research paper on gun violence in america

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Firearm Violence in the United States

• National Survey of Gun Policy
• The Public Health Approach to Prevent Gun Violence

Firearm violence is a preventable public health tragedy affecting communities across the United States. In 2021 48,830 Americans died by firearms—an average of one death every 11 minutes. Over 26,328 Americans died by firearm suicide, 20,958 die by firearm homicide, 549 died by unintentional gun injury, and an estimated 1,000 Americans were fatally shot by law enforcment. 1,2 In addition, an average of more than 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries each day. 3 

For each firearm death, many more people are shot and survive their injuries, are shot at but not physically injured, or witness firearm violence. Many experience firearm violence in other ways, by living in impacted communities with high levels of violence, losing loved ones to firearm violence, or being threatened with a firearm. Others are fearful to walk in their neighborhoods, attend events, or send their child to school. In short, firearm violence is public health epidemic that has lasting impacts on the health and well-being of everyone on this country. 

Overwhelming evidence shows that firearm ownership and access is associated with increased suicide, homicide, unintentional firearm deaths, and injuries. These injuries and deaths are preventable, through evidence-based solutions. 

Firearm Ownership 

Firearms remain embedded in American history and modern culture. Americans own 46% of the world’s civilian-owned firearms and U.S. firearm ownership rates far exceed those of other high-income countries. 4,5 Forty-six percent of U.S. households report owning at least one firearm, including 30% of Americans who say they personally own a firearm. 6,7 Firearm ownership varies significantly by state. For example, an estimated 64% of households own a firearm in Montana compared to only 8% in New Jersey. 8   

It has been well-documented that firearm ownership rates are associated with increased firearm-related death rates. Among high-income countries, the United States is an outlier in terms of firearm violence. The U.S. has the highest firearm ownership and highest firearm death rates of 27 high-income countries. 9

The firearm homicide rate in the U.S. is nearly 25 times higher than other high-income countries and the firearm suicide rate is nearly 10 times that of other high-income countries. 10 

The Geography of Gun Violence

Gun death rates vary widely across the United States due to differences in socio-economic factors, demographics, and, importantly, gun policies. In general, the states with the highest gun death rates tend to be states in the South or Mountain West, with weaker gun laws and higher levels of gun ownership, while gun death rates are lower in the Northeast, where gun violence prevention laws are stronger.

* The total number of gun homicide deaths in New Hampshire and Vermont were less than 10 and thus repressed by CDC. Gun homicide deaths are thus listed as “other gun death rate” for these two states. Additionally, “other intents” include legal intervention, unintentional, and unclassified.

Firearm purchases increased during the COVID-19 Pandemic

During the COVID-19 pandemic firearm sales rose at unprecedented levels with an estimated one in five U.S. households purchasing a firearm from March 2020 to March 2022. 11 The FBI reported a record high of 20 million annual firearm sales in both 2020 and 2021, up from an average of 13 million firearms sold from 2010 to 2019. 12  

Knowing the Facts About Firearm Ownership and Safety  

Over four decades of public health research consistently finds that firearm ownership increases the risk of firearm homicide, suicide, and unintentional injury. Nevertheless, more than 6 in 10 Americans believe that a firearm in the home makes the family safer—a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000. 13 This increase in perceived safety is reflected in shifting reasons for firearm ownership. In a 2023 Pew Research survey, more than two-thirds (71%) of firearm owners cited protection as a major reason for ownership. 14 This represents a notable increase from the mid-1990s, when the majority of American firearm owners cited recreation as their primary reason for ownership and fewer than half owned firearms primarily for protection. 15 

Research runs counter to these changing public perceptions of firearms providing safety.  It shows that firearm ownership puts individuals and their families at higher risk of injury and death. Individuals who choose to own a firearm can mitigate many of the risks associated with ownership by always storing their firearms unloaded and locked in a secure place, and refraining from carrying their firearms in public places. 

Firearm owners can make their homes safer through secure firearm storage practices. Unfortunately, the majority of U.S. firearm owners choose to leave their firearms unlocked, allowing children or persons, who are at risk for violence to self or others, to access them. 16 An estimated 4.6 million children live in households with at least one firearm that is loaded and unlocked. 17 These unsafe storage practices lead to countless suicides, homicides, and unintentional injuries by individuals who should not have access to a firearm. This includes children, prohibited persons with a history of violence, and family members who may be suicidal or temporarily in crisis.   

Leaving firearms unsecured also fuels theft—a primary avenue in which firearms are diverted into the illegal market and used in crime. There are an estimated 250,000 firearm theft incidents each year resulting in about 380,000 firearms stolen annually. 18 In recent years, as more Americans carry firearms in public, theft from cars has skyrocketed. Firearms stolen from cars now make up the majority of thefts. In fact, one analysis of crime data reported to the FBI found that on average, at least one firearm is reported stolen from a car every 15 minutes. 19 

Carrying firearms in public also increases the risk for violence by escalating minor arguments and increasing the chances that a confrontation will become lethal. Research has found that even the mere presence of a firearm increases aggressive thoughts and actions. 20 

Some believe that carrying a firearm will act as a deterrent and help prevent conflicts or minimize harm. While there are specific examples where this was true, there are many more cases where firearm carrying escalates conflict and leads to firearm injury or death. In aggregate, research shows firearm carrying increases levels of violent crime. 21  

It’s important for individuals to know the risks of firearm ownership, and the reality that higher levels of firearm ownership and carrying do not reduce violence or enhance public safety.  

How does access to firearms affect deaths? 

Higher levels of firearm ownership and permissive firearm laws are associated with higher rates of suicide, homicide, violent crime, unintentional firearm deaths, and shootings by police.  

Suicide 

More than 55% of all firearm deaths are suicides. 22 Evidence consistently shows that access to firearms increases the risk of suicide. 23,24 Access to a firearm in the home increases the odds of suicide more than three-fold. 25 Firearms are dangerous when someone is at risk for suicide because they are the most lethal suicide attempt method. Eighty-five percent of suicide attempts with a firearm are fatal compared to the most widely used suicide attempt methods, which have case fatality rates below 5%. 26 

Research shows that individuals often do not substitute means for suicide if their preferred method is not available. In other words, when individuals who have planned a suicide by firearm cannot access a one, they often not do attempt suicide by another method. 27 Even if they substitute firearms with another method they increase their chances of survival because virtually every other method is less lethal than firearms. 28 Delaying a suicide attempt can also allow suicidal crises to pass and lead to fewer suicides. Ninety percent of individuals who attempt suicide and survive do not go on to die by suicide. 29 The use of a firearm in a suicide attempt often means there is no second chance. Reducing access to lethal means, such as firearms, is critical to saving lives.  

Policies and practices that temporarily restrict access to someone at elevated risk for suicide can save lives. These interventions include Extreme Risk Protection Orders, safe and secure firearm storage practices, and lethal means safety counseling.  

Homicide and violent crime 

Over 40% of all firearm deaths are homicides. 30 Access to firearms—such as the presence of a firearm in the home—is correlated with an increased risk for homicide victimization. 31 Studies show that access to firearms in the household doubles the risk of homicide. 32 States with high rates of firearm ownership consistently have higher firearm homicide rates. 33   Firearms drive our nation’s high homicide rate, accounting for 8 out of every 10 homicides committed. 34    

Lax public carry laws which allow individuals to carry firearms in public places with little oversight are linked to increases in firearm homicides and assaults. 35 Similarly, states with permissive firearm laws have higher rates of mass shootings. 36 Firearms also contribute to domestic violence with over half of all intimate partner homicides committed with firearms. 37 A women is five times more likely to be murdered when her abuser has access to a firearm. 38  

Firearm homicide is a complex issue that includes different types of firearm violence—domestic violence, community violence, and mass shootings—and requires an array of policies. These policies include: firearm purchaser licensing laws which build upon universal background checks, firearm removal laws, safe and secure storage laws, community violence intervention programs, and strong public carry laws. 

Unintentional Shootings 

Each year more than 500 people are killed and thousands more are injured by unintentional shootings, also commonly referred to as accidental shootings. 39,40  

Easy access to unsecured firearms increases the risk of unintentional injury and death by firearm. Children are often impacted by unintentional firearm injuries by gaining access to an unsecured firearm owned by a parent. In fact, every six days a child under the age of 10 is killed by an unintentional shooting. 41  

Laws that promote safe and secure firearm storage practices can prevent unintentional shootings. For example, state Child Access Prevention laws, which hold gun owners accountable if a child accesses an unsecured firearm, are linked to reductions in unintentional shootings among children and teens and may also reduce unintentional shootings among adults. 42,43   

Shootings by Police 

Each year, more than 1,000 people are shot and killed by police officers, and thousands more are injured. 44,45 Black people are disproportionately impacted by this physical violence. Unarmed Black people are over three times more likely to be shot and killed by police compared to white people. 46 

Permissive firearm laws are associated with increases in shootings by police. Specifically, research finds that state permitless concealed carry laws increase shootings by police by 13%. 47 Conversely, strong state firearm laws, like Firearm Purchaser Licensing laws, are linked to reductions in shootings by police. 48 

Better data on police-involved injuries and deaths are sorely needed. Compulsory and comprehensive data collection at the local level, reporting to the federal government, and transparency in public dissemination of data will be critical for understanding this unique kind of firearm violence and developing evidence-based solutions to minimize police-involved shootings. 

1. Davis A, Kim R, & Crifasi CK. (2023).  A Year in Review: 2021 Gun Deaths in the U.S. Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions . Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. 

2. Tate J, Jenkins J, & Rich S. (2021). Fatal Force.  Washington Post . 

3. Schnippel K, Burd-Sharps S, Miller T, Lawrence B, Swedler DL. (2021). Nonfatal firearm injuries by intent in the United States: 2016-2018 Hospital Discharge Records from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project.  Western Journal of Emergency Medicine: Integrating Emergency Care with Population Health .

4. Bangalore S & Messerli FH. (2013). Gun ownership and firearm-related deaths.  American Journal of Medicine.

5. Karp A. (2018). Estimating global civilian-held firearms numbers. Small Arms Survey.

6. One in Five American Households Purchased a Gun During the Pandemic. (2022). NORC at the University of Chicago.  

7. Schaeffer K. (2023). Key facts about Americans and guns. Pew Research Center.  

8. Gun Ownership in America, 1980-2016. (2020). RAND Corporation.

9. Bangalore S & Messerli FH. (2013). Gun ownership and firearm-related deaths.  American Journal of Medicine.  

10. Grinshteyn E & Hemenway D. (2019). Violent death rates in the US compared to those of the other high-income countries, 2015.  Preventive Medicine .

11. One in Five American Households Purchased a Gun During the Pandemic. (2022). NORC at the University of Chicago.  

12. One in Five American Households Purchased a Gun During the Pandemic. (2022). NORC at the University of Chicago. 

13. McCarthy J. (2014). More than six in 10 Americans say guns make homes safer. Gallup.  

14.  Doherty C, Kiley J, Oliphant B, Hartig H, Borelli G, Daniller A, Van Green T, Cerda A, Gracia S, and Lin K. (2023). For most U.S. gun owners, protection is the main reason they own a gun. Pew Research Center.  

15. LaFrance A. (2016). The Americans who stockpile guns.  The Atlantic . 

16. Webster DW, Vernick JS, Zeoli AM, and Manganello JA. (2004). Association between youth-focused firearm laws and youth suicides.  JAMA Network .

17. Miller M and Azrael D. (2022). Firearm storage in US households with children.  JAMA Network . 

18. Hemenway D, Azrael D, and Miller M. (2017). Whose guns are stolen? The epidemiology of gun theft victims.  Injury Epidemiology.   

19. O’Toole M, Szkola J, and Burd-Sharps S. (2022). Gun thefts from cars: the largest source of stolen guns. Everytown Research and Policy. 

20. Benjamin Jr AJ, Kepes S, and Bushman BJ. (2018). Effects of weapons on aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, hostile appraisals, and aggressive behavior: A meta-analytic review of the weapons effect literature.  Personality and Social Psychology Review.    

21.  Donohue JJ, Aneja A, & Weber KD. (2019). Right‐to‐carry laws and violent crime: A comprehensive assessment using panel data and a state‐level synthetic control analysis.  Journal of Empirical Legal Studies.

22. Three-year average, 2019-2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death.  

23. Anglemyer A, Horvath T, and Rutherford G. (2014). The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: A systematic review and meta-analysis.  Annals of Internal Medicine.

24. Siegel M and Rothman EF. (2016). Firearm ownership and suicide rates among US men and women, 1981–2013.  American Journal of Public Health . 

25. Anglemyer A, Horvath T, and Rutherford G. (2014). The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: A systematic review and meta-analysis.  Annals of Internal Medicine.

26. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. (2000). Lethality of suicide methods: Case fatality rates by suicide method, 8 U.S. states, 1989-1997.  

27. Daigle MS. (2005). Suicide prevention through means restriction: Assessing the risk of substitution. A critical review and synthesis.  Accident Analysis and Prevention .

28.  Lethality of suicide methods . Means Matter. Harvard T.H.Chan School of Public Health. 

29. Owens D, Horrocks J, & House A. (2002). Fatal and non-fatal repetition of self-harm. Systematic review.  British Journal of Psychiatry . 

30. Three-year average, 2019-2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death. 

31,32. Anglemyer A, Horvath T, and Rutherford G. (2014). The accessibility of firearms and risk for suicide and homicide victimization among household members: A systematic review and meta-analysis.  Annals of Internal Medicine. 

33.  Siegel M, Ross CS, and King C. (2014). Examining the relationship between the prevalence of guns and homicide rates in the USA using a new and improved state-level gun ownership proxy.  Injury Prevention .

34. Three-year average, 2019-2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death.

35. Doucette ML, McCourt AD, Crifasi CK, & Webster DW. (2023). Impact of changes to concealed-carry weapons laws on fatal and nonfatal violent crime, 1980–2019.  American Journal of Epidemiology .

36. Reeping PM, Cerdá M, Kalesan B, Wiebe DJ, Galea S, and Branas CC. (2019). State gun laws, gun ownership, and mass shootings in the US: Cross sectional time series.  British Medical Journal . 

37. Zeoli AM, Malinski R, & Turchan B. (2016). Risks and targeted interventions: Firearms in intimate partner violence.  Epidemiologic Reviews .

38. Campbell JC, Webster D, Koziol-McLain J, Block C, Campbell D, Curry MA, Gary F, Glass N, McFarlane J, Sachs C, Sharps P, Ulrich Y, Wilt SA, Manganello J, Xu X, Schollenberger J, Frye V, & Laughon K. (2003). Risk factors for femicide in abusive relationships: Results from a multisite case control study.  American Journal of Public Health . 

39. Three-year average, 2019-2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death. 

40. Barber C, Cook PJ, Parker ST. (2022). The emerging infrastructure of US firearms injury data.  Preventive medicine . 

41. Three-year average, 2019-2021. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death.

42. Webster DW, Starnes M. (2000). Reexamining the association between child access prevention gun laws and unintentional shooting deaths of children.  Pediatrics . 

43. DeSimone J, Markowitz S, Xu J. (2013). Child access prevention laws and nonfatal gun injuries.  Southern Economic Journal.

44.  Kaufman EJ, Karp DN, and Delgado MK. (2017). US emergency department encounters for law enforcement-associated injury, 2006-2012.  Jama Surgery . 

45, 46. Tate J, Jenkins J, & Rich S. (2021). Fatal Force.  Washington Post . 

47. Doucette ML, Ward JA, McCourt AD, Webster D, Crifasi CK. (2022). Officer-involved shootings and concealed carry weapons permitting laws: analysis of gun violence archive data, 2014–2020.  Journal of urban health.

48.  Crifasi CK, Ward J, McCourt AD, Webster D, Doucette ML. (2023).The association between permit-to-purchase laws and shootings by police.  Injury epidemiology.

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Article Contents

Introduction, the burden of firearm violence, understanding and reducing firearm violence is complex and multi-factorial, interventions and recommendations, conclusions, research ethics.

