‘A serious threat to peace, reconciliation, safety, security’: An effective reading of the United Nations Programme of Action
Evaluations of the 2001 Conference on the illicit trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons and the Programme of Action (PoA) which it produced cover the gamut from success to failure. This essay does not seek to explain the success or failure of the Conference, nor does it look forward to the 2006 Conference and beyond to see what possibilities there are for global public policy on SALW. It is concerned, rather, with the topography of the issue which will come to the table in 2006. By means of Michel Foucault’s notion of ‘effective history’, the essay investigates the problem that the PoA has produced. It shows how that problem is constituted around two key features: small arms and light weapons as a particular category of technology, and the division between the licit and illicit trade. It demonstrates both the contingency of this framing and the effects that it has produced. In particular, it shows how this framing makes possible a set of ‘proliferation control’ practices similar to those applied to other forms of military technology, and how it masks forms of gun violence, particularly those directed against women.
Homicide and suicide risks associated with firearms in the home: a national case-control study.
STUDY OBJECTIVE
I test the hypothesis that having a gun in the home is a risk factor for adults to be killed (homicide) or to commit suicide.


METHODS
Two case-control analyses were based on national samples of subjects 18 years of age or older. Homicide and suicide case subjects were drawn from the 1993 National Mortality Followback Survey. Living control subjects were drawn from the 1994 National Health Interview Survey. Ten control subjects matched by sex, race, and age group were sought for each case subject.


RESULTS
The homicide sample consisted of 1,720 case subjects and 8,084 control subjects. Compared with adults in homes with no guns, the adjusted odds ratio (OR) for homicide was 1.41 (95% confidence interval [CI] 1.20 to 1.65) for adults with a gun at home and was particularly high among women (adjusted OR 2.72; 95% CI 1.89 to 3.90) compared with men (adjusted OR 1.23; 95% CI 1.01 to 1.49) and among nonwhite subjects (adjusted OR 1.74; 95% CI 1.37 to 2.21) compared with white subjects (adjusted OR 1.27; 95% CI 1.03 to 1.56). Further analyses revealed that a gun in the home was a risk factor for homicide by firearm means (adjusted OR 1.72; 95% CI 1.40 to 2.12) but not by nonfirearm means (OR 0.83; 95% CI 0.62 to 1.11). The suicide sample consisted of 1,959 case subjects and 13,535 control subjects. The adjusted OR for suicide was 3.44 (95% CI 3.06 to 3.86) for persons with a gun at home. However, further analysis revealed that having a firearm in the home was a risk factor for suicide by firearm (adjusted OR 16.89; 95% CI 13.26 to 21.52) but was inversely associated with suicide by other means (adjusted OR 0.68; 95% CI 0.55 to 0.84).


CONCLUSION
Having a gun at home is a risk factor for adults to be shot fatally (gun homicide) or commit suicide with a firearm. Physicians should continue to discuss with patients the implications of keeping guns at home. Additional studies are warranted to address study limitations and to better understand the implications of firearm ownership.
Avocado Flowering 1
The avocado (Persea americana Mill.) has increased in importance over the years in many countries around the world. The United States, Mexico and Brazil lead in world commercial production, while Israel, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Spain, Cyprus, Canary Islands, Chile, Ecuador, Venezuela, Greece, and the Caribbean area are actively increasing commercial production (B.O. Bergh, personal communication; Gustafson 1976). The history of the avocado has been detailed by Gustafson (1973, 1975,1976) and others (Bergh 1975b, Knight 1980; Popenoe 1924; Ruehle 1958; Schroeder 1958; Williams 1976). Several reviews have been published on various aspects of the avocado, including its botany (Knight 1980; Purseglove 1968; Williams 1976), breeding (Bergh 1975b), horticulture (Hodgson 1930b; Ruehle 1958; Ryerson et al. 1924), cultivars (Campbell and Malo 1976), and pollination (Gustafson and Bergh 1966). A recent collection of papers discussing the horticultural aspects of avocado production is found in Sauls et al. (1976).