(Reuters Health) - Gunshot-related deaths and injuries temporarily show a dramatic decline when the National Rifle Association is holding its annual convention, according to a new analysis in the New England Journal of Medicine. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: An overall view of the exhibit floor at the National Rifle Association's (NRA) annual meetings and exhibits show in Louisville, Kentucky, May 21, 2016. REUTERS/John Sommers II 
 
 The authors say it’s evidence that firearms - even in the hands of experienced users - are inherently dangerous and accidents don’t just happen among novices. 
 
 Dr. Anupam Jena of Harvard Medical School and Andrew Olenski of Columbia University compared firearm injuries during the conventions each year from 2007 through 2015 with injury rates three weeks before and three weeks after each event. 
 
 A decline of 63 percent was seen in the states where the conventions were being held, apparently due to large numbers of gun owners being at the events, as well as, in some cases, gun venues such as firing ranges or hunting grounds having closed while their staff attended the convention. 
 
 Nationally, there was a 20 percent reduction in firearm injuries during the convention. 
 
 In contrast, gun-related crime did not decrease during the conventions. 
 
 The drop in injuries was only seen among men. It was most prominent in the states with the highest rate of gun ownership, and among people living in the South and the West. 
 
 “These findings are consistent with reductions in firearm injuries occurring as a result of lower rates of firearm use during the brief period when many firearm owners and owners of places where firearms are used may be attending an NRA convention,” they said. “Our results suggest that firearm-safety concerns and risks of injury are relevant even among experienced gun owners.” 
 
 The NRA did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 The study comes at a time when Americans own an estimated 265 million to 300 million guns, which is about one for every adult. Thirty percent of Americans say they own at least one gun, and another 11 percent say they live in a household with someone who owns one, according to the Pew Research Center. In 2014, 461 people died from an accidental firearm discharge and 15,928 were injured, nearly 2,000 of whom were children, the study authors note. 
 
 “This passes the sniff test. It makes sense that decreased exposure and decreased usage would result in fewer events,” said Dr. Stephen Hargarten, chairman of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, who was not involved in the study. 
 
 “I have worked with lifetime members of the NRA who secretly confess that they have unintended discharges of their rifles or shotguns. And this study doesn’t account for the unintended discharges that didn’t result in injury,” he told Reuters Health in a telephone interview. 
 
 “We’re saying, ‘Here’s a brief period of time when people likely to use guns are not using them,’” and the injury rates go down, Jena told Reuters Health by phone. 
 
 The researchers used an insurance database to track firearm injuries during conventions in Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Phoenix, Louisville and St. Louis. 
 
 Nationally, the rate of firearm injury dropped from 1.5 per 100,000 on the dates adjacent to the convention to 1.2 per 100,000 during the convention itself. And in the state where the convention was held, the injury rate went from 1.9 down to 0.7 per 100,000. 
 
 With as many as 80,000 firearm owners attending a convention, “the relationship is not just possibly due to 80,000 members not using firearms as much during the date of the convention,” Jena said. “It could be that firing ranges and hunting grounds are more likely to be closed. There could be a larger network effect that could be at play here.” 
 
 It’s also relevant that the effect is largest in states that hold a meeting in a given year, he noted. “If the convention is closer to you in a given year, the effect should be larger, and we find that.” 
 
 During the NRA’s Atlanta convention in 2017, 60 percent of the 81,000 NRA members traveled more than 200 miles to attend, according to the organization’s 2018 convention website. 
 
 “I think the most sophisticated and reasoned gun supporters will not be surprised by this,” Jena said. “All we are saying is that guns are inherently unsafe and you recognize that whenever you use a firearm. Even an experienced user may still suffer from a gun-related injury. That’s like saying even the best drivers in the world may still get in a car accident. Why? Because driving is inherently an unsafe activity compared to walking around in circles in your house.” 
 
 It would seem reasonable to investigate ways to make guns safer, Hargarten said. “We’ve integrated safety features into other products, but there has not been a collective discussion about this product, as we had with cars in the 1960s.” 
 
 SOURCE: bit.ly/2CKXQfa The New England Journal of Medicine, online February 28, 2018. ||||| Story highlights Gun-related injures go down by 20% during NRA conventions, new research shows 
 
 The NRA calls the findings "absurd" and says the numbers "simply don't add up" 
 
 (CNN) During National Rifle Association annual conventions, when about 80,000 gun owners spend a few days focused on seminars, events and meetings, America seems to be safer, new research suggests. 
 
