Calling all Earthlings! Join Cruise the Comet on a cosmic adventure through the Solar System! Along the way learn fascinating facts, say hello to the planets, and meet the galactically famous star, the Sun.

In this report, part of the RAND Corporation's Gun Policy in America initiative, researchers seek objective information about what the scientific literature reveals about the likely effects of various gun laws. In this second edition of an earlier work, the authors add five gun policies to the 13 examined in the original analysis and expand the study time frame to incorporate a larger body of research. With those adjustments, the authors synthesize the available scientific data on the effects of 18 policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. By highlighting where scientific evidence is accumulating, the authors hope to build consensus around a shared set of facts that have been established through a transparent, nonpartisan, and impartial review process. In so doing, they also illuminate areas where more and better information could make important contributions to establishing fair and effective gun policies.

This report, now in its third edition, synthesizes available scientific evidence for the effects of various firearm policies on firearm deaths, violent crime, suicides, the gun industry, defensive gun use, and other outcomes. The authors highlight policies whose effects are more rigorously and reliably demonstrated by current research, as well as areas where better information could contribute to establishing fair and effective gun policies.

On January 12, 2015, the UCLA-RAND Center for Law and Public Policy held a conference in Santa Monica, California, to examine the resourcing problem for state courts since the 2008 financial crisis. This report summarizes the panel discussions.

The authors develop a definition of and model for measuring civilian workforce readiness to inform Army policies and practices using qualitative methods, with which they identify potential data sources for readiness metrics.

Electronic systems are becoming increasingly complicated and interconnected, and those of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) are no exception. Due to the evolution of electronic systems, combined with the need to save time, energy, and money, DoD plans to replace paper delivery of servicemember separation information with electronic delivery. A timely analysis is critical to ensure DoD is best positioned to optimize and effectively orchestrate this opportunity. Clear, authoritative information on characterization of service and reasons for separation is critical for individuals as they re-enlist, change duty status, or transfer into civilian employment; for dependents and survivors; for government agencies that adjudicate veteran status and benefits; and for military departments, as they move toward fully integrated digital databases. DoD's DD Form 214 has existed since the 1950s, when it standardized information across the services by replacing service-level forms. The form is largely unchanged since that time and has remained the defining document to verify a servicemember's discharge from active duty. As electronic information supplants paper, information provided by the services must continue to meet the important purposes of DD Form 214. To ensure consistency across the services and avoid omission of critical information, DoD needs an in-depth analysis of the current use of DD Form 214 to identify ways in which it could be improved to meet the diverse needs of the numerous organizations and individuals who use and depend on it.

The RAND Corporation launched the Gun Policy in America initiative in January 2016 with the goal of creating objective, factual resources for policymakers and the public on the effects of gun laws. Research in this area has often consisted of cross-sectional studies examining how firearm outcomes differ in a particular year across states with different policies. Many fewer studies have used more-powerful longitudinal research designs for evaluating the effects of gun laws, partly because longitudinal data on most state gun laws are not widely available and are difficult and time-consuming to construct. Therefore, as part of the Gun Policy in America initiative, RAND developed a longitudinal data set of state firearm laws that is free to the public, including other researchers, to support improved analysis and understanding of the effects of various laws. In addition, the database is accompanied by a paper that documents the methods that RAND researchers used to construct the database and provides definitions and other information that will facilitate its use.

This report describes a database of online tools that are developed by nonprofit, civil society organizations and are designed to reduce the spread of online disinformation.

The authors examine how the Department of Defense (DoD) COVID-19 vaccination program was implemented, determine how previous DoD vaccination programs influenced those decisions, and identify opportunities to strengthen DoD's vaccination program.

Many U.S. government agencies rely on nonprofit federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs) for independent expertise in systems engineering and integration, study and analysis, and research and development. In this report, the authors discuss insights drawn from academic literature and practitioner guidance that are applicable to the effective oversight, management, and performance assessment of FFRDCs. They identify (1) institutional prerequisites for enabling effective oversight, management, and performance assessment of FFRDCs and (2) operational criteria for running constructive assessment processes. Whereas academics and practitioners have written volumes on internal assessment-when an organization examines its own programs and employees-and commercial acquisitions, they have had comparatively little to say about relationships involving FFRDCs. However, research on performance management systems and related or subsidiary processes, including performance reviews and program evaluation, is broadly applicable to government oversight of and engagement with FFRDCs. Thus, the authors examine a wide range of literature and guidance on performance management and program evaluation, looking for best practices in other potentially analogous and relevant organizational contexts, modifying and supplementing the processes as needed to account for contextual differences and other needs.--