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Firearm Violence in the United States: An Issue of the Highest Moral Order

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Chisom N Iwundu, Mary E Homan, Ami R Moore, Pierce Randall, Sajeevika S Daundasekara, Daphne C Hernandez, Firearm Violence in the United States: An Issue of the Highest Moral Order, Public Health Ethics , Volume 15, Issue 3, November 2022, Pages 301–315, https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phac017

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Firearm violence in the United States produces over 36,000 deaths and 74,000 sustained firearm-related injuries yearly. The paper describes the burden of firearm violence with emphasis on the disproportionate burden on children, racial/ethnic minorities, women and the healthcare system. Second, this paper identifies factors that could mitigate the burden of firearm violence by applying a blend of key ethical theories to support population level interventions and recommendations that may restrict individual rights. Such recommendations can further support targeted research to inform and implement interventions, policies and laws related to firearm access and use, in order to significantly reduce the burden of firearm violence on individuals, health care systems, vulnerable populations and society-at-large. By incorporating a blended public health ethics to address firearm violence, we propose a balance between societal obligations and individual rights and privileges.

Firearm violence poses a pervasive public health burden in the United States. Firearm violence is the third leading cause of injury related deaths, and accounts for over 36,000 deaths and 74,000 firearm-related injuries each year ( Siegel et al. , 2013 ; Resnick et al. , 2017 ; Hargarten et al. , 2018 ). In the past decade, over 300,000 deaths have occurred from the use of firearms in the United States, surpassing rates reported in other industrialized nations ( Iroku-Malize and Grissom, 2019 ). For example, the United Kingdom with a population of 56 million reports about 50–60 deaths per year attributable to firearm violence, whereas the United States with a much larger population, reports more than 160 times as many firearm-related deaths ( Weller, 2018 ).

Given the pervasiveness of firearm violence, and subsequent long-term effects such as trauma, expensive treatment and other burdens to the community ( Lowe and Galea, 2017 ; Hammaker et al. , 2017 ; Jehan et al. , 2018 ), this paper seeks to examine how various evidence-based recommendations might be applied to curb firearm violence, and substantiate those recommendations using a blend of the three major ethics theories which include—rights based theories, consequentialism and common good. To be clear, ours is not a morally neutral paper wherein we weigh the merits of an ethical argument for or against a recommendation nor is it a meta-analysis of the pros and cons to each public health recommendation. We intend to promote evidence-based interventions that are ethically justifiable in the quest to ameliorate firearm violence.

It is estimated that private gun ownership in the United States is 30% and an additional 11% of Americans lived with someone who owed a gun in 2017 ( Gramlich and Schaeffer, 2019 ). Some of the reported motivations for carrying a firearm include protection against people (anticipating future victimization or past victimization experience) and hunting or sport shooting ( Schleimer et al. , 2019 ). A vast majority of firearm-related injuries and death occur from intentional harm (62% from suicides and 35% from homicides) versus 2% of firearm-related injuries and death occurring from unintentional harm or accidents (e.g. unsafe storage) ( Fowler et al. , 2015 ; Lewiecki and Miller, 2013 ; Monuteaux et al. , 2019 ; Swanson et al. , 2015 ).

Rural and urban differences have been noted regarding firearms and its related injuries and deaths. In one study, similar amount of firearm deaths were reported in urban and rural areas ( Herrin et al. , 2018 ). However, the difference was that firearm deaths from homicides were higher in urban areas, and deaths from suicide and unintentional deaths were higher in rural areas ( Herrin et al. , 2018 ). In another study, suicides accounted for about 70% of firearm deaths in both rural and urban areas ( Dresang, 2001 ). Hence, efforts to implement these recommendations have the potential to prevent most firearm deaths in both rural and urban areas.

The burden of firearm injuries on society consists of not only the human and economic costs, but also productivity loss, pain and suffering. Firearm-related injuries affect the health and welfare of all and lead to substantial burden to the healthcare industry and to individuals and families ( Corso et al. , 2006 ; Tasigiorgos et al. , 2015 ). Additionally, there are disparities in firearm injuries, whereby firearm injuries disproportionately affect young people, males and non-White Americans ( Peek-Asa et al. , 2017 ). The burden of firearm also affects the healthcare system, racial/ethnic minorities, women and children.

Burden on Healthcare System

Firearm-related fatalities and injuries are a serious public health problem. On average more than 38 lives were lost every day to gun related violence in 2018 ( The Education Fund to Stop Gun Violence (EFSGV), 2020 ). A significant proportion of Americans suffer from firearm non-fatal injuries that require hospitalization and lead to physical disabilities, mental health challenges such as post-traumatic stress disorder, in addition to substantial healthcare costs ( Rattan et al. , 2018 ). Firearm violence and related injuries cost the U.S. economy about $70 billion annually, exerting a major effect on the health care system ( Tasigiorgos et al. , 2015 ).

Victims of firearm violence are also likely to need medical attention requiring high cost of care and insurance payouts which in turn raises the cost of care for everyone else, and unavoidably becomes a financial liability and source of stress on the society ( Hammaker et al. , 2017 ). Firearm injuries also exert taxing burden on the emergency departments, especially those in big cities. Patients with firearm injuries who came to the emergency departments tend to be overwhelmingly male and younger (20–24 years old) and were injured in an assault or unintentionally ( Gani et al. , 2017 ). Also, Carter et al. , 2015 found that high-risk youth (14–24 years old) who present in urban emergency departments have higher odds of having firearm-related injuries. In fact, estimates for firearm-related hospital admission costs are exorbitant. In 2012, hospital admissions for firearm injuries varied from a low average cost of $16,975 for an unintentional firearm injury to a high average cost of $32,237 for an injury from an assault weapon ( Peek-Asa et al. , 2017 ) compared with an average cost of $10,400 for a general hospital admission ( Moore et al. , 2014 ).

Burden on Racial/Ethnic Minorities, Women and Children

Though firearm violence affects all individuals, racial disparities exist in death and injury and certain groups bear a disproportionate burden of its effects. While 77% of firearm-related deaths among whites are suicides, 82% of firearm-related deaths among blacks are homicides ( Reeves and Holmes, 2015 ). Among black men aged 15–34, firearm-related death was the leading cause of death in 2012 ( Cerdá, 2016 ). The racial disparity in the leading cause of firearm-related homicide among 20- to 29-year-old adults is observed among blacks, followed by Hispanics, then whites. Also, victims of firearms tend to be from lower socioeconomic status ( Reeves and Holmes, 2015 ). Understanding behaviors that underlie violence among young adults is important. Equally important is the fiduciary duty of public health officials in creating public health interventions and policies that would effectively decrease the burden of gun violence among all Americans regardless of social, economic and racial/ethnic backgrounds.

Another population group that bears a significant burden of firearm violence are women. The violence occurs in domestic conflicts ( Sorenson and Vittes, 2003 ; Tjaden et al. , 2000 ). Studies have shown that intimate partner violence is associated with an increased risk of homicide, with firearms as the most commonly used weapon ( Leuenberger et al. , 2021 ; Gollub and Gardner, 2019 ). However, firearm threats among women who experience domestic violence has been understudied ( Sullivan and Weiss, 2017 ; Sorenson, 2017 ). It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of women who experience intimate partner violence and live in households with firearms have been held at gunpoint by intimate partners ( Sorenson and Wiebe, 2004 ). Firearms are used to threaten, coerce and intimidate women. Also, the presence of firearms in a home increases the risk of women being murdered ( Campbell et al. , 2015 ; Bailey et al. , 1997 ). Further, having a firearm in the home is strongly associated with more severe abuse among pregnant women in a study by McFarlane et al. (1998) . About half of female intimate partner homicides are committed with firearms ( Fowler, 2018 ; Díez et al. , 2017 ). Some researchers reported that availability of firearms in areas with fewer firearms restrictions has led to higher intimate partner homicides ( Gollub and Gardner, 2019 ; Díez et al. , 2017 ).

In the United States, children are nine times more likely to die from a firearm than in most other industrialized nations ( Krueger and Mehta, 2015 ). Children here include all individuals under age 18. These statistics highlight the magnitude of firearm injuries as well as firearms as a serious pediatric concern, hence, calls for appropriate interventions to address this issue. Unfortunately, children and adolescents have a substantial level of access to firearms in their homes which contributes to firearm violence and its related injuries ( Johnson et al. , 2004 ; Kim, 2018 ). About half of all U.S. households are believed to have a firearm, making firearms one of the most pervasive products consumed in the United States ( Violano et al. , 2018 ). Consequently, most of the firearms used by children and youth to inflict harm including suicides are obtained in the home ( Johnson et al. , 2008 ). Beyond physical harm, children experience increased stress, fear and anxiety from direct or indirect exposure to firearms and its related injuries. These effects have also been reported as predictors of post-traumatic stress disorders in children and could have long-term consequences that persist from childhood to adulthood ( Holly et al. , 2019 ). Additionally, the American Psychological Association’s study on violence in the media showed that witnessing violence leads to fear and mistrust of others, less sensitivity to pain experienced by others, and increases the tendency of committing violent acts ( Branas et al. , 2009 ; Calvert et al. , 2017 ).

As evidenced from the previous sections, firearm violence is a complex issue. Some argue that poor mental health, violent video games, substance abuse, poverty, a history of violence and access to firearms are some of the reasons for firearm violence ( Iroku-Malize and Grissom, 2019 ). However, the prevalence and incidence of firearm violence supersedes discrete issues and demonstrates a complex interplay among a variety of factors. Therefore, a broader public health analysis to better understand, address and reduce firearm violence is warranted. Some important factors as listed above should be taken into consideration to more fully understand firearm violence which can consequently facilitate processes for mitigation of the frequency and severity of firearm violence.

Lack of Research Prevents Better Understanding of Problem of Firearm Violence

A major stumbling block to understanding the prevalence and incidence of firearm related violence exists from a lack of rigorous scientific study of the problem. Firearm violence research constitutes less than 0.09% of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s annual budget ( Rajan et al. , 2018 ). Further research on firearm violence is greatly limited by the Dickey Amendment, first passed in 1996 and annually thereafter in budget appropriations, which prohibits use of federal funds to advocate or promote firearm control ( Rostron, 2018 ). As such, the Dickey Amendment impedes future federally funded research, even as public health’s interest in firearm violence prevention increased ( Peetz and Haider, 2018 ; Rostron, 2018 ). In the absence of rigorous research, a deeper understanding and development of evidence-based prevention measures continue to be needed.

Lack of a Public Health Ethical Argument Against Firearm Use Impedes Violence Prevention

We make an argument that gun violence is a public health problem. While some might think that public health is primarily about reducing health-related externalities, it is embedded in key values such as harm reduction, social justice, prevention and protection of health and social justice and equity ( Institute of Medicine, 2003 ). Public health practice is also historically intertwined with politics, power and governance, especially with the influence of the states decision-making and policies on its citizens ( Lee and Zarowsky, 2015 ). According to the World Health Organization, health is a complete physical, mental and social well-being that is not just the absence of injury or disease ( Callahan, 1973 ). Health is fundamental for human flourishing and there is a need for public health systems to protect health and prevent injuries for individuals and communities. Public health ethics, then, is the practical decision making that supports public health’s mandate to promote health and prevent disease, disability and injury in the population. It is imperative for the public health community to ask what ought to be done/can be done to curtail firearm violence and its related burdens. Sound public health ethical reasoning must be employed to support recommendations that can be used to justify various public policy interventions.

The argument that firearm violence is a public health problem could suggest that public health methods (e.g. epidemiological methods) can be used to study gun violence. Epidemiological approaches to gun violence could be applied to study its frequency, pattern, distribution, determinants and measure the effects of interventions. Public health is also an interdisciplinary field often drawing on knowledge and input from social sciences, humanities, etc. Gun violence could be viewed as a crime-related problem rather than public health; however, there are, of course, a lot of ways to study crime, and in this case with public health relevance. One dominant paradigm in criminology is the economic model which often uses natural experiments to isolate causal mechanisms. For example, it might matter whether more stringent background checks reduce the availability of guns for crime, or whether, instead, communities that implement more stringent background checks also tend to have lower rates of gun ownership to begin with, and stronger norms against gun availability. Therefore, public health authorities and criminologists may tend to have overlapping areas of expertise aimed to lead to best practices advice for gun control.

Our paper draws on three major theories: (1) rights-based theories, (2) consequentialism and (3) the common good approach. These theories make a convergent case for firearm violence, and despite their significant divergence, strengthen our public health ethics approach to firearm. The key aspects of these three theories are briefly reviewed with respect to how one might use a theory to justify an intervention or recommendation to reduce firearm injuries.

Rights-Based Theories

The basic idea of the rights framework is that people have certain rights, and that therefore it is impermissible to treat people in certain ways even if doing so would promote the overall good. People have rights to safety, security and an environment generally free from risky pitfalls. Conversely, people also have a right to own a gun especially as emphasized in the U.S.’s second amendment. Another theory embedded within our discussion of rights-based theories is deontology. Deontological approaches to ethics hold that we have moral obligations or duties that are not reducible to the need to promote some end (such as happiness or lives saved). These duties are generally thought to specify what we owe to others as persons ( rights bearers ). There are specific considerations that define moral behaviors and specific ways in which people within different disciplines ought to behave to effectively achieve their goals.

Huemer (2003) argued that the right to own a firearm has both a fundamental (independent of other rights) and derivative justification, insofar as the right is derived from another right - the right to self-defense ( Huemer, 2003 ). Huemer gives two arguments for why we have a right to own a gun:

People place lots of importance on owning a gun. Generally, the state should not restrict things that people enjoy unless doing so imposes substantial risk of harm to others.

People have a right to defend themselves from violent attackers. This entails that they have a right to obtain the means necessary to defend themselves. In a modern society, a gun is a necessary means to defend oneself from a violent attacker. Therefore, people have a right to obtain a gun.

Huemer’s first argument could be explained that it would be permissible to violate someone’s right to own or use a firearm in order to promote some impersonal good (e.g. number of lives saved). Huemer’s second argument also justifies a fundamental right to gun ownership. According to Huemer, gun restrictions violate the right of individual gun owners to defend themselves. Gun control laws will result in coercively stopping people to defend themselves when attacked. To him, the right to self-defense does seem like it would be fundamental. It seems intuitive to argue that, at some level, if someone else attacks a person out of the blue, the person is morally required to defend themselves if they cannot escape. However, having a right to self-defense does not entail that your right to obtain the means necessary to that thing cannot be burdened at all.

While we have a right to own a gun, that right is weaker than other kinds of rights. For example, gun ownership seems in no way tied to citizenship in a democracy or being a member of the community. Also, since other nations/democracies get along fine without a gun illustrates that gun ownership is not important enough to be a fundamental right. Interestingly, the UK enshrines a basic right to self-defense, but explicitly denies any right to possess any particular means of self-defense. This leads to some interesting legal peculiarities where it can be illegal to possess a handgun, but not illegal to use a handgun against an assailant in self-defense.

In the United States, implementing gun control policies to minimize gun related violence triggers the argument that such policies are infringements on the Second Amendment, which states that the rights to bear arms shall not be infringed. The constitution might include a right to gun ownership for a variety of reasons. However, it is not clear from the text itself that the right to bear arms is supposed to be as fundamental as the right to freedom of expression. Further, one could argue, then, that any form of gun regulation is borne from the rationale to retain our autonomy. Protections from gun violence are required to treat others as autonomous agents or as bearers of dignity. We owe others certain protections and affordances at least in part because these are necessary to respect their autonomy (or dignity, etc.). We discuss potential recommendations to minimize gun violence while protecting the rights of individuals to purchase a firearm if they meet the necessary and reasonable regulatory requirements. Most of the gun control regulations discussed in this article could provide an opportunity to ensure the safety of communities without unduly infringing on the right to keep a firearm.

Consequentialism

Consequentialism is the view that we should promote the common good even if doing so infringes upon some people’s (apparent) rights. The case for gun regulation under this theory is made by showing how many lives it would save. Utilitarianism, a part of consequentialist approach proposes actions which maximize happiness and the well-being for the majority while minimizing harm. Utilitarianism is based on the idea that a consequence should be of maximum benefit ( Holland, 2014 ) and that actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness as the ultimate moral norm. If one believes that the moral purpose of public health is to make decisions that will produce maximal benefits for most affected, remove or prevent harm and ensure equitable distribution of burdens and benefits ( Bernheim and Childress, 2013 ), they are engaging in a utilitarian theory. Rights, including the rights to bear arms, are protected so long as they preserve the greater good. However, such rights can be overridden or ignored when they conflict with the principle of utility; that is to say, if greater harm comes from personal possession of a firearm, utilitarianism is often the ethical theory of choice to restrict access to firearms, including interventions that slow down access to firearms such as requiring a gun locker at home. However, it is important to note that utilitarians might also argue that one has to weigh how frustrating a gun locker would be to people who like to go recreationally hunting. Or how much it would diminish the feeling of security for someone who knows that if a burglar breaks in, it might take several minutes to fumble while inputting the combination on their locker to access their gun.