 More specifically, the rate of firearm-related injuries when NRA members gather en masse falls by 20% nationwide, according to a study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine 
 
 When a state hosted a convention, and presumably a higher percentage of local gun enthusiasts attended, gun-related injuries in that state fell 50%, said Dr. Anupam Jena, the study's senior author and an associate professor of health care policy at Harvard Medical School. 
 
 The Harvard-led researchers looked at the number of hospitalizations and emergency room visits tied to firearm injuries during convention dates and the three weeks before and after conventions. To reach their conclusions, they combed through nearly 76 million medical insurance claims filed by privately insured patients between 2007 and 2015. 
 
 Injury reductions were most significant among men from the South and the West, where gun ownership -- and likely NRA membership -- is greater. 
 
 Read More ||||| When gun enthusiasts gather for the National Rifle Association’s annual conventions, rates of gun-related injuries and deaths drop by 20 percent nationwide—and a whopping 63 percent in the hosting state—according to an analysis published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine. 
 
 Further Reading Making a different case for guns as a public health issue The finding was based on an analysis of insurance data on gun injury rates during NRA conventions from 2007 through 2015, as well as rates three weeks before and three weeks after each of the conventions. The researchers behind the work—health policy expert Anupam Jena, MD, PhD of Harvard Medical School and economist Andrew Olenski of Columbia University—also looked at crime rates during those times. 
 
 They found no significant change in crime rates despite the dip in injuries. They also noted that the largest drops in firearm-related injuries during NRA conventions were in men, the southern and western areas of the country, and in states with the highest levels of gun ownership. 
 
 Further Reading Researcher finds evidence that relaxing gun laws ups murder rate Though the analysis can only provide a correlation—not causation—Jena and Olenski suggest it may refute a common argument among gun proponents. That is, that gun accidents happen primarily in the hands of inexperienced users and that practice and training—promoted by the NRA—can greatly reduce or eliminate safety concerns and accidents, which affect thousands each year. In 2014, for example, there were 461 unintentional firearm deaths and 15,928 unintentional, non-fatal injuries, 1,960 of which involved youths. 
 
 In their analysis, Jena and Olenski concluded that the findings: 
 
 “...are consistent with reductions in firearm injuries occurring as a result of lower rates of firearm use during the brief period when many firearm owners and owners of places where firearms are used may be attending an NRA convention. Our results suggest that firearm-safety concerns and risks of injury are relevant even among experienced gun owners.” 
 
 In a statement to CNN, NRA's director of public affairs, Jennifer Baker, called the study “absurd.” She continued: "This study is another example of when data and numbers fly in the face of logic and common sense.” 
 
 Baker went on to note that only a small fraction of the country’s gun owners—a group that totals about a third of Americans—attend the NRA’s annual conventions. She questioned how such a relatively small number of gun owners could explain such large decreases in injuries. 
 
 In a response to CNN, co-author Jena emphasized that the study was not designed to explain the cause of the drops. But he speculated that gun owners who attend NRA conventions may be those who tend to use their guns more frequently than non-attending owners. 
 
 Further Reading Connecticut gun controls estimated to have cut fatal shootings by 40% Moreover, he and Olenski noted a potential domino effect from the convention disrupting other group events or trips involving firearms and venues, such as shooting ranges and hunting grounds, where owners may temporarily close up to attend the convention. Last, the researchers noted that many NRA convention goers travel long distances to attend, potentially helping to explain the nationwide declines. For instance, 60 percent of the 81,000 NRA members attending the 2017 convention ventured more than 200 miles to get there. 
 
 Other researchers were accepting of the analysis and its conclusions. Stephen Hargarten, chairman of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, was not involved in the study and told Reuters that it “passes the sniff test.” Hargarten added that “it makes sense that decreased exposure and decreased usage would result in fewer events.” 
 
