Dive Brief:

• Two college professors have developed an eight-point “call to action” to end gun violence that has gained the support of a number of large school districts, 300 universities and 4,000 experts on the topic, District Administration reports.
• The document provides general support for familiar actions to establish universal background checks — as well as limiting assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition and dangerous gun modifications — but it also calls for other measures such as increasing staffing for school support services, training school threat assessment teams, and removing barriers to sharing data among schools, mental health services and police.
• A threat assessment team should be trained in identifying and handling suspicious activity and have access to information that would be available if rules in HIPAA and FERPA were relaxed, according to the authors of the document, Matthew Mayer of Rutgers and Shane Jimerson of the University of California Santa Barbara, both experts in school violence.

​Dive Insight:

The Texas Association of School Psychologists has offered its members a detailed description of a school’s legal position when it comes to both sharing information about students who might be a threat and having responsibility for the safety of its students and staff. It describes the limited circumstances where FERPA-protected information can be released.

Also, a rule change had been in place for more than two years that allows health care organizations to more often share information with the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), but schools and health organizations are often wary about releasing information, and the effort has hit other stumbling blocks.

Meanwhile the federal Centers for Disease Control has been given the freedom to do gun violence research after having been restricted from such work for two decades — which might mean new science-based solutions could be developed, according to the researcher who has in the past overseen gun violence studies at the agency. More CDC research was also called for in the Mayer/Jimerson call to action.

While universal background checks and other use of technology and data are often discussed, tech experts have spelled out specific ways that technology can be used. In Chicago — always mentioned as a hotspot for gun violence — use of technology and data seems to be paying off with decreased shootings.

Other tech experts are suggesting use of blockchain as a solution for sharing data, and companies are working on such a system to allow cross-referencing of health and gun ownership records without threatening privacy.