Using a utilitarian approach, current social statistics show that firearm violence affects a great number of people, and firearm-related fatalities and injuries threaten the utility, or functioning of another. Therefore, certain restrictions or prohibitions on firearms can be ethically justifiable to prevent harm to others using a utilitarian approach. Similarly, the infringement of individual freedom could be warranted as it protects others from serious harm. However, one might argue that a major flaw in the utilitarian argument is that it fails to see the benefit of self-defense as a reasonable benefit. Utilitarianism as a moral theory would weigh the benefits of proposed restrictions against its costs, including its possible costs to a felt sense of security on the part of gun owners. A utilitarian argument that neglects some of the costs of regulations wouldn’t be a very good argument.

One might legitimately argue that if an individual is buying a firearm, whether for protection or recreation, they are morally responsible to abide by the laws and regulations regarding purchasing that firearm and ensuring the safety of others in the society. Additionally, vendors and licensing/enforcement authorities would have the responsibility to ensure the safety of the rest of the society by ensuring that the firearm purchase does not compromise the safety of the community. Most people who own firearms would not argue against this position. However, arguments in support of measures that will reduce the availability of firearms center around freedom and liberty and are not as well tolerated by those who argue from a libertarian starting point. Further, this would stipulate that measures against firearm purchase or use impinge upon the rights of individuals who have the freedom to pursue what they perceive as good ( Holland, 2014 ). However, it seems as though the state has a fundamental duty to help ensure an adequate degree of safety for its citizens, and it seems that the best way to do that is to limit gun ownership.

Promoting the Common Good

A well-organized society that promotes the common good of all is to everyone’s advantage ( Ruger, 2015 ). In addition, enabling people to flourish in a society includes their ability to be healthy. The view of common good consists of ensuring the welfare of individuals considered as a group or the public. This group of people are presumed to have a common interest in protection and preservation from harms to the group ( Beauchamp, 1985 ). Health and security are shared by members of a community, and guns are an attempt to privatize public security and safety, and so is antithetical to the common good. Can one really be healthy or safe in a society where one’s neighbors are subject to gun violence? Maybe not, and so then this violence is a threat to one’s life too. If guns really are an effective means of self-defense, they help one defend only oneself while accepting that others in one’s community might be at risk. One might also argue that the more guns there are, the more that society accepts the legitimacy of gun ownership and the more that guns have a significant place in culture etc., and consequently, the more that there is likely to be a problem.

Trivigno (2018) suggests that the willingness to carry a firearm indicates an intention to use it if the need arises and Branas et al (2009) argue that perpetually carrying a firearm might affect how individuals behave ( Trivigno, 2018 ; Branas et al. , 2009 ). When all things are equal, will prudence and a commitment to the flourishing of others prevail? Trivigno (2013) wonders if such behaviors as carrying or having continual access to a firearm generates mistrust or triggers fear of an unknown armed assailant, allowing for aggression or anger to build; the exact opposite of flourishing ( Trivigno, 2013 ). One could suggest, then, that the recreational use of firearms is also commonly vicious. Many people use firearms to engage in blood sport, killing animals for their own amusement. For example, someone who kicks puppies or uses a magnifying glass to fry ants with the sun seems paradigmatically vicious; why not think the same of someone who shoots deer or rabbits for their amusement?. Firearm proponents might suggest that the fidelity (living out one’s commitments) or justice, which Aristotle holds in high regard, could justify carrying a firearm to protect one’s life, livelihood, or loved ones insofar as it would be just of a person to defend and protect the life of another or even one’s own life when under threat by one who means to do harm. Despite an argument justifying the use of a firearm against another for self-defense after the fact, the action might not have been right when evaluated through the previous rationale, or applying the doctrine of double effect as described by Aquinas’ passage in the Summa II-II, which mentions that self-defense is quite different than taking it upon one’s self to mete out justice ( Schlabach, n.d. ). The magistrate is charged with seeing that justice is done for the common good. At best, if guns really are an effective means of self-defense, they help one defend only oneself while accepting that others in one’s community might be at risk. They take a common good, the health and safety of the community, and make it a private one. For Aquinas and many other modern era ethicists, intention plays a critical part in judgment of an action. Accordingly, many who oppose any ownership of firearms do so in both a paternalistic fashion (one cannot intend harm if they don’t have access to firearms) and virtuous fashion (enabling human flourishing).

Classical formulations of the double doctrine effect include necessity and proportionality conditions. So, it’s wrong to kill in self-defense if you could simply run away (without giving up something morally important in doing so), or to use deadly force in self-defense when someone is trying to slap you. One thing the state can do, in its role of promoting the common good, is to reduce when it is necessary to use self-defense. If there were no police at all, then anyone who robs you without consequence will probably be back, so there’s a stronger reason to use deadly force against them to feel secure. That’s bad, because it seems to allow violence that truly isn’t necessary because no one is providing the good of public security. So, one role of the state is to reduce the number of cases in which the use of deadly force is necessary for our safety. Since most homicides in the United State involve a firearm, one way to reduce the frequency of cases in which deadly force is necessary for self-defense is to reduce the instances of gun crime.

We have attempted to lay the empirical and ethical groundwork necessary to support various interventions, and the recommendations aimed at curbing firearm violence that will be discussed in this next section. Specifically, by discussing the burden of the problem in its various forms (healthcare costs, disproportionate violence towards racial/ethnic minority groups, women, children, vulnerable populations and the lack of research) and the ethics theories public health finds most accessible, we can now turn our attention to well-known, evidence-based recommendations that could be supported by the blended ethics approach: rights-based theories, consequentialism and the common-good approach discussed.

Comprehensive, Universal Background Checks for Firearm Sales

Of the 17 million persons who submitted to a background check to purchase or transfer possession of a firearm in 2010, less than 0.5% were denied approval of purchase ( Federal Bureau of Investigation, 2014 ). At present, a background check is required only when a transfer is made by a licensed retailer, and nearly 40% of firearm transfers in recent years were private party transfers ( Miller et al. , 2017 ). As such, close to one-fourth of individuals who acquired a firearm within the last two years obtained their firearm without a background check ( Miller et al. , 2017 ). Anestis et al. , (2017) and Siegel et al. , (2019) evaluated the relationship between the types of background information required by states prior to firearm purchases and firearm homicide and suicide deaths ( Anestis et al. , 2017 ; Siegel et al. , 2019 ). Firearm homicide deaths appear lower in states checking for restraining orders and fugitive status as opposed to only conducting criminal background checks ( Sen and Panjamapirom, 2012 ). Similarly, suicide involving firearm were lower in states checking for a history of mental illness, fugitive status and misdemeanors ( Sen and Panjamapirom, 2012 ).

Research supports the evidence that comprehensive universal background checks could limit crimes associated with firearms, and enforcement of such laws and policies could prevent firearm violence ( Wintemute, 2019 ; Lee et al. , 2017 ). Comprehensive, universal background check policies that are applicable to all firearm transactions, including private party transfers, sales by firearm dealers and sales at firearm shows are justifiable using a blend of the ethics theories we have previously discussed. With the rights-based approach, one could still honor the right to own a firearm by a competent person while also enforcing the obligation of the firearm vendor to ensure only a qualified individual purchased the firearm. To further reduce gun crime, rather than ensure only the right people own guns, we can just reduce the number of guns owned overall. Consequentialism could be employed to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable such as victims of domestic violence and allowing a firearm vendor to stop a sale to an unqualified individual if they had a history of suspected or proven domestic violence. Also, having universal background checks that go beyond the bare minimum of assessing if a person has a permit, the legally required training, etc., but delving more deeply into a person’s past, such as the inclusion of a red flag ( Honberg, 2020 ), would be promoting the common good approach by creating the conditions for persons to be good and do good while propelling community safety.

Renewable License Before Buying and After Purchase of Firearm and Training Firearm Owners

At present, federal law does not require licensing for firearm owners or purchasers. However, state licensing laws fall into four categories: (1) permits to purchase firearms, (2) licenses to own firearms, (3) firearm safety certificates and (4) registration laws that impose licensing requirements ( Anestis et al. , 2015 ; Giffords Licensing, n.d. ). A study conducted in urban U.S. counties with populations greater than 200,000 indicated that permit-to-purchase laws were associated with 14% reduction in firearm homicides ( Crifasi et al. , 2018 ). In Connecticut, enforcing a mandatory permit-to-purchase law making it illegal to sell a hand firearm to anyone who did not have an eligible certificate to purchase firearms was associated with a reduction in firearm associated homicides ( Rudolph et al. , 2015 ). This also resulted in a significant reduction in the rates of firearm suicide rates in Connecticut ( Crifasi et al. , 2015 ). Conversely, the permit-to-purchase law was repealed in Missouri in 2007, which resulted in an increase of homicides with firearms and firearm suicides ( Crifasi et al. , 2015 ; Webster et al. , 2014 ). Similarly, two large Florida counties indicated that 72% of firearm suicides involved people who were legally permitted to have a firearm ( Swanson et al. , 2016 ). According to the study findings, a majority of those who were eligible to have firearms died from firearm-related suicide, and also had records of previous short-term involuntary holds that were not reportable legal events.

In addition to comprehensive, universal background checks for firearm purchases, licensing with periodic review requires the purchaser to complete an in-person application at a law enforcement agency, which could (1) minimize fraud or inaccuracies and (2) prevent persons at risk of harming themselves or others to purchase firearms ( Crifasi et al. , 2019 ). Subsequent periodic renewal could further reduce crimes and violence associated with firearms by helping law enforcement to confirm that a firearm owner remains eligible to possess firearms. More frequent licensure checks through periodic renewals could also facilitate the removal of firearms from individuals who do not meet renewal rules.

Further, including training on gun safety and shooting with every firearm license request could also be beneficial in reducing gun violence. In Japan, if you are interested in acquiring a gun license, you need to attend a one-day gun training session in addition to mental health evaluation and background check ( Alleman, 2000 ). This training teaches future firearm owners the steps they would need to follow and the responsibilities of owning a gun. The training completes with passing a written test and achieving at least a 95% accuracy during a shooting-range test. Firearm owners need to retake the class and initial exam every three years to continue to have their guns. This training and testing have contributed to the reduction in gun related deaths in Japan. Implementing such requirements could reduce gun misuses. Even though, this is a lengthy process, it could manage and reduce the risks associated with firearm purchases and will support a well-regulated firearm market. While some may argue that other forms of weapons could be used to inflict harm, reduced access to firearms would lead to a significant decrease in the number of firearm-related injuries in the United States.

From an ethics perspective, again, all three theories could be applied to the recommendation for renewable licenses and gun training. From a rights-based perspective, renewable licensure and gun training would still allow for the right to bear arms but would ensure that the right belongs with qualified persons and again would allow the proper state agency to exercise its responsibility to its citizens. Additionally, a temporary removal of firearms or prohibiting firearm purchases by people involuntarily detained in short-term holds might be an opportunity to ensure people’s safety and does so without unduly infringing on the Second Amendment rights. Renewable licenses and gun training create opportunities for law enforcement to step in periodically to ascertain if a licensee remains competent, free from criminal behavior or mental illness, which reduces the harm to the individual and to the community—a tidy application of consequentialism. Again, by creating the conditions for people to be good, we see an exercise of the common good.

Licensing Firearm Dealers and Tracking Firearm Sales

In any firearm transfer or purchase, there are two parties involved: the firearm vendor and the individual purchaser. Federal law states that “it shall be unlawful for any person, except for a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or licensed dealer, to engage in the business of importing, manufacturing, or dealing in firearms, or in the course of such business to ship, transport, or receive any firearm in interstate or foreign commerce” (18 U.S.C. 1 922(a)(1)(A)(2007). All firearm sellers must obtain a federal firearm license issued by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). However, ATF does not have the complete authority to inspect firearm dealers for license, revoke firearm license, or take legal actions against sellers providing firearms to criminals ( Vernick and Webster, 2007 ). Depending on individual state laws, typically the firearm purchaser maintains responsibility in obtaining the proper license for each firearm purchase whereas the justice system has the responsibility to enforce laws regulating firearm sales. Firearm manufacturers typically sell their products through licensed distributors and dealers, or a primary market (such as a retail store). Generally, firearms used to conduct a crime (including homicide) or to commit suicide are the product of secondary markets ( Institute of Medicine, 2003 ) such as retail secondhand sales or private citizen transfers/sales. Such secondary firearm transfers are largely unregulated and allow for illegal firearm purchases by persons traditionally prohibited from purchasing in the primary market ( Vernick and Webster, 2007 ; Chesnut et al. , 2017 ).

According to evidence from Irvin et al. (2014) in states that require licensing for firearm dealers and/or allow inspections, the reported rates of homicides were lower ( Irvin et al. , 2014 ). Specifically, after controlling for race, urbanicity, poverty level, sex, age, education level, drug arrest rate, burglary rates and firearm ownership proxy, the states that require licensing for firearm dealers reported ~25% less risk of homicides, and the states that allow inspection reported ~35% less risk of homicides ( Irvin et al. , 2014 ). This protective effect against homicides was stronger in states that require both licensing and inspections compared to states that require either alone. The record keeping of all firearm sales is important as it facilitates police or other authorized inspectors to compare a dealer’s inventory with their records to identify any secondary market transactions or other discrepancies ( Vernick et al. , 2006 ). According to Webster et al. (2006) , a change in firearm sales policy in the firearm store that sold more than half of the firearms recovered from criminals in Milwaukee, resulted in a 96% reduction in the use of recently sold firearms in crime and 44% decrease in the flow of new trafficked firearms in Milwaukee ( Webster et al. , 2006 ).

The licensing of firearm vendors and tracking of firearm sales sits squarely as a typical public health consequentialist argument; in order to protect the community, an individual’s right is only minimally infringed upon. An additional layer, justifiable by consequentialism, includes a national repository of all firearm sales which can be employed to minimize the sale of firearms on the secondary market and dealers could be held accountable for such ‘off-label’ use ( FindLaw Attorney Writers, 2016 ). Enforcing laws, mandating record keeping, retaining the records for a reasonable time and mandating the inspection of dealers could help to control secondary market firearm transfers and minimize firearm-related crimes and injuries.

One could argue from a rights perspective that routine inspections and record keeping are the responsibility of both firearms vendors and law enforcement, and in doing so, still ensure that competent firearm owners can maintain their rights to bear arms. In Hume’s discussion of property rights, he situates his argument in justice; and that actions must be virtuous and the motive virtuous ( Hume, 1978 ). Hume proposes that feelings of benevolence don’t form our motivation to be just. We tend (perhaps rightly) to feel stronger feelings of benevolence to those who deserve praise than to those who have wronged us or who deserve the enmity of humanity. However, justice requires treating the property rights or contracts of one’s enemies, or of a truly loathsome person, as equally binding as the property rights of honest, decent people. Gun violence disproportionately impacts underserved communities, which are same communities impacted by social and economic injustice.

Standardized Policies on Safer Storage for Firearms and Mandatory Education

Results from a cross-sectional study by Johnson and colleagues showed that about 14-30% of parents who have firearms in the home keep them loaded, while about 43% reported an unlocked firearm in the home ( Johnson et al. , 2006 ; Johnson et al. , 2008 ). The risk for unintentional fatalities from firearms can be prevented when all household firearms are locked ( Monuteaux et al. , 2019 ). Negligent storage of a firearm carries various penalties based on the individual state ( RAND, 2018 ). For example, negligent storage in Massachusetts is a felony. Mississippi and Tennessee prohibit reckless or knowingly providing firearms to minors through a misdemeanor charge, whereas Missouri and Kentucky enforce a felony charge. Also, Tennessee makes it a felony for parents to recklessly or knowingly provide firearms to their children ( RAND, 2018 ).

While a competent adult may have a right to bear arms, this right does not extend to minors, even in recreational use. Many states allow for children to participate in hunting. Wisconsin allows for children as young as 12 to purchase a hunting license, and in 2017 then Governor Scott Walker signed into law a no age minimum for a child to participate in a mentored hunt and to carry a firearm in a hunt when accompanied by an adult ( Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, 2020 ). The minor’s ‘right’ to use a firearm is due in part to the adult taking responsibility for the minor’s safety. As such, some have argued that children need to know how to be safe around firearms as they continue to be one of the most pervasive consumer products in the United States ( Violano et al. , 2018 ).