 Nationally, the study found that baseline injury rates dropped from 1.5 per 100,000 people during control periods to 1.2 per 100,000 during NRA conventions. It also found that declines in injuries were larger within hosting states, dropping from 1.9 per 100,000 to 0.7 per 100,000 during the conventions. The conventions included in the study from 2015 back to 2001 were held in: Nashville, Indianapolis, Houston, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Charlotte, Phoenix, Louisville, and St. Louis. 
 
 NEJM, 2018. DOI: 10.1056/NEJMc1712773 (About DOIs). ||||| The National Rifle Association and its allies have found their political influence under fresh scrutiny as gun control advocates push for new restrictions and corporations sever their ties in the wake of the deadly high school shooting last month in Parkland, Florida. But outside the gun control debate in Washington, membership in the NRA and gun rights groups across the country, which includes more than five million Americans, is spiking, according to people familiar with the numbers. 
 
 The spike isn’t a surprise, as such increases happen whenever people feel their Second Amendment rights are under threat, and many groups reported similar surges after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. But as gun control groups seek to use the anti-NRA backlash to mobilize their grassroots, recruitment this time seems to have taken on a more urgent tone. 
 
 “Wake up people and see what’s happening!!!!,” Charles Cotton, a member of the NRA Board of Directors, wrote on a message board, TexasCHLforum.com, a site described as “the focal point for Texas firearms information and discussions, earlier this week. “[Former New York Mayor Michael] Bloomberg and Hollywood are pouring money into this effort and the media is helping to the fullest extent. We’ve never had this level of opposition before, not ever. It’s a campaign of lies and distortion, but it’s very well funded and they are playing on the sympathy factor of kids getting killed. If you really want to make a difference, then start recruiting NRA members every single day.” 
 
 “The NRA better be 15 million strong soon, or this is only going to get worse,” Cotton, who didn’t respond to a request for comment, added on the message board. 
 
 Representatives from over a dozen gun rights organizations and shooting associations in California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia told TIME they have seen membership rise since the Feb. 14 shooting left 17 dead at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. And two people familiar with the workings of the NRA, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss membership numbers, said that since the shooting the NRA has also seen more people than usual join, renew memberships or donate money as President Donald Trump and other Republican Party leaders have signaled an openness to gun control policies that are anathema to the powerful group. A spokesperson for the NRA, which says on its website that it has more than five million members, didn’t respond to requests for comment. 
 
 Activists hold up signs at the Florida State Capitol as they rally for gun reform legislation in Tallahassee, Fla., on Feb. 26, 2018. Don Juan Moore—Getty Images 
 
 “As soon as anti-gun attacks started coming in on Twitter, Facebook, and in the media, we began to hear from people who didn’t even own guns who wanted to join up or contribute out of solidarity in defense of the Second Amendment to the Constitution,” said Patrick Parsons, who heads the Georgia Gun Owners, an independent gun rights organization in Georgia. Parsons said the group’s membership, which he estimated at 13,000, had increased by 1,000 over the past two weeks, and that he had been “working around the clock taking calls, answering emails from interested people, sending out new member packets.” 
 
 Dudley Brown, the president of the National Association for Gun Rights, estimated his organization — which claims more than 4.5 million “members and supporters” on its website — estimated online membership applications at his organization could have grown by 30% over the last week, a number he expected to rise after Trump this week called for comprehensive gun reform legislation, including raising the age limit for buying certain weapons to 21. The Connecticut Citizens Defense League, which has a membership of almost 29,000 people, said it typically gets 15 or 20 applications a week, but received almost 200 in the last week. Gun Owners of America, which says it has 1.5 million members, amassed “hundreds” of new members in the last week, according to an official at the organization familiar with membership numbers who spoke on condition of anonymity. The organization said it has seen it’s membership grow by thousands since the Las Vegas shooting last October. Don Turner, the President of the Nevada Firearms Coalition and NRA member, estimated membership renewals and requests had increased by 20 percent at his organization since Parkland, although this is an increase he said he did not witness after the shooting in Las Vegas. 
 
 “Gun owners themselves weren’t being demonized [after Las Vegas]” Turner explained. “But after the Florida shooting, there was a definite push to demonize honest gun owners and to demonize the NRA. And I think that’s what’s provoked their response.” 
 
