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For more than 30 years, Garen Wintemute has studied the question now on many Americans’ minds: How do we stop this?

Dr. Wintemute, an emergency room physician, leads the Firearm Violence Research Center at U.C. Davis.

Created with state funding in July, the center is aimed at bringing science to the gun violence debate by studying its underlying causes along with strategies of prevention.

We caught up with Dr. Wintemute, 65, by phone on Monday. Some excerpts:

Q. What went through your mind when you saw the news out of Las Vegas?

A. As always, my first experience is grief. I worked a shift in the [emergency department] yesterday. We never get used to this. We get used to not getting used to it.