In addition to locking firearms, parents are also encouraged to store firearms unloaded in a safe locked box or cabinet to prevent children’s access to firearms ( Johnson et al. , 2008 ). It follows then that reducing children and youth’s access to firearm injuries involves complying with safe firearm storage practices ( McGee et al. , 2003 ). In addition to eliminating sources of threat to the child, it is also important for children to be trained on how to safely respond in case they encounter a firearm in an unsupervised environment. Education is one of the best strategies for firearm control, storage and reduction of firearm-related injuries via development of firearm safety trainings and programs ( Jones, 1993 ; Holly et al. , 2019 ). Adults also need firearm safety education and trainings; as such, inclusion of firearm safety skills and trainings in the university-based curriculum and other avenues were adults who use guns are likely to be, could also mitigate firearm safety issues ( Puttagunta et al. , 2016 ; Damari et al. , 2018 ). Peer tutoring could also be utilized to provide training in non-academic and social settings.

Parents have a duty to protect their children and therefore mandating safe firearm storage, education and training for recreational use and periodic review of those who are within the purview of the law. Given that someone in the U. S. gets shot by a toddler a little more frequently than once a week ( Ingraham, 2017 ), others might use a utilitarian argument that limiting a child’s access to firearms minimizes the possibility of accidental discharge or intentional harm to a child or another. Again, the common good approach could be employed to justify mandatory safe storage and education to create the conditions for the flourishing of all.

Firearm and Ammunition Buy-Back Programs

Firearm and ammunition buy-back programs have been implemented in several cities in the United States to reduce the number of firearms in circulation with the ultimate goal of reducing gun violence. The first launch in Baltimore, Maryland was in 1974. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has conducted a gun buy-back program for nearly eight years to remove more guns off the streets and improve security in communities. Currently there is a plan for a federal gun buy-back program in the United States. The objective of such programs is to reduce gun violence through motivating marginal criminals to sell their firearms to local governments, encourage law-abiding individuals to sell their firearms available for theft by would-be criminals, and to reduce firearm related suicide resulting from easy access to a gun at a time of high emotion ( Barber and Miller, 2014 ).

According to Kuhn et al. (2002) and Callahan et al. (1994) , gun buy-back programs are ineffective in reducing gun violence due to two main facts: 1- the frequently surrendered types of firearms are typically not involved in gun-related violence and 2- the majority of participants in gun buyback programs are typically women and older adults who are not often involved in interpersonal violence ( Kuhn et al. , 2002 ; Callahan et al. , 1994 ). However, as a result of implementation of the ‘‘good for guns’’ program in Worcester, Massachusetts, there has been a decline in firearm related injuries and mortality in Worcester county compared to other counties in Massachusetts ( Tasigiorgos et al. , 2015 ). Even though, there is limited research indicating a direct link between gun buy-back programs and reduction in gun violence in the United States, a gun buy-back program implemented in Australia in combination with other legislations to reduce household ownership of firearms, firearm licenses and licensed shooters was associated with a rapid decline in firearm related deaths in Australia ( Bartos et al. , 2020 ; Ozanne-Smith et al. , 2004 ).

The frequency of disparities in firearm-related violence, injuries and death makes it a central concern for public health. Even though much has been said about firearms and its related injuries, there continues to be an interest towards its use. Some people continue to desire guns due to fear, feeling of protection and safety, recreation and social pressure.

Further progress on reforms can be made through understanding the diversity of firearm owners, and further research is needed on ways to minimize risks while maximizing safety for all. Although studies have provided data on correlation between firearm possession and violence ( Stroebe, 2013 ), further research is needed to evaluate the interventions and policies that could effectively decrease the public health burden of firearm violence. Evidence-based solutions to mitigating firearm violence can be justified using three major public health ethics theories: rights-based theories, consequentialism and common good. The ethical theories discussed in this paper can direct implementation of research, policies, laws and interventions on firearm violence to significantly reduce the burden of firearm violence on individuals, health care systems, vulnerable populations and the society-at-large. We support five major steps to achieve those goals: 1. Universal, comprehensive background checks; 2. Renewable license before and after purchase of firearm; 3. Licensing firearm dealers and tracking firearm sales; 4. Standardized policies on safer storage for firearms and mandatory education; and 5. Firearm buy-back programs. For some of the goals we propose, there might be a substantial risk of non-compliance. However, we hope that through education and sensibilization programs, overtime, these goals are not met with resistance. By acknowledging the proverbial struggle of individual rights and privileges paired against population health, we hope our ethical reasoning can assist policymakers, firearm advocates and public health professionals in coming to shared solutions to eliminate unnecessary, and preventable, injuries and deaths due to firearms.

The conducted research is not related to either human or animal use.

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Gun violence research is surging to inform solutions to a devastating public health crisis

Eugenia c. south.

a Urban Health Lab, Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States of America

David Hemenway

b Harvard Injury Control Research Center, Boston, MA, United States of America

Daniel W. Webster

c Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Prevention and Policy, Baltimore, MD, United States of America

The COVID-19 pandemic has perhaps been the defining event worldwide in the 21st century, impacting all people and all facets of life. The consequences of the pandemic have been devastating for gun violence in the United States (US), with the firearm homicide rate increasing nearly 35% after the start of the pandemic, widening already existing racial, ethnic, and economic disparities; Overall firearm suicide rates remained stable after the pandemic, but notably increased among people aged 10–44 and among indigenous populations ( Kegler et al., 2022 ). Further, the purchase of firearms in the US has risen dramatically since the pandemic and ghost guns present new challenges in firearm regulation ( Schleimer et al., 2021 ). The impact of the pandemic on gun violence is directly and indirectly woven throughout the articles of this special issue.

The surge of firearm violence has been met with an important surge in research about all aspects of this public health crisis. The 32 articles in this special issue represent the leading edge of gun violence prevention research, and a hopeful path for the future. Collectively, they remind us that high-quality, policy-relevant science, especially work that is rooted in the power of those most directly impacted by gun violence, can be a guidepost for us all. The authors are diverse across a range of demographics, including race, ethnicity, gender, and academic rank, and remind us what an intentionally inclusive approach in academia can look like. Finally, we are reminded that the work does not stop with the publication of this special issue. Rather, this new knowledge, blended with our existing understanding of prevention, must be used to inform action at all levels.

1. The public health impact of firearm violence is devastating to communities

The devastating consequences of firearm violence impacts victims, their families and friends, and entire communities. This is particularly salient for individuals living in segregated Black neighborhoods, where intentional firearm violence is largely concentrated in the United States due to historical and ongoing structural racism (see section on neighborhoods). The first set of papers in this special issue explores how youth and adults experience living in communities with high levels of firearm violence and the impact on their health and wellbeing, information that is vital to creating and implementing prevention and mitigation programs.

Patton et al. leverage a unique combination of semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and mining of over 12 million tweets to hear directly from people most impacted by gun violence – specifically Black individuals living in New York City public housing ( Patton et al., 2022 ). They shed light on the unique role that social media can play in perpetuating violence and as an underexplored tool for violence prevention. Participants describe the layering of co-occurring pandemics (firearm violence, COVID-19, anti-Black racism) as “hell” and “a big ball of bad.” Participants shared nuanced views of police presence in their neighborhood, calling for drastic change in the structure of policing and the education of officers around racism, while acknowledging the challenges of the job and for some the apprehension of defunding the police all together. Ideas for prevention focused on addressing long term systemic issues including the need for affordable housing, economic opportunity, neighborhood conditions, and mental health services.

The next two papers focus on the mental health impacts of exposure to firearm violence. Buggs et al. explore the impact of spatially proximate firearm homicide on anxiety and depression symptoms in youth across the United States, and if that impact varies based on community-level characteristics ( Buggs et al., 2022 ). Across 3086 youth, those living in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods who were exposed to a firearm homicide in the blocks around their home or school had increased likelihood of symptoms depression. The relationship did not hold for those in more advantaged neighborhoods. Black boys experienced the largest impact on their mental health. The authors conclude that the accumulated stressors associated with structural disadvantage may make Black boys particularly vulnerable to the negative impacts of living in a neighborhood with high rates of firearm violence.

Sharpe and Iwamoto evaluate the relationship between racial and culturally-bound manifestations of coping and the development of PTSD symptoms among a group of Black adults who have experienced the murder of at least one family member or friend ( Sharpe and Iwamoto, 2022 ). They find that Black survivors who are more aware of historical and contemporary experience with anti-Black racism (cultural trauma) and understand the systematic ways it influences their worldview (culture of homicide), and rely on culturally relevant coping resources, are more protected against developing PTSD symptoms. Their results validate a previously designed Model of Coping for African American Survivors of Homicide Victims and highlight the need to tailor coping intervention strategies that account for socio-cultural context in Black individuals experiencing traumatic loss.

Finally, Hureau et al. focus on the mental health of a population that is vital to violence prevention efforts – community violence interventionists, performing the first systematic evaluation of their risk of secondary trauma ( Hureau et al., 2022 ). There is inherent risk in the work done by this group, including direct violence exposure and indirect exposure through the experiences of the people they work with and have developed deep relationships with. Among 181 individuals surveyed in Chicago (nearly all of the community violence interventionists in the city), more than 50% experienced half of the Secondary Traumatic Stress Scale symptoms, and 94% experienced at least one of the symptoms in the past 7 days. Almost 60% of interventionists reported witnessing a shooting while working, nearly 19% had been shot themselves while on the job, and 50% experienced the violent death of a client. Not surprisingly, interventionists who reported more traumatic experiences had higher likelihood of experiencing symptoms. A focus on the mental health of community violence interventionists must be a standard part of how violence intervention organizations operate.

2. Understanding key behaviors associated with firearm injury

There are myriad types of behaviors related to firearms injury risks and multiple approaches for scholars to understand those behaviors. Five articles in this Special Issue use five different methods to shed light on a multitude of behaviors.

Ranney et al. examine the YouTube searches of over 70,000 representative American adults. Per day, about 0.5% of adults perform a firearm-related search ( Ranney et al., 2022 ). The authors created seven content firearm YouTube ecosystems: “Guns & Gear,” “Hunting & Fishing,” “Fun” (e.g., nerf guns), “Movies,” “Music,” Gaming” (e.g., video games), and “News & Hot Topics” (often heated political arguments between extremists). The “Guns & Gear” ecosystem was largely about preparing and training for shooting people. Like “Hunting & Fishing,” this ecosystem was inhabited primarily by older, white men. Online social narratives - including YouTube - should be part of the discussion about who and how Americans learn about and conceive of firearms and firearm use.

Brunson et al. conducted over 50 face-to-face interviews with high-risk young Black men living in disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York City who had been shot at ( Brunson et al., 2022 ). Three quarters had illegally carried a firearm. These men are at pervasive risk of being a firearm victim, rarely have had formal firearm training, engage in unsafe storage practices (e.g., they stash they guns in easily accessible locations), and often share guns. Pelletier et al. interviewed over 1300 young people (aged 16–29) seeking Emergency Department treatment at a Level-1 trauma center in Flint, Michigan; 17% of respondents had possessed a firearm within the past three months ( Pelletier et al., 2022 ). Males, those who were relatively older, and those with peers who have firearms were most likely to possess firearms. Attitudes about using firearms (e.g., endorse using firearms to solve disputes) were more associated with gun possession among females than gun possession among males. The authors conclude that effective prevention activities may need to be somewhat different for young women compared to young men.

Gaylord-Harden et al. examine the firearm behavior (decisions to acquire, carry and use firearms) of Black adolescents ( Gaylord-Harden et al., 2022 ). The paper provides a review of the literature and argues for the usefulness of a trauma-informed approach for preventing risky firearm behavior. For example, a trauma-informed approach to gun carrying for this demographic does not focus on what is wrong with the adolescent, but what has happened to them. Including trauma exposure and symptoms in screening instruments may help to maximize the ability of providers to match youth to appropriate interventions.

Shen et al. examines whether shootings are contagious—whether one shooting leads to the next, as may happen with revenge homicides ( Shen and Sharkey, 2022 ). They use news data from the Gun Violence Archive for 98 large cities to determine if shootings in one week increase the likelihood of shootings in the subsequent week. They find little evidence for contagiousness of shootings—except when cities were going through sharp increases in gun violence. Then the prevalence of shootings in a given week had a strong, positive, causal effect on the number of shootings in the following week.

3. Firearms and suicide

In the United States, most firearm deaths are suicides, and most suicides are firearm suicides. Many studies have examined the relationship between all-race household gun ownership levels and all-race firearm suicide rates. That relationship is dominated by White households, since there are many more White households than Black households, a higher percentage of White households contain firearms, and a higher percentage of White Americans die by firearm suicide. Little is known about the gun-suicide relationship for Black Americans. Two articles in this issue that focus on suicide compare the Black vs White gun ownership-firearm suicide relationship, one in terms of patterns the other in terms of trends.

Hemenway & Zhang examine a point in time and find that the patterns of Black and White household gun ownership are quite similar ( Hemenway and Zhang, 2022 ). For example, older men are more likely to live in homes with guns than younger men. For White men, firearms suicide rates follow the same patterns as their firearm ownership rates. However, the same is not true for Black men. For example, for Black men, suicide rates are highest among younger adults.

Gutierrez et al. examine the race-specific relationships (White and Black) between gun ownership levels and firearm suicide rates for adolescents over time ( Gutierrez et al., 2022 ). Over the past four decades, handgun ownership rates increased in White households as did firearm suicide rates. However, for Black adolescents, there was no relationship between the trends in Black household handgun ownership and Black firearm suicide. Both the Hemenway & Zhang and Gutierrez et al. studies demonstrate the importance of disaggregating by race when examining the relationship between gun ownership and gun suicide.

4. The first step in the public health approach to injury prevention is to create good surveillance (data) systems

The US finally has a comprehensive surveillance system for violent deaths (including all firearm deaths) in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. The National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) collects consistent and comparable data on the circumstances of violent deaths, and includes a summary of the narratives of both the police and medical examiner/coroner.

Unfortunately, gaps in data for all other aspects related to firearm injuries (e.g., gun ownership and storage) are so substantial that the Arnold Foundation commissioned a panel on improving the US firearms data infrastructure (Roman & Cook, 2020) ( Roman and Cook, 2020 ). Two data papers in this issue focus on non-fatal firearm injuries. The first discusses the strengths and limitations of the available US data and the second imputes some of the missing and inaccurate information on intent.

Cook, Barber & Parker provide an excellent overview of the current state of affairs with respect to the two main sources of non-fatal firearm injuries data—police and hospitals ( Cook et al., 2022 ). Too few police departments currently participate in the system to make reliable national estimates, and while the largest national hospital data system (HCUP-NEDS) can provide good estimates on the total number of treated nonfatal firearm injuries, it currently misclassifies many firearm assaults as accidents.

A smaller hospital data system (NEISS-FISS) reliably codes intent but is not large enough to provide stable estimates of the number of these events, and historically placed too many cases in the undetermined category. Carpenito et al. use the NEISS data to impute the intent of the cases in the larger HCUP-NEDS data ( Carpenito et al., 2022 ). For 2017, their point estimates are that 78% of non-fatal gunshot wounds were from assault, 17% were unintentional, and 4% were self-harm.

Finally, Jacoby et al. call into question the common practice among firearm injury researchers of using ‘recidivism’ as an outcome that demonstrates the effectiveness of an intervention ( Jacoby et al., 2022 ). They urge that the term ‘recidivism’ can insinuate racialized criminality and serve to stigmatize, criminalize, and racialize firearm injured people. The term may even shape clinical care and patient outcomes by reinforcing implicit and explicitly biases about which patients are or are not deserving of care. Instead, they offer a series of terms in use in the literature including “risk of reoffending,” “reinjury,” or “recurrent violent injury.”

5. The role of healthcare in driving gun violence prevention

Over the past decade, there has been a major increase in the role of medical providers—including hospitals and physicians—in gun violence prevention. The “this is our lane” movement is one example (Rubin 2019) ( Rubin, 2019 ).

