but they disagree on the causes for the violence and the solutions.
As investigators try to piece together how and why the terror plot was hatched, Wintemute is still scratching his head.
"I think the headline for today is, we still haven't learned anything," he said.
The emergency room doctor at UC Davis and director of the university's violence prevention research program is so devoted to studying the causes and answers for gun misuse, he's donated $1 million from his bank account to keep his research going.
He says the problem isn't the lack of data, it's inaction.
"We have less than five percent of the planet's population and we own more than 40 percent of the firearms that are in civilian hands. That's not an accident," he said.
Wintemute is calling for universal background checks on gun purchases, citing evidence proving they influence crime rates.
"Where states have had background check policies, and repealed them, homicides have gone up," he said.
But the guns used in San Bernardino were bought legally at a Corona gun shop in a state with some of the toughest gun laws in the country.
At Wild Bill's Gun Shop in Elk Grove, manager Jacob Shockley says the debate is more about immigration than gun control, saying the U.S. lets people in without knowing who they are and what they intend to do here.
"I mean, you can't punish me for something that an extremist did," he said.
Officials say the attacker's wife was in the country on a Pakistani passport and a fiancee visa. The FBI says neither showed up on terror watch lists.
Shockley wants tougher borders.
"Let's just not be a soft, welcoming country," he said.
"I think we have a lot more to learn about what happened yesterday," Wintemute said, "potentially what the connections are between what happened yesterday and the events not so much in this country but the events that happened in Europe."
