Wintemute is one of a few public health experts researching gun violence in the United States—he has said that there are only a dozen researchers in the United States who study this subject, including him. He has funded this research in part through more than $1 million of his own money.[6][1] In 1987, he published a study on accidental gun deaths among children in California, of which 88 occurred between 1977 and 1983. The same study found that in about one-third of incidents, the shooter did not know the gun was loaded or real.[7] At a press conference to announce the study's results, multiple real guns like those involved in the accidental deaths were placed next to toy lookalikes; few of the reporters in attendance could tell them apart.[8] His research on Saturday night special handguns, especially a 1994 study he published entitled "Ring of Fire", has been credited as the main reason for the California government's efforts to impose strict regulations on them.[9] In 2017 he has published a study showing that gun owners with an alcohol-related criminal conviction are more likely than gun owners without such a conviction to be arrested for a subsequent gun-related crime.[10]