Two articles in this special issue focus on counseling the parents of children and adolescents about firearms. Seewald et al. conducted a national web-based survey of parents of teenagers ( Seewald et al., 2022 ). The results were discouraging, especially given that firearms are the leading cause of death among high school aged teens. Among parents reporting that their teen received any anticipatory guidance from their primary care provider, firearm was the least discussed topic (15%), and most parents did not think firearm safety was an important issue for providers to discuss in the first place, nor did their trust their physician to counsel about firearm safety.

To increase physician counseling about firearms with parents of children and youth, clinics at Kaiser Permanente Colorado and Henry Ford Health Michigan will conduct a randomized trial of ways to encourage their doctors to engage in a brief discussion on firearm storage and to distribute free cable locks. A second article (Hoskins et al) describes an implementation pilot for that trial, to examine for signs of potential inequities ( Hoskins et al., 2022 ). A major finding is that clinicians are more likely to deliver the program to parents of boys rather than girls.

A third article (Wical et al.) is a qualitative case study of the effects of the COVID pandemic on the hospital-based violence intervention programs–designed to reduce repeat violent injury–at the two busiest trauma centers in Maryland ( Wical et al., 2022 ). The pandemic led to reduced program funding, staffing shortages, and lower recruitment due to restrictions on in-patient care. In Maryland, during the period when gun violence was increasing rapidly, the ability to provide effective psychosocial services to the affected population decreased.

6. Structural factors that shape neighborhood conditions represent an important component of violence prevention efforts

Gun violence is largely concentrated is segregated Black neighborhoods in cities across the United States. In Philadelphia, for example, 57 street blocks experienced 10 or more shootings since 2015, whereas more than 75% of blocks in the city had no shootings in that time ( Palmer et al., 2021 ). What the 57 blocks, and the neighborhoods in which they sit, have in common is historical and sustained disinvestment from both the government and private entities such as banking and real-estate. The next set of articles in the special issue explores the role of structural racism in shaping neighborhoods and how neighborhood-level investments might reduce violence.

Mehrandbod et al. evaluate the relationship between the racist practice of government sponsored redlining in the 1930s to present day firearm violence across 21 United States cities ( Mehranbod et al., 2022 ). Redlining represents a form of social and economic marginalization, the consequences of which have reverberated across time to impact current day health and safety. They find a dose-response relationship between how neighborhoods were classified in the 1930s and the level of firearm deaths in 2019, at the zip-code level. This relationship varies across cities, indicating that implementation may have varied locally, and emphasizing that structural racism is the result of mutually reinforcing inequitable systems. The findings of this study remind us to shift a focus away from blaming individuals for the presence of violent crime and focus on intervening on systems and structures that create environments where crime is allowed to thrive.

Similarly, MacDonald et al. explore to what extent the rise in gun violence since the COVID-19 pandemic has been concentrated in gun violence hot spots, which are typically microenvironments of concentrated disadvantage ( MacDonald et al., 2022 ). Across 3 large United States cities, the authors find that the rise in gun violence was disproportionally concentrated in a small number of geographic hot spots, thus further widening racialized spatial disadvantage of individuals living in those neighborhoods. The authors argue for a place-based approach to gun violence prevention including concentrating resources in the areas most impacted.

Kagawa et al. focus on a prominent neighborhood condition associated with disinvestment and deindustrialization that is often associated with violent crime – abandoned buildings ( Kawa et al., 2022 ). The authors study the impact of building demolition in Detroit, MI on violent crime in 2017. Among over 2600 demolition across 1700 blocks, the authors find that in the 3 months after demolition, observed crime rates are the same as crime rates projected based on crime 9 months prior to demolition. In other words, counter to much of the prior literature, demolition does not appear to be protective against crime. The results suggest that the timing of demolition, the type of demolition, and what happens to the space after demolition all may be factors in determining if demolition is an effective violence prevention strategy.

Jay et al. study another neighborhood condition that is linked to structural racism and disinvestment that may be linked to firearm violence – tree canopy ( Jay et al., 2022 ). The authors evaluate if racial segregation and presence of tree canopy are associated with firearm violence and if achieving tree equity across neighborhoods would impact firearm violence. Across 6 cities in the United States, in a fully adjusted model, a 1-standard deviation increase in tree cover in a census tract was associated with a 9% reduction in firearm violence. Achieving tree-cover equity across neighborhoods in a city would have an impact on firearm violence, although significant racial disparities in violence exposure would persist. The authors conclude that significant and sustained investments in neighborhood conditions, along with investments in other systems such as housing, education, and economic opportunity are needed to address firearm violence.

Finally, K-12 public schools are ubiquitous local neighborhood institutions that play an outsized role in shaping the lives of children and families across the country. Since 2015 there have been approximately 275 intentional shootings at schools across the country. Rajan et al. highlight the need to move from a strategy that prioritizes active shooter drills to a comprehensive public health prevention framework that aims to stop gun violence from ever occurring in schools ( Rajan et al., 2022 ). The authors call for community investments including more green space and improving housing conditions; investments in the school environment including programs that promote prosocial skill development among youth; and tertiary prevention including mental health resources and trauma-informed schools.

7. Research to inform policy

Several contributions to the special issue of Preventive Medicine sought to identify effective firearm policies, describe the implementation of firearm policies, highlight challenges to policies intended to keep firearms from individuals at high-risk, or measure public support for policies intended to reduce firearm violence.

Very few studies to inform firearm policies use individual-level data on large populations of individuals that allow one to isolate individuals prohibited from having firearms in contrast to lawful firearm possessors. Swanson and colleagues conducted a longitudinal study of arrests and convictions for offenses for 51,059 young adults in North Carolina ( Swanson et al., 2022 ). They found that those who committed serious offenses as juveniles had rates of subsequent firearm offenses that were nine times higher than that of the same age group in North Carolina. Having a felony firearm prohibiting event as a juvenile was associated with a 5-fold increased risk of firearm offending relative to those with minor juvenile offenses. Incarceration as a juvenile was also associated with a 5-fold increased risk of firearm offending. The authors highlight the need for better enforcement of laws to prevent illegal transfers and stronger measures to prevent offending and juvenile incarceration. Rich and colleagues offer a novel analytic method using cross-sectional data on gun laws and firearm mortality at the state level to ascertain which laws or combination of laws best distinguish states with relatively high rates of firearm homicide and suicide from states with lower rates ( Rich et al., 2022 ).

Two other contributions to this special issue on research on firearm highlight challenges to polices to keep firearms from prohibited persons. Gobaud et al. found an excess of gun shows in counties lacking universal background check laws near states with these regulations ( Gobaud et al., 2022 ). This finding is consistent with studies using data from crime gun traces showing the flow of guns from states with weak gun sales regulations to those with stricter regulations. Braga et al. used data on crime guns recovered by law enforcement in Oakland, California to show a dramatic increase in the criminal use of privately made firearms, also known as “ghost guns.” Such firearms evade federal and state background check regulations. They also show sharp increases in the number and share of crime guns that move swiftly from retail sale to crime involvement as gun violence increased dramatically in Oakland and around the US in 2020 ( Braga et al., 2022 ). The need for policies to curtail ghost guns and policies to curtail gun trafficking are discussed.

This special issue has two important research contributions to our understanding of a relatively new policy intended to prevent multiple forms of gun violence, Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) laws. Zeoli et al. gathered data from 6 states with ERPO laws and court petitions to have firearms removed when petitioners claimed that someone was threatening to shoot three or more people – 10 % of all ERPO petitions in those states ( Zeoli et al., 2022 ). The most common of these 662 ERPO petitions involved threats to commit mass shootings in K-12 schools and workplaces followed by those involving (ex)intimate partners and their children or extended family members. Judges granted ERPOs for 93% of the petitions involved mass shooting threats at the temporary ERPO stage and final ERPOS in 84% of the cases held. Prior research has shown that in cases where firearms are removed from persons threatening mass shootings, none of the defendants subsequently went on to commit a mass shooting ( Wintemute et al., 2019 ).

From an in-depth analysis of ERPO petitions and outcomes in California, Pear et al. examine the important and understudied issue of racial disparities in the use of laws intended to prevent gun violence. They present data from a 2020 survey of Californians and data from ERPO petitions in California. Black survey respondents reported ERPOs were at least sometimes appropriate 54% to 64% of the time across different scenarios. In contrast, white participants said ERPOs were at least sometimes appropriate 79% to 88% of the time. No family or household members petitioned for an ERPO for Black or Hispanic respondents. Racial disparities were also evident in ERPO respondents being arrested and legal representation in court. The Safer Communities Act of 2022 provides significant federal funding to strengthen system responses to crises and offer opportunities to improve the implementation of ERPO laws so that they are both fair and effective in preventing mass shootings as well as suicides.

Given the importance of access to firearms as a risk factor for suicide, efforts have been underway to encourage firearm retailers and gun ranges to store firearms for individuals who are having suicidal thoughts and to make gun owners aware of businesses offering this service. Barnard et al. surveyed firearm retailers and gun ranges in Colorado and Washington and report that one third of firearm retailers and ranges offered temporary, voluntary out-of-home storage of firearms ( Barnard et al., 2022 ). Most had not heard of gun storage maps in those their states. Survey respondents indicated that the ability to offer liability waivers for firearms may influence more businesses to offer temporary firearm storage services.

While most studies of policies addressing firearm violence have focused on the regulation of firearms, Rowhani-Rahbar et al. offer an important systematic review of research on the effects of income support policies on firearm violence. Each of the 4 studies identified found income support policies were associated with reductions in inter-personal firearm violence ( Rowhani-Rahbar et al., 2022 ). Researchers interested in potential policy solutions to gun violence should examine other policies that impact the economic and social welfare of those at greatest risk of involvement in violence.

Events during the Covid pandemic, widespread protests against police violence and historic surge in gun violence during 2020 helped drive efforts advocacy efforts to reform policing and promote alternatives to crisis response led by police. Ward et al. present national survey data showing broad support for funding police and mental health co-responder models for mental health crisis response, diversion from incarceration for people with symptoms of mental illness, stronger laws to assure police accountability, and funding for community-based gun violence prevention programs. Support for redirecting funding from the police to social services was more variable (White: 35%, Black: 60%, Hispanic: 43%). Using data from the same 2021 national survey, Stone et al. report broad support for most policies to restrict or regulate firearms, but support for some of these policies declined since 2019 among Republicans and among non-gun-owners.

The findings across these studies underscore opportunities and challenges for policies to reduce firearm violence. Yet much more rigorous, policy-relevant research is needed to fully understand if and how policies influence access and misuse of firearms. Public health has stressed the importance of “upstream” or supply-side policies to prevent firearm violence in large part by prevent firearm access to high-risk individuals or under high-risk conditions. A recent Supreme Court decision both expanded individuals' rights to possess firearms outside the home and created a more difficult and confusing test for determining whether a firearm restriction violates the Second Amendment. While courts previously had to consider whether a restriction on firearms was in the interest of public safety, under the new legal test, the only interest is whether or not a restriction was consistent with the text, history, and tradition of laws in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Firearm laws are likely to change and new laws and strategies will emerge to address the enormous public health problem of gun violence. Findings from this Preventive Medicine's special issue along with much other research will need to inform these efforts.

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Home > Topics > Gun Violence: The Impact on Society

Infographics

Gun Violence: The Impact on Society

Social Determinants of Health

Published on: January 16, 2024. Updated on: February 15, 2024.

This infographic explores the rapidly increasing health and economic costs of gun violence across the United States.

The number of firearm deaths grew by nearly 43% between 2010 and 2020 - reaching over 45,000 deaths by the end of the decade. Suicide by firearms have also continued to rise alarmingly. For every person who dies by firearm, more than two survive.

Gun violence is a public health problem: American Public Health Association, Gun Violence is a Public Health Crisis, 2021

42,967 total gun deaths : Gun Violence Archive, Gun Violence Archive 2023, January 2024

43% increase from 2010 to 2020 : John Gramlich, Pew Research Center, What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S., February 2022

327 people are shot each day : The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Key Statistics, December 2023

Average yearly breakdown : The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Gun Violence in the United States, December 2023

For every one person who dies by firearm, more than two survive : The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Nonfatal Gun Violence, July 2020

Expensive and long-term mental and physical injuries : Alice Miranda Ollstein and Nicholas Wu, Politico , “Health costs of gun violence exceed $1 billion a year, GAO says”, July 2021

Gun violence has significant health and economic consequences, especially among child and adolescent survivors. Gun violence can place a strain on health care systems, with survivors increasing hospitalizations and spending by 1,449% and 1,713% respectively.

Health outcomes following non-fatal firearm injury : Zirui Song et al., in Health Affairs, Firearm Injuries In Children And Adolescents: Health And Economic Consequences Among Survivors And Family Members, Vol. 42, No. 11, November 2023

Gun violence in the US has steep economic consequences, totaling $557 billion in 2022. Most significant are the quality-of-life costs, which include the value of pain and well-being lost by survivors of firearm injuries, decedents, and their families.

$557 billion - Zirui Song, JAMA, The Business Case for Reducing Firearm Injuries, 2022

Economic cost of gun violence : Everytown Research, The Economic Cost of Gun Violence, July 2022

Price Per Individual and Taxpayers : Everytown Research, How does gun violence impact the communities you care about?, 2023

Medicaid and other public programs : Zirui Song et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, Changes in Health Care Spending, Use, and Clinical Outcomes After Nonfatal Firearm Injuries Among Survivors and Family Members, June 2022

Recent studies and cost per person post-injury:

Source 1 : Zirui Song et al., Annals of Internal Medicine, Changes in Health Care Spending, Use, and Clinical Outcomes After Nonfatal Firearm Injuries Among Survivors and Family Members, June 2022

Source 2 : Zirui Song et al., Health Affairs, Firearm Injuries In Children And Adolescents: Health And Economic Consequences Among Survivors And Family Members, November 2023

Between 2018 and 2023, there was a yearly average of around 603 mass shooting events. While mass shootings are often the most publicized events, they are not the primary source of gun violence.

As of February 15, 2024, there have been nearly 50 mass shootings this year alone, resulting in 88 deaths and over 170 injuries.

656 mass shootings in 2023 : Gun Violence Archive, Gun Violence Archive 2023, January 2024

Gun violence definition : Gun Violence Archive, General Methodology, 2022

Mass shootings January 1 - December 31 (2019 - 2022) : Gun Violence Archive, Past Summary Ledgers, December 2023

Historically, mass shootings typically occur in the latter half of the year : Shayanne Gal and Madison Hall, Insider , “The US has had 214 mass shootings so far in 2022. Here's the full list.”, May 2022

Mass shootings account for less than 2% of gun deaths: Gun Violence Archive, Past Summary Ledgers, January 2024

More typical acts of gun violence: German Lopez, The New York Times , “America’s Gun Problem”, May 2022

Prior to 2020, motor vehicle accidents were consistently the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in the US. Since then, gun-related deaths have remained the leading cause of death among this age group.

In response to the number of deaths and injuries caused by motor vehicle accidents, numerous legislative steps have been taken to improve car and motor vehicle safety over time. Until recently, there had not been any widespread federal legislation in response to gun violence since 1994.

Guns are the leading cause of death for American children and adolescents : Jason E Goldstick et al., New England Journal of Medicine , Current Causes of Death in Children and Adolescents in the United States, May 2022

Note: Children and adolescents are defined as persons 1 to 19 years old.

For the first time, guns surpassed motor vehicle accidents as cause of death : Daniel J Flannery and Ruth W Begun, “Guns surpass motor vehicles as top cause of death for U.S. children: What parents should know”, Case Western Reserve University, Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences

Guns have remained the leading cause of death:

Source 1: Bailey K. Roberts et al., American Academy of Pediatrics, Trends and Disparities in Firearm Deaths Among Children, August 2023

Source 2 : The Children’s Defense Fund, The State of America’s Children, 2023 Gun Violence, December 2023

Firearm vs. motor vehicle deaths : Dan Keating, The Washington Post , “Guns killed more young people than cars did for the first time in 2020”, May 2022

Data in the above article is from the Centers for Disease Control and Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System ( WISQARS ).

Half of all gun deaths occurred in 10 states : The Children’s Defense Fund, The State of America’s Children, 2023 Gun Violence, December 2023

Breakdown of gun deaths Bailey K. Roberts et al., American Academy of Pediatrics, Trends and Disparities in Firearm Deaths Among Children, August 2023

Overall, incidents of gunfire on school grounds have been on the rise since 2013. Across the US, Texas has the highest number of gunfire occurrences on school grounds in this timeframe, resulting in 65 deaths and 88 injuries.