 A model walks the runway during the NRA Concealed Carry Fashion Show in Milwaukee, on Aug. 25, 2017. Joshua Lott—AFP/Getty Images 
 
 Read More: With Gun Sales Down, the NRA Told Republicans It’s OK to Talk About Gun Control 
 
 After the deadly 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, when the gun control debate also reached a fever pitch, the NRA said it had gained 100,000 members in 18 days; NRA executive Wayne LaPierre announced that May that the organization’s membership had reached 5 million, although that claim is impossible to independently verify since membership rolls and figures are not publicly released. NRA tax filings from 2013, published by ProPublica, show that in 2013, overall revenue increased by more than 35% from the previous year, with a nearly $10 million increase in contributions. Revenue from membership growth from 2012 to 2013 increased by nearly $70 million, and the percentage of membership dues contributing to total revenue growth increased from 42 percent to 50 percent, the tax filings show. 
 
 Experts who closely watch gun rights groups said that while the NRA has remained silent about its membership numbers after the latest shooting, the rise in membership of other groups demonstrates the grassroots mobilizing power that is key to the NRA’s influence. “It’s not just a gun lobby, it’s much bigger than that,” said Scott Melzer, a sociology professor at Albion Colege who has spent almost a decade researching the NRA and is the author of Gun Crusaders: The NRA’s Culture War. “It relies on the support of a very large and activist membership base, and that base and that movement is connected to the broader conservative movement.” 
 
 Gun rights activists said the membership increase is also fueled by a feeling that public rebukes such as corporations ending partnerships with the NRA are simply publicity stunts. “There is no one. NO ONE. Who joins the NRA for a discount on a rental car,” Cleta Mitchell, an NRA member and former Oklahoma state lawmaker who sat on the NRA’s board from 2002 to 2013, said in an email. She was referring to Hertz ending its discount program for NRA members. 
 
 A general view of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School as staff and teachers prepare for the return of students in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 27, 2018. Rhona Wise—AFP/Getty Images 
 
 “You can rest assured that the NRA will not lose a single member as a result of this,” Mitchell said. “If anything, it should spur people to join the NRA as a means of demonstrating that we who believe in the Second Amendment will not be bullied by these left wing multi-billion dollar corporations.” 
 
 Read More: Inside the Republican Party’s New Direction on Gun Restrictions 
 
 But as Cotton, the NRA board member, noted on the Internet forum, the spike in membership reported by these gun rights groups are are coming at the same time that some gun-control proponents are hoping the Florida shooting and the high-profile activism of the student survivors may finally push Congress to act. The gun-control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety said it has fielded inquiries from over 125,000 volunteers since the shooting, and received over $1.5 million in unsolicited donations in the immediate aftermath. And a new poll shows support for gun control in the country has reached its highest level in 25 years. So while these gun rights groups may be gaining members, it’s ultimately unclear if that will make a difference. 
 
 “The gun lobby is very good at marketing themselves and guns in the wake of mass shootings,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action. “They specialize in exploiting shooting tragedies. No, I’m not surprised [about memberships increasing] but at the end of the day it doesn’t really matter, because the vast majority of Americans support stronger gun laws and gun safety.”
– It seems Americans are safest from gun-related injuries and deaths when thousands of gun owners are busy attending the NRA's annual convention, Ars Technica reports. An analysis published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine found gun-related injuries dropped 20% nationwide during annual NRA conventions between 2007 and 2015 and 63% in the states hosting the conventions. These reductions were seen despite no corresponding reduction in crime rates. The biggest drop in gun injuries was for men living in states with high levels of gun ownership in the South and West. "The drop in gun injuries during these large meetings attended by thousands of well-trained gun owners seems to refute the idea that gun injuries stem solely from lack of experience and training in gun use," analysis author Dr. Jena Anupam tells CNN. Jennifer Baker, the director of public affairs for the NRA, says the analysis "is another example of when data and numbers fly in the face of logic and common sense." But the chair of emergency medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin tells Reuters it "passes the sniff test." "It makes sense that decreased exposure and decreased usage would result in fewer events," says Dr. Stephen Hargarten, who wasn't involved in the analysis. Anupam says it's possible NRA conventions have an outsize impact on gun injuries and deaths because attendees are the most intense users of guns. So it's good news for the safety of Americans then—at least for the few days of the year when there's an NRA convention—that Time is reporting a spike in NRA memberships in the wake of the Parkland shooting and ensuing conversation about gun control.