This year alone, there have been 25 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, responsible for over 10 deaths (as of February 15, 2024) .

At least 1,165 cases of gunfire on school grounds : Everytown, Gunfire on School Grounds in the United States, January 2024

School shootings over time : Everytown, Gunfire on School Grounds in the United States, January 2024

Only high-income country in which guns are the leading cause of child and adolescent deaths: Matt McGough, Krutika Amin, Nirmita Panchal, and Cynthia Cox, KFF, Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the US and Peer Countries, July 2023

Firearm deaths account for 20% of all child deaths : Matt McGough, Krutika Amin, Nirmita Panchal, and Cynthia Cox, KFF, Child and Teen Firearm Mortality in the US and Peer Countries, July 2023

Mental illness is often stigmatized as being the cause of gun violence. However, only a minority of mass shooters have experienced serious mental illness. It is estimated that 96% of the common violence that occurs would continue even if the elevated risk of violence among people with mental illness was eliminated.

Mental Illness is not a predictor of violence towards others : Mental Health Alliance, Gun Deaths, Violence, and Mental Health, 2022

Mental illness is not a significant risk factor for gun violence : The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Mental Illness and Gun Violence, 2020

Mental illness is blamed as the cause : The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Mental Illness and Gun Violence, 2020

Only a minority of mass shooters have experienced serious mental illness : Jennifer Skeem and Edward Mulvey, Criminology and Public Policy , “What role does serious mental illness play in mass shootings, and how should we address it?”, December 2019

People with mental illness are more likely to be victims of violence : Katie O’Connor, Psychiatric News , “Mental Illness Too Often Wrongly Associated With Gun Violence”, June 2021

Gun violence may cause mental health issues : The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Mental Illness and Gun Violence, 2020

Suicide among those with a diagnosis is rare:

Source 1 : Deborah M. Stone et al., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Vital Signs: Trends in State Suicide Rates — United States, 1999–2016 and Circumstances Contributing to Suicide — 27 States, 2015, June 2018

Source 2 : Joseph C. Franklin et al., American Psychological Association, Psychological Bulletin, Risk Factors for Suicidal Thoughts and Behaviors: A Meta-Analysis of 50 Years of Research, 2017

Increased risk of suicide with a gun in the home : Matthew Miller and David Hemenway, The New England Journal of Medicine, Guns and Suicide in the United States, 2008

Nearly half of all suicides involve a gun : Wojciech Kaczkowski et al., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Notes from the Field: Firearm Suicide Rates, by Race and Ethnicity — United States, 2019–2022, December 2023

United States rates of mental illness vs. gun violence compared to other countries : The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Mental Illness and Gun Violence, 2020

Comparison to other high-income countries : Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, On gun violence, the United States is an outlier, May 2022

Deaths per 100,000 population by country:

Source 1 : Wisevoter, Gun Deaths by Country, December 2023

Source 2 : Katherine Leach-Kemon and Rebecca Sirull, University of Washington, The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, On gun violence, the United States is an outlier, October 2023

25 times as often : The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, Mental Illness and Gun Violence, 2020

On June 25, 2022, President Biden signed the bipartisan gun safety bill. This new legislation aims to improve mental health support and school safety, restrict firearm access for domestic violence offenders, enable states to put in place laws that will allow authorities to take weapons from those deemed “dangerous,” and toughen background checks for young gun buyers.

A 2022 US Supreme Court ruling has been interpreted by lower courts in such a way as to call some of these aspects of legislation into question. Clarification on whether these and similar restrictions are Constitutionally permissible is likely to come in June 2024.

Bipartisan Safer Communities Act : Congress.Gov, S.2938 - Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, June 2022

Most significant federal legislation since 1994 : Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, Statement of Administration Policy: S.2938 - Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, June 2022

Expanded background checks, “boyfriend loophole”, red flag laws, and illegal gun purchases : Stephanie Lai and Emily Cochrane, The New York Times , “Here’s what is in the Senate’s gun bill - and what was left out.”, June 2022

Federally licensed gun dealers: Aaron Sanchez-Guerra, The News & Observer , “How the Senate’s bipartisan gun bill would affect firearm buyers and sellers in NC”, June 2022

Mental health and school safety: Kelsey Snell, NPR , “Senators reach final bipartisan agreement on a gun safety bill”, June 2022

2023 Court Rulings

New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen : Oyez, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022)

United States v. Rahimi : SCOTUS Blog, United States v. Rahimi, 61 F. 4 th 443 (5 th Cir. 2023), cert. granted 143 S.Ct. 2688 (2023)

This infographic was reviewed by:

• Paul Helmke, JD, P rofessor of Practice at Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs and Founding Director of the Civic Leaders Living-Learning Center
• Zirui Song, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Health Care Policy and Medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and Massachusetts General Hospital and Director of Research at the HMS Center for Primary Care

To learn more about covering important health care and public health topics, such as gun violence, read the recent work by NIHCM Grantee, Association for Health Care Journalists .

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After 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, many Americans are asking, yet again, how to prevent future acts of senseless violence from occurring. What gun laws need to be changed? Why is it so difficult to pass regulations? How can Second Amendment rights be balanced with firearm safety? 

Stanford scholars have been studying these issues from a range of perspectives, including law, politics, economics, and medicine. Here are some of their findings.

Update: May 25, 2022: This story was originally published on Feb. 26, 2018, and has been updated to include new content.

Causes, impacts of gun violence

Uncovering the causes of gun violence has been a challenge, in part because research is limited by federal legislation that constrains research funding on the issue. Scholar Nigam Shah at the Stanford School of Medicine has written about how this has affected empirical study. But that has not deterred scholars from examining its impacts. David Studdert, also at the School of Medicine, has studied the devastating consequences of gun violence, particularly the risks it poses to public health.  

Maya Rossin-Slater, an associate professor of medicine and a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), has also looked at the long-term impact of gun violence, specifically among American children who experienced a shooting at their school. Rossin-Slater found that they have higher rates of absenteeism, lower high school and college graduation rates, and by their mid-twenties, earn lower incomes.

Below is some of that research. 

Californians living with handgun owners more than twice as likely to die by homicide, study finds

Residents who don’t own a handgun but live with someone who does are significantly more likely to die by homicide compared with those in gun-free homes, research shows.

New study of gun violence in schools identifies long-term harms

Research from SIEPR’s Maya Rossin-Slater finds that students exposed to school shootings face “lasting, persistent” adversity in their educational and long-term economic outcomes.

Shirin Sinnar on the Buffalo shooting, hate crimes, and domestic terrorism

In the wake of the Buffalo shooting, Stanford Law School’s Shirin Sinnar discusses the scale of white supremacist violence in the U.S. and the rise of hate crimes.

Disconnect: The gap between gun violence and research in numbers

Gun violence is much discussed but little studied, largely due to federal decisions governing research funding. A new analysis highlights just how big the gap between the violence and our knowledge of it is. The answer? It’s huge.

Supporting students exposed to school shootings

Maya Rossin-Slater talks about her research into the mental health impact of severe school violence.

Panel discusses how shootings affect those unscathed by bullets

A panel of faculty members at the School of Medicine said shootings can affect the mental health of people close to the violence.

California handgun sales spiked after two mass shootings

In the six weeks after the Newtown and San Bernardino mass shootings, handguns sales jumped in California, yet there is little research on why – or on the implications for public health, according to a Stanford researcher.

Mass shootings: Public face of a much larger epidemic

While mass shootings have become the public face of gun violence, they account for less than 1% of the 40,000 firearm deaths each year.  

Short-term hospital readmissions for gun injuries cost $86 million a year

A study from Stanford researchers has found that readmissions account for 9.5% of the $911 million spent annually on gun-injury hospitalizations.

Supporting children through loss

Rabbi Patricia Karlin-Neumann talks about how to help young people experiencing grief.

Firearm injuries in children, teens costly for U.S. health care system, Stanford study finds

The average cost of initial hospitalization to treat pediatric gun injuries is about $13,000 per patient and has risen in recent decades, a Stanford Medicine study found.

Investigating psychiatric illnesses of mass shooters

Ira Glick and his collaborators studied the psychiatric state of 35 mass shooters in the United States who survived the incidents, which took place between 1982 and 2019.

The silent cost of school shootings

SIEPR’s Maya Rossin-Slater finds the average rate of antidepressant use among youths under age 20 rose by 21 percent in the local communities where fatal school shootings occurred.

New study analyzes recent gun violence research

Consensus is growing in recent research evaluating the impact of right-to-carry concealed handgun laws, showing that they increase violent crime, despite what older research says.

Handgun ownership associated with much higher suicide risk

Men who own handguns are eight times more likely to die of gun suicides than men who don’t own handguns, and women who own handguns are 35 times more likely than women who don’t.

Advice on how to cope with the threat of school shootings

Victor Carrion offers advice on how families can cope with the stress of school safety.

Reducing gun violence

Many Americans are demanding practical steps to reduce gun crime. One way is to have more stringent gun safety policies, such as legislation requiring guns to be stored safely, more stringent background checks, or as President Biden announced Tuesday, a federal ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. 

Research has shown that states with tighter policies save lives: One study by Stephanie Chao found that states with stricter gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths among children and teenagers, and states with child prevention access laws are linked with fewer gun suicides in this age group.

“If you put more regulations on firearms, it does make a difference,” said Chao, assistant professor of surgery and senior author of the study. “It does end up saving children’s lives.” Her analysis found that states with the strictest laws had a mortality rate of 2.6 per 100,000 and for states with the least strict laws, mortality rate was almost double at 5.0 per 100,000.  

John Donohue: One tragic week with two mass shootings and the uniquely American gun problem

In a Q&A, Stanford Law School gun law expert John J. Donohue III discusses mass shootings in the U.S., the challenges facing police when confronting powerful automatic weapons and the prospect of gun safety laws.

Lax state gun laws linked to more child gun deaths

States with strict gun laws have lower rates of gun deaths among children and teenagers, and laws to keep guns away from minors are linked with fewer gun suicides in this age group, a Stanford study found.

Improved gun buyer background checks would impede some mass shootings, Stanford expert says

Stanford Law Professor John Donohue says a background check system that was universal and effectively operated could impede gun acquisition by people who commit mass shootings.

How to solve more gun crimes without spending more money

Simple tweaks to how police process bullet casings could dramatically improve their forensic data.

Reducing civilian firepower would boost police and community safety, Stanford expert says

In addition to restricting the firepower a person can amass, Stanford law Professor John J. Donohue advocates efforts to build trust between communities and law enforcement agencies as a way to enhance both police and citizen safety.

Stricter gun laws reduce child and adolescent gun deaths, Stanford study finds

Laws that keep guns away from young people are especially strongly linked to lower rates of gun suicides in youth.

Gun legislation and policy

For nearly three decades, law Professor John Donohue III has studied what can be done to prevent gun violence in the United States. A lawyer and economist, Donohue explores how law and public policy are connected to gun violence, including how gun laws in the U.S. compare to other countries, as well as how legislation varies across the states, to better understand the effect that has on rates of violence. 

“The U.S. is by far the world leader in the number of guns in civilian hands,” Donohue explained . “The stricter gun laws of other ‘advanced countries’ have restrained homicidal violence, suicides and gun accidents – even when, in some cases, laws were introduced over massive protests from their armed citizens.” 

Here are some of his findings, and other research related to legislating gun safety in the U.S.

Stanford’s John Donohue on guns, mass shootings and the law in the U.S.

On Nov. 30, American students were once again the victims of a school shooting. Stanford law Professor John Donohue discusses the case and gun violence in the U.S.

How U.S. gun control compares to the rest of the world

While deaths from mass shootings are a relatively small part of the overall homicidal violence in America, they are particularly wrenching. The problem is worse in the U.S. than in most other industrialized nations. And it’s getting worse.

4 gun control steps U.S. needs now

John Donohue pens an opinion piece for CNN laying out four steps the United States should take to strengthen gun legislation.

Violent crime increases in right-to-carry states

Stanford Law School Professor John Donohue found that states that adopted right-to-carry concealed handgun laws have experienced a 13 to 15 percent increase in violent crime in the 10 years after enacting those laws.

Another mass shooting: An update on U.S. gun laws

In a Q&A, John Donohue discusses gun safety law and legislative developments.

Stanford GSE holds teach-in on research into gun violence in schools

Education scholars look at the evidence behind policy ideas to address school shootings.

Will Americans ever think differently about guns?

Stanford medicine and law professor David Studdert thinks more public health evidence is needed before cultural attitudes around gun safety and violence will change.

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Science News

Mass shootings and gun violence in the united states are increasing.

The United States is the only country with more civilian-owned firearms than citizens

Law enforcement officers look at a memorial following a mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on May 26, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and 2 adults were killed. 

Brandon Bell / Staff / Getty Images News

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By Nikk Ogasa

May 26, 2022 at 6:00 pm

On May 24, at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, 19 children and two teachers were killed by a shooter. Just 10 days earlier, a white gunman was accused of a racially motivated shooting in a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., that left 10 Black people dead. These tragic incidents are among the latest mass shootings to rattle the United States, the only country with more civilian-owned firearms than citizens .

Sadly, mass shootings — the definitions of which vary — are just a fraction of the story. In the United States, gun violence incidents are on the rise. In 2021, nearly 21,000 people were killed by firearms (not including suicides), according to the Gun Violence Archive , an online database of U.S. gun violence incidents. That’s a 33 percent increase from 2017, the year that firearm-related injuries usurped motor vehicle crashes as the most common cause of death among children and adolescents. 

In that same time frame, active shooter incidents nearly doubled. The FBI designates an active shooter as “one or more individuals who are engaged in killing or attempting to kill in a populated area.” In 2021, 61 such incidents in the United States killed 103 people. In 2017, the number of incidents was 31, though deaths totaled 143.

“I can’t think of an issue that requires more urgency and attention,” says Sonali Rajan, a school violence prevention researcher from Columbia University. “Gun violence is a solvable problem.”

Active shooters

Data collected by the FBI reveal a steady increase over the past 20 years in active shooter incidents, which the Bureau defines as “one or more individuals who are engaged in killing or attempting to kill in a populated area.”

In 2020, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health awarded a combined $25 million in grants for research on gun violence prevention, ending a 25-year paucity of federal funding in the field ( SN: 5/3/16 ). During that decades-long financial drought, research on gun violence prevention relied on funds from private foundations and state grants. 

One of the few state-funded institutions in the country is the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center at Rutgers University in Piscataway. The center conducts interdisciplinary research on the causes and prevention of gun violence, including homicides and suicides. Richard Barnes, the center’s assistant director, manages research projects that focus on suicide prevention and how social disparities relate to violence in Black and brown communities

Science News spoke with Barnes and Rajan about U.S. gun violence, ways to help reduce it and what research is needed. The following conversations have been edited for length and clarity.

SN : What recent trends in gun violence in the United States stand out to you?

Rajan: Gun violence as a problem has only gotten worse over the past several years. There are on average about 100,000 Americans who are shot with a firearm every single year and an estimated 40,000 of those individuals die from their firearm-related injuries. [These numbers include suicides.] In the last couple of years, that number has gone up. 

Barnes: In the last two years, during the pandemic, there was a significant surge in gun purchasing. And we’ve seen increasing rates of homicides and interpersonal violence in our cities across the country. 2021 was a record-breaking year, with the most gun deaths period, including suicide. It was also record-breaking in the sense that a lot of Black and brown communities throughout the country experienced a significant increase in gun violence. [According to the CDC, the nearly 35 percent increase in overall firearm homicides from 2019 to 2020 – rising from 4.6 to 6.1 deaths per 100,000 people – hit Black communities particularly hard.] 

This American problem of gun violence is significant, and I’m hoping soon that we are able to distance ourselves from this trend of increased gun violence, which is so devastating.

SN : Why is gun violence so much worse in the United States than in so many other countries?

Barnes: We have to consider our unique difference in terms of gun ownership. We have way more guns than a lot of other countries. And where you have a lot of firearms, you are going to have more gun violence. 

Gun ownership

The United States has more than twice the number of guns per 100 people than any other country, data from the Small Arms Survey show. With 120.5 firearms per 100 residents, that means there are more guns in the United States than people. 

SN : What does research suggest can help reduce gun violence?

Barnes: Again, where there are more firearms, there is more gun violence. So the first thing to consider is access to firearms. I’m not advocating that we shouldn’t have firearms, but that’s one way.

We also have violence interruption organizations ( SN: 11/4/19 ). Their role is to work locally with other organizations — a lot of times they work with law enforcement — to gather information about the effectiveness of outreach programs and do their best to prevent and intervene in those skirmishes that might lead to gun violence. We know that when those organizations run right, they can have an impact on reducing gun violence. It really focuses on and encourages investment in public safety within those communities. That’s not a cheap course of action, it takes resources. And it’s been really difficult to get those needed resources for folks in the community, and also the research.

SN : Does increasing police presence help quell gun violence? 

Rajan : Increasing police is not a solution to gun violence. There is no evidence that that works. In fact, I think it’s important to underscore that police violence is a form of gun violence. Rather than increasing funding to the police, there are a number of things that we could do, such as investing in communities and in schools in ways that are far more effective at deterring gun violence.

SN: In the wake of the Texas school shooting, there’s been talk about increasing campus security and arming teachers . Is that effective? 

Rajan: There’s actually evidence that shows that criminalizing a school space [by increasing police presence] is hugely detrimental both for children and their learning outcomes, and it also disproportionately impacts children of color in very negative ways. That to me is a really good example of our school districts investing lots of money into practices that are not doing anything productive, and may in fact be having unintended negative consequences.

In the context of schools, there are a lot of things that actually have no evidence to support their effectiveness: metal detectors, zero tolerance policies, anonymous threat reporting systems and arming teachers with firearms. There is absolutely no scientific evidence that any of these kinds of safety strategies are actually effective at deterring gun violence in a school.

Rising gun violence

In 2021, there were nearly 21,000 gun-related deaths in the United States, not counting suicides. That’s a 35 percent increase from just two years earlier, and part of an ongoing rise in U.S. firearm deaths, data from the Gun Violence Archive show.

SN : What kind of research is needed to reduce gun violence?

Barnes: [At the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center], we’re speaking to people who have owned a firearm illicitly within the last five years. Our question is very different from the criminal question, which is where you get your firearms from. That question is fine, but we’re aiming to better understand the lived experience of illicit firearm owners, to better understand why they own guns. What is it about where they live, how they live and why they think they need a firearm?

I think a lot of times, people discount the lived experience, because they start and end with the question over whether it’s legal to own guns. They don’t ask the question of whether you should own a firearm. But if you’re living in an area that’s dangerous, where people get shot, how are you going to protect yourself, your family, your loved ones? So, we’re trying to answer that question, in hopes of being able to suggest: Here’s some meaningful things that can be done.

SN : What other kinds of information can help prevent gun violence?

Barnes: Social determinants of health are the factors that either contribute or hinder communities from thriving [such as economic stability, social support, education and health care access]. There are so many similarities among communities that are struggling the most from gun violence. I think the conversation around gun violence has to include questions around how much [these social determinants] contribute to or impact what we understand about gun violence. And in particular, the increase or uptick in gun violence.

SN: What is a major misconception in gun violence prevention?

Rajan: That the solution to gun violence is entirely based on gun laws. The gun laws are an extremely important part of the gun violence prevention puzzle. But it is not the only part. We need to think about all of the ways in which we are attending to the health and well-being of children and adults. Like, why would a 14-year-old choose to carry a firearm to begin with? They fundamentally don’t feel safe and we as a society are failing our children. What are the big systemic factors that are driving this level of violence? We need to reimagine what gun violence prevention looks like. 

SN : What challenges do gun violence prevention researchers face?

Barnes: Funding is the biggest one, but also having partners on the ground is important. 

We’re a research institution, so there’s a lot of distrust that needs to be overcome when we enter a community. A lot of Black and brown communities feel like they’ve been poked and prodded, they’ve seen this before. We need to have relationships on the ground that start with trust, to figure out how we can get at some of the questions that may lead to recommendations and prevention methods that work. 

To do that, organizations on the ground need to be funded as well. Because if they go away, it makes it nearly impossible for us to penetrate those communities that have a well-reasoned fear of outsiders, in particular researchers. That’s the only way that you really get under the issue of gun violence in the community.

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The Fight Against Rampant Gun Violence: Data-Driven Scientific Research Will Light the Way

A data point will not stop a bullet, but evidence-based research grounded in reliable science is a proven pathway for addressing the gun violence crisis in the United States.

For a quarter century, studies supported by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) have made clear that multifaceted, data-driven, strategic approaches to firearms violence research have the potential to stem gun traffic, cut down on shootings, and save lives. In several communities, they have already done so.

A recent exhaustive study of motivations for gun possession and use by young people in violence-torn sections of three New York City boroughs confirms that fear and the desire for physical safety, more than any criminal inclination, drive young people to carry and use firearms. Another recent NIJ-supported study, made possible by quantum leaps in computing power, has harnessed big data to help measure the impact of socioeconomic factors and specific physical features of an urban environment—like gas stations and overgrown lots—on gun violence.

More new research has examined how delinquent youths’ firearm involvement influences later criminal gun use and their own victimization in young adulthood. And yet another recent NIJ-supported project has helped illuminate the illicit procurement path of guns used in street crimes. The vast majority of those guns come from illegal sources, and the study traced how they move through underground markets, with an eye toward refined interdiction strategies.

On many fronts, the research continues, bolstered by an influx of new federal resources responding to a national gun violence epidemic. A second straight year of surging firearms violence on U.S. streets, leaving thousands dead and many more injured, underscores the magnitude of the task of finding effective policy and practice solutions.

In response, the administration unfurled a comprehensive strategy on gun violence designed to put more police on the streets to fight crime, invest in community policing, fight the inflow of illicit weapons used in crimes, and rebuild police legitimacy and trust in the communities they serve. New initiatives are designed to better address the root social causes of crime, such as poverty, educational inequities, and the lack of jobs and training in urban communities.

Of the many program elements the U.S. Department of Justice will spearhead, a centerpiece is an enhanced Project Safe Neighborhoods (PSN). PSN brings together local, state, and federal law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and community stakeholders. The project’s purpose is to identify the most pressing violent crime issues in an area and collaborate on comprehensive solutions.

PSN is a gun violence abatement tool ready for use today because past federally backed scientific research verified its potential and identified ways to improve. The PSN model was implemented in 2001; a second version, recently adopted, incorporates findings from rigorous evaluation research on the original design. Evaluations of the original PSN model established it as a promising evidence-based crime prevention tool, while identifying areas for improvement.

Both the new insights from recent NIJ-supported research and the lessons distilled from the agency’s research archive point to the foundational role science must play in justice stakeholders’ collective response to street violence. Evidence-based research on who carries guns in high-crime areas, how they get them, and how and where they use them, as well as the personal damage done by firearms, will continue to inform real-world solutions to the gun epidemic and the needs of violence victims.

The research archive also points to the value of gun violence incident reports as a window to solutions. [1] NIJ staff scientists reviewing the archive concluded that incident review teams can significantly advance the understanding of gun violence and help law enforcement identify patterns of people, groups, places, and contexts driving that violence. That approach is particularly effective in understanding how criminal, nonfatal shootings relate to gun homicides, mainly because of insufficient administrative data on nonfatal shootings, according to the research. The lessons drawn from incident reports suggest that criminal, nonfatal shooting analyses should be part of a larger crime reduction strategy. [2] Comprehensive nonfatal shooting data can assist law enforcement in understanding the context of local gun violence and inform policy and practice, the research suggests.

For all the research progress to date, significant gaps persist. Still lacking in the NIJ-supported research literature, for instance, are theoretical generalizations about those circumstances that lead some elements of society to engage in and persist in firearms violence.

This article first selectively focuses on results of more recent gun violence research managed by NIJ, the scientific research, development, and evaluation branch of the U.S. Department of Justice. It then concisely reviews representative lessons gained from NIJ-supported firearms violence research begun in the 25 years from 1991 to 2016, highlighting scientific evaluations of the original Project Safe Neighborhoods and other program models found to be promising against gun violence. It concludes by reflecting on the lessons to be broadly drawn from both micro- and macro-level studies of gun violence. Micro-level research focuses on individuals who perpetrate crimes and victims. Macro-level studies, on the other hand, tend to point to the benefits of, and need for, high-level cross-collaborations that can drive policy and practice reforms and make a systemic impact on gun culture.

Motivations for Gun Possession and Use in NYC

Recent comprehensive research on the motivations of youth who carry and use guns in high-crime New York City neighborhoods offers compelling evidence that fear, not criminal interest, is their motivator.

The study of youth who use guns was unprecedented for a scientific study in the largest U.S. city (by population), in terms of both sample size and the extent of measures taken to build trust between subjects and community-based research staff. It was designed to address the gap in generalizable studies on youth gun culture, a traditionally hidden group.

The research, conducted by the Center for Court Innovation, with results reported in 2020, examined 330 city youth at high risk for gun violence. Subjects had to have owned or carried a gun or been shot or shot at. The study population was 94 percent Black and Latino, and 79 percent lived in public housing. A history of violent victimization was a near-universal experience among study subjects.

Through in-depth interviews of participants, the study established that most possessed or used guns out of a generalized fear of being victimized or a specific fear of retaliation. A history of violence victimization also informed the decision to carry a firearm. Many also reportedly felt a pervasive fear of the state, particularly law enforcement.

In the end, the study report concluded, most participants said they carried guns to increase their feelings of safety. “They held a widespread belief that they could be victimized at any time, and guns served to protect them from real or perceived threats from other gun carriers.”

The study’s parsing of motivations behind young people’s resorting to firearms also plainly supports a conclusion that people of limited means want the same things as people of means and resort to crime to attain them.

On the basis of their findings, the study team recommended specific approaches to working with young people to reduce gun violence. Key recommendations include

• Organizations should bring services to spaces important to youth, such as project courtyards.
• Organizations should hire credible messengers for interactions with youth.
• Community safety strategies that do not involve law enforcement should be adopted.
• Jobs should be created specifically for this youth population, with concrete pathways to jobs that pay a living wage.

Firearm Involvement in Delinquent Youth and Collateral Consequences in Young Adulthood

A team of researchers from the Northwestern University recently examined the association between firearm involvement by youth involved in the juvenile justice system and subsequent firearm violence in adulthood. [3] The research advanced the work of the federally funded Northwestern Juvenile Project, a large-scale longitudinal study of delinquent youth’s lives after detention. That study looked at the gun involvement of nearly 2,000 people who entered the juvenile justice system as adolescents in Cook County, Illinois.

The researchers found that, for the urban sample of Cook County youth who were both arrested and detained, involvement with firearms during adolescence—including victimization—is a significant risk factor for criminal firearm perpetration and ownership during adulthood. The authors concluded that there is a need for programs that target high-risk youth, in addition to targeting the neighborhoods where they live. Expanding prevention and intervention programs for individuals and communities enhances firearm violence reduction efforts when carried out by law enforcement in tandem with the public health system, researchers emphasized.

Underground Markets as a Supply Chain of Guns to People at the Highest Risk of Using Them in Violent Crimes

A study of underground gun markets examined how firearms are funneled to people in Chicago who are at the highest risk of using them in violent crimes. [4] Through the collection and analysis of several unique sources of qualitative and quantitative data, the research team from the University of Chicago Crime Lab determined the following:

• Guns confiscated by the police from gang members tend to be quite old, with an indication that they move through a series of transactions before being acquired by the current owner, according to an examination of crime gun trace data provided to the Chicago Police Department by the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Most gang guns come from out of state or through intermediaries in the underground market, including straw purchasers, brokers, and traffickers.
• Data derived from semi-structured interviews with 221 males sentenced for gun or weapons charges and incarcerated in Illinois revealed that respondents were extensively involved with guns and violence, albeit virtually none were eligible for an Illinois gun license. Most reported obtaining guns from voluntary transactions involving purchases, trades, loans, gifts, or sharing arrangements with their close and trusted social network. Theft also played a role (7 percent reported stealing a firearm). Ammunition was also mainly acquired from trusted street sources or straw purchases. Guns and ammunition are easy to obtain, the interviews established. Lastly, respondents expressed mistrust of law enforcement and unwillingness to cooperate.
• Another study component examined the details of gun transactions between first sale and last acquisition by someone who used the gun in a criminal act. The study element used structured interviews of key players in gun distribution, including gang members, gun brokers who sell guns to the public, and “gun runners” who move large quantities of guns between areas. The research found that underground gun markets may be thought of as social webs of individuals who play varied, but crucial, roles in the illegal distribution of firearms. The connections are built on familiarity and trust, with individuals often required to provide references to gain entry to the network.
• Notably, although gang cohesion in Chicago was dropping, gangs were becoming more engaged in gun distribution to both gang members and individuals not in gangs.
• Another noteworthy finding was that a resigned attitude about gun violence occurring in a community was most prevalent among those residing outside the community. Those living inside the affected neighborhoods tended to look forward to a positive social change and to actively working toward creating safer neighborhoods.
• The research team also documented the revival of a historic practice, that is, engagement of at-risk individuals in ancillary gun-related activity, such as storing weapons, providing safe spaces for gun transactions, and acting as a lookout for police. These services can enable cash-strapped individuals to obtain immediate off-the-books revenue. Nearly all subjects were unemployed or working part-time in menial jobs.

These findings, the authors concluded, suggest a fundamental shift in the ways that crime guns are acquired. In contrast to the old pattern, when guns were often purchased through federally licensed dealers, it is now very rare for a crime gun to be bought new from a gun dealer in a documented sale. [5] Because other intermediaries in the underground market are now in place—straw purchasers, brokers, and traffickers—it is important for law enforcement to focus on those groups, the research suggests, in order to reduce gang access to guns. Further, by partnering and collaborating with other key stakeholders, law enforcement could advance strategies aimed at reducing gun violence. Building trust between law enforcement and affected neighborhoods will be essential to effective collaboration, the study concluded.

The Built Environment and Gun Violence

Another significant newer study, completed for NIJ in June 2021 by the RAND Corporation, was developed to give cities a new tool for fighting firearms violence through a better understanding of commonalities among the “built environment” (gas stations, overgrown lots, bars, convenience stores, etc.), the socioeconomic traits of a neighborhood population, and violence.

The RAND team sought to build on the established fact that fatal shootings tend to be heavily clustered in urban neighborhoods. The goal was to develop insights on geospatial associations between the built environment and gun violence, a connection previously not well understood due to a lack of adequate data. Powerful new computing capacity and data-sharing capabilities enabled the research team to generate the volumes of data needed for a close analysis of many built features in relation to socioeconomic traits.

One study element of interest, identified as ripe for more research, was local perceptions by community members of the influence of the built environment and socioeconomic factors on gun violence. To that end, in each of four cities—Detroit, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh—two focus groups of community members were convened to identify those factors that the community members associate with firearm violence and general crime and that urban planners would favor preventive measures to address.

The researchers found dissimilar community views across cities on the relation to the built environment features to firearm crime. For example, participants in Pittsburgh, New Orleans, and Los Angeles discussed violence as a function of poor lighting, but those in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles also associated gun violence with broad daylight. Perceptions differed widely on a number of violence-related factors across the four cities.

There were reported common themes, however. Participants had concerns about overgrowth in lots, lack of lighting, and loitering in all four cities. Participants viewed both isolation and crowded areas as dangerous for different reasons. In all cities, participants associated activities such as prostitution, drugs, and violence with built environment features that lead to firearm violence specifically.

A key implication of the research, given the absence of specific similarities relating violent crime to the built environment, is that there will not be a one-size-fits-all solution. As a result, the research report noted, each city’s separate findings will be important when that city’s urban planners and law enforcement determine how the built environment and socioeconomic factors should inform solutions to gun violence.

Lessons from the NIJ Archive: Collaborative, Multifaceted Programs Built on Data-Driven Research Can Work

Since the 1980s, NIJ has supported scientific evaluations of the effectiveness of programs and policies to reduce firearms violence. Those programs and policies, developed for adoption or enhancement by state and local justice agencies often working with federal partners, have included the following:

• Collaborative strategic approaches to reducing violence through prevention, disruption, deterrence, or a combination of factors.
• Community-based firearm violence prevention and intervention programs.

Findings from 92 identified final study reports, including basic research and program evaluations, and related publications on firearms research supported by NIJ and initiated between 1991 and 2016, were the subject of a recent agency science staff analysis. That review broke down research focus areas by subject and assessed common themes and findings. [6]

On balance, the retrospective review revealed that the more strategic, aggressive approaches grounded in data, research, collaboration, and partnerships are implemented, the fewer instances of firearms-related crimes and homicides are reported. [7]

Challenging Stereotypes

The reviewed research primarily examined the prevalence of firearms among inner-city youth populations at the highest risk of gun violence. Final reports from relevant projects challenged then-common stereotypes regarding gun possession and use by urban youth. One persistent stereotype was the notion that juveniles arm themselves primarily because of the needs of criminal activity, drug trafficking, and gang affiliations. More often, the studies suggested, juveniles seek firearms out of fear rather than criminal need. (The newer New York City study, discussed above, substantially reinforces that conclusion, backed by unprecedented data volume and new research methods creating a critical trust factor for participants.)

An overarching theme of the reviewed scientific studies was that the gun and gang culture gripping U.S. inner cities is largely a function of the social alienation of young people. Guns, drugs, gangs, crime, and violence are all expressions of the pervasive alienation of youth from the conventions of the larger society. The NIJ reviewers also observed a common conclusion among researchers that inner-city youths’ perception of guns as necessary to survival will endure unless attention is given to conditions that promote insecurity and fear and breed feelings such as hostility and hopelessness.

The reviewed catalog of research also shows that illegally acquired firearms are disproportionately related to firearm violence in the United States, as compared to those acquired legally. A shift in the means of acquiring guns by prohibited persons has also been noted. (The newer University of Chicago Crime Lab study, discussed above, substantially reinforces that conclusion.)

Examples of Evaluated Programs That Made Inroads Against Gun Possession and Use

The archival review highlighted research-validated program successes in reducing gun possession and violent crime. A prominent example follows:

Original Project Safe Neighborhoods. Partnerships led by the U.S. attorney in each of the nation’s 94 federal judicial districts to reduce violent crimes by, among other measures, addressing criminal gangs and felony firearm possession.

In May 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a strategy to strengthen Project Safe Neighborhoods by adopting new core principles, including fostering trust and legitimacy in communities, supporting community organizations that help prevent violence, setting strategic enforcement priorities, and measuring results. The announcement emphasized that the project’s goal is to reduce crime and not to increase arrests and prosecutions, as if they were ends in themselves.

In 2012, CrimeSolutions, the online NIJ resource that rates justice system programs and practices on the basis of scientific evaluations, rated the original Project Safe Neighborhoods as “Promising.” The long-standing program has not been evaluated in more than a decade, and the program has changed significantly since then. Currently, an NIJ-funded, rigorous, national evaluation of the enhanced program, with a focus on 10 program sites, is being carried out by RTI International. The research team aims to pin down how Project Safe Neighborhoods affected violent crime across the United States, in individual districts, and in targeted enforcement areas.

Other landmark interventions evaluated through NIJ-funded projects include Operation Ceasefire, the Kansas City (MO) Gun Experiment, and Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI). Their promise for reducing gun violence has been established through rigorous evaluations. [8]

Taken as a whole, nearly 100 reports and publications populating the NIJ firearms violence research archive represent both micro- and macro-level examinations of the U.S. gun violence problem. Micro-level research examines individual needs, actions, and impacts in relation to gun violence. At the macro- or community level, research drawing from those individual findings probes the societal implications and impacts of firearms activity as a critical step toward forging collaborative programs and partnerships that can make a lasting difference.

As both the NIJ research archive and newer studies suggest, the criminal justice system is in a unique position to help prevent firearm violence by focusing on high-risk individuals in gun crime-ridden communities. Yet, decades of data-driven research instructs that the justice system must collaborate with other systems, such as urban planning, the public health system, and key community stakeholders contributing to the socioeconomic health of communities, in order to make a lasting impact on street violence.

Micro- and macro-level approaches are equally important to maintaining a scientifically sound basis for advancing gun violence policy and practice. In the end, only evidence-based science on who carries guns illegally, why they carry and use them, and how they get them can produce the answers law enforcement, the justice system, and community groups need to take clear aim at the gun violence crisis.

[note 1] Natalie Kroovand Hipple et al., “ Gun Crime Incident Reviews as a Strategy for Enhancing Problem Solving and Information Sharing ,”  Journal of Crime and Justice  40, no. 1 (2017): 50–67.

[note 2] Edmund F. McGarrell et al., “ The Importance of Nonfatal Shooting Data to Inform Violence-Prevention Policy, Practice, and Research ,”  Translational Criminology  (Fall 2019): 4–6.

[note 3] Linda A. Teplin,  Firearm Involvement in Delinquent Youth and Collateral Consequences in Young Adulthood: A Prospective Longitudinal Study , October 2019, National Institute of Justice. See, also, Linda A. Teplin et al., “ Association of Firearm Access, Use, and Victimization During Adolescence With Firearm Perpetration During Adulthood in a 16-Year Longitudinal Study of Youth Involved in the Juvenile Justice System ,”  JAMA Network Open  4, no. 2 (2021): e2034208.

[note 4] Philip J. Cook, Harold A. Pollack, and Kailey White, “The Last Link: From Gun Acquisition to Criminal Use,”  Journal of Urban Health  96, no. 5 (2019 Oct): 784–791.

[note 5] Philip J. Cook et al., “ Some Sources of Crime Guns in Chicago: Dirty Dealers, Straw Purchasers, and Traffickers ,”  Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology  104, no. 4, Symposium on Guns in America (Fall 2015).

[note 6] The aim of the agency’s historical research review was to assess what has been learned about firearms violence and to identify research gaps yet to be filled. NIJ science staff examined the content of grant solicitations as well as awards from both closed and still-open grants. Forensics and technology-related research on firearms violence was excluded. A limitation on the staff review was a lack of full access to all awards and final reports from the period.

[note 7] Key examined research reports on point are Deborah Azrael, Anthony Braga, and Mallory O’Brien,  Developing the Capacity to Understand and Prevent Homicide: An Evaluation of the Milwaukee Homicide Review Commission , January 2013, National Institute of Justice; Timothy S. Bynum, Eric Grommon, John D. McCluskey,  Evaluation of a Comprehensive Approach to Reducing Gun Violence in Detroit , February 2014, National Institute of Justice; Edmund McGarrell et al.,  Project Safe Neighborhoods – A National Program to Reduce Gun Crime: Final Project Report , April 2009, National Institute of Justice; Edmund McGarrell et al., “Project Safe Neighborhoods and Violent Crime Trends in US Cities: Assessing Violent Crime Impact,”  Journal of Quantitative Criminology  26 no. 2 (June 2010): 165–190; Wesley G. Skogan et al.,  Evaluation of CeaseFire-Chicago , June 2009, National Institute of Justice; Jeremy Wilson, Steven Chermak, and Edmund McGarrell,  Community-Based Violence Prevention: An Assessment of Pittsburgh’s One Vision One Life Program , June 2010, National Institute of Justice; Julie H. Goldberg and William Schwabe,  How Youthful Offenders Perceive Gun Violence , December 2000, National Institute of Justice.

[note 8] Evaluations of the three programs are found at these links:

• Operation Ceasefire
• Kansas City Gun Experiment
• Strategic Approaches to Community Safety Initiative (SACSI)

About the author

Basia E. Lopez is a social science research analyst in the Office of Research, Evaluation, and Technology at the National Institute of Justice. Paul A. Haskins is writer/editor with Leidos, supporting the National Institute of Justice.

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Gun Violence Research

Gun violence is a threat to public health ? in the United States. Our government should treat this epidemic like they have with other public health crises, such as car crashes, tobacco use, or measles — by funding research that can help to develop evidence-based prevention solutions. Research seeks to increase understanding of how to help effectively reduce and prevent death and injury, which can be translated into effective interventions through policy or practice. Unfortunately, compared to other diseases, very little money is spent to research gun violence. Research funding is needed to understand the scope of gun violence in all its forms, from suicides and domestic violence to community gun violence and unintentional shootings to police-involved shootings, so that evidence-based solutions can be developed. More generally, funding is desperately needed to further research the root causes and potential solutions to the gun violence epidemic. While informative research and solutions already exist, federal and state funding would fill a critical need for the advancement of this area of public health research. Government-funded public health research has contributed to reducing motor vehicle fatalities, drownings, fires, and tobacco use. We can do the same with gun violence — but only if we have the resources.

Why do we need gun violence research?

Funding public health research, federal firearms data sources, research persists, despite inadequate funding, research translation, recommendations.

On average, more than 37,000 Americans are killed by guns every year. Over the last 10 years (2009-2018), the overall gun death rate increased 18% (from 10.07 to 11.90 gun deaths per 100,000). 1 Even while this public health crisis is worsening, very little government funding for gun violence prevention research is available.

One would expect that such a serious threat to public health would be addressed by researching the causes and developing evidence-based solutions, but unfortunately, until December 2019, Congress held gun violence researchers hostage for more than two decades by refusing to dedicate funds for research.

While Congress did finally appropriate funding for gun violence research in December 2019, the amount set aside is not enough to properly study this public health crisis. Even with this funding, we still lack the resources to adequately address the country’s gun violence epidemic. Private foundations and individuals have taken it upon themselves to fund the vast majority of gun violence research in the U.S. While this private research has led to essential policy breakthroughs, there is still a huge deficit without adequate federal funding needed to truly address this public health emergency.

Sepsis kills roughly as many Americans as gun violence, yet government funding to study gun violence is only 0.7% of what is allocated to study sepsis. 2 Put yet another way, the government spends only $150 on preventive research for every gun violence death, while nearly $15,000 is spent per death from sepsis. 3

While this ratio may change slightly with the newly allocated federal funding for gun violence research, funding for gun violence still dwarfs funding for other leading causes of death.

To learn more, visit our page on gun violence in the United States .

Gun violence is a public health crisis, and we cannot expect to solve this crisis without funds dedicated to study it. On average, more than 37,000 Americans are killed by guns every year, including nearly 23,000 who die by firearm suicide, more than 13,000 who die by firearm homicide, more than 500 who die by legal intervention, 4 nearly 500 who die by unintentional firearm injuries, and more than 300 who die by undetermined intent. 5 This equates to more than 100 gun deaths every single day. Additionally, each year there are more than 71,000 emergency department visits for nonfatal gun injuries — nearly 200 every day. 9 While these nonfatal gun injuries may not make the national news, they leave lasting physical, psychological, and emotional scars.

With public health research, we can help reduce and prevent firearm injuries and deaths and translate research into effective programs and policies. This is not a new concept. Indeed, the public health approach and public health research have been used to reduce motor vehicle deaths, drownings, and fires. We can and must do the same with gun violence, but in order to do so, we need to have the resources.

While foundations and universities have funded some gun violence research, there is still a critical need for more funding. Government training grants to fund doctoral students and postdocs in gun policy research are lacking. As a result, just a few years ago, there were only about 30 dedicated gun violence policy researchers in the U.S. 10 By withholding resources to study this public health crisis, we are discouraging new researchers from studying one of the most pressing public health problems we face.

To learn more, visit our page on the public health approach to preventing gun violence . 

What do we need to research?

Gun violence is a complex, multifaceted issue. In order to understand the true burden of gun violence and its solutions, we need more research and data on:

• Risk and protective factors for all forms of gun violence — including suicides , domestic violence , community gun violence , youth gun violence, mass shootings , police-involved shootings, and unintentional gun injuries and deaths .
• Fatal and nonfatal firearm injuries , including demographic information of victims and perpetrators, type of firearm(s) used, and surrounding circumstances.
• The flow of illegal firearms and the underground gun market.
• Policies and programs that are effective in reducing gun violence (and also knowing which policies and programs perpetuate gun violence) as well as best practices for equitable implementation.

By better understanding what contributes to gun violence in all its forms, we can be empowered to craft solutions to prevent these injuries and deaths.

Reliable research is critical to understanding and implementing evidence-based policies and programs to reduce gun violence. For far too long, funding for and research publications on gun violence has been lacking. However, thanks to increasing interest in funding and research, this appears to be changing.

Funding and Research Publication for Gun Violence Versus Other Leading Causes of Death

The graph below, taken from a 2017 Journal of the American Medical Association article, shows that when looking at the 30 leading causes of death in the U.S. by mortality rate and publication volume, it is evident that the U.S. spends less money on research and publishes fewer articles on gun violence than nearly all of the other leading causes of death.

Source: Stark DE & Shah NH. (2017). Funding and publication of research on gun violence and other leading causes of death . Journal of the American Medical Association .

Take, for example, the amount of money spent on preventing motor vehicle deaths and the number of publications on this topic. Every year, over 37,000 Americans die from motor vehicle crashes — almost the same number that die from gun violence. 8

The country’s approach to preventing motor vehicle crashes has been starkly different than the approach to preventing gun violence deaths. For example, the Department of Transportation began tracking motor vehicle deaths in the Fatality Analysis Reporting System in 1975. 9 Their system records more than 100 variables related to motor vehicle crashes, including information on the crash type, vehicle type, road type, driver characteristics, and passenger characteristics. Since tracking on this public health crisis began, the rate of motor vehicle fatalities has nearly been cut in half. The reduction in motor vehicle crashes in the U.S. is considered one of the greatest public health successes.

Unfortunately, there is no similar national database for gun deaths or injuries that contains that level of detail. To tackle the problem, we must have a clear understanding of the problem itself.

The Dickey Amendment

Over twenty years ago, Congressman Jay Dickey (R-AR) authored an amendment in a 1996 spending bill which mandated that “none of the funds made available for injury prevention and control at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention may be used to advocate or promote gun control.” This has become colloquially known as the “Dickey Amendment.” 10 The amendment also reallocated $2.6 million in CDC funds that had been dedicated for firearm injury research the previous year. While the Dickey Amendment prohibits using CDC funds to advocate for “gun control,” it does not prohibit studying gun violence. However, until recently, Congress hadn’t dedicated money specifically to research gun violence at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or the National Institutes of Health (NIH) since before the Dickey Amendment was added to the 1996 spending bill.

The result has been a lack of federal funding and a chilling effect on gun violence research for the past two decades. Gun violence, as compared to other leading causes of death, was the second least funded and the least researched cause of death in the U.S. in relation to mortality rates from 2004-2015. 11, 12

Indeed, the Dickey Amendment made it so that the CDC was hesitant to study gun violence. Daniel Webster, one of the country’s leading gun violence researchers, summed it up perfectly, writing, “Clearly, at CDC 20 years ago…they got the message that if you fund research that really angers the gun lobby, you risk substantial cuts to your budget.” 13

While the Dickey Amendment is problematic, federal funds can and should still be used to research gun violence in the United States. The bigger issue at hand is that, until 2019, Congress had not made specific appropriations for gun violence research.

“When people ask me questions about gun violence and its prevention, there are inevitably questions that I cannot answer because the research needed to answer those questions has not yet been done. Unfortunately, many promising avenues of research into how to reduce nonfatal and fatal shootings have not yet been explored due to lack of funding. I implore Congress to fund gun violence research so we can answer more questions and save more lives.”

- April M. Zeoli, PhD, MPH, Associate Professor, School of Criminal Justice, Michigan State University

Government Funding for Gun Violence Becomes a Reality

For more than two decades, both the CDC and the NIH have been left with a void in their research funding for gun violence prevention. In 2019, the House of Representatives took an important step towards ending this research freeze and passed the first appropriations minibus that included $50 million to support “firearm injury and mortality prevention research” divided evenly between CDC and NIH.

Ultimately, Congress successfully included $25 million, split evenly between the CDC and NIH, to study gun violence in the Fiscal Year 2020 Budget.

While there are a number of federally government-funded data sources related to firearms, the data is considered “disordered and highly segmented.” 16 Indeed, there is no one single data source for information related to firearm deaths and injuries. According to a 2020 National Opinion Research Center (NORC) report, there are 29 federal data sources that include at least some measures related to firearms. However, each data source and database has its limitations, including the fact that there are serious lag times in reporting.

For example, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) hosts a number of national crime databases, including the FBI Supplementary Homicide Report. While the FBI Supplementary Homicide Report has numerous data variables, including data on the type of weapon used in the homicide, victim and offender age, sex, and race, and the offender’s relationship to the victim, law enforcement reporting is not mandatory.

Additionally, CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics National Vital Statistics System is an important tool for identifying data on gun deaths. However, this data source is not considered a reliable source for unintentional or legal intervention firearm deaths, as the data is considered inaccurate in many states. Further, there is usually a two year lag for reporting this data, making it hard to understand the true burden of gun violence in the United States in real time. In short, there is a critical need for more accurate data and timely reporting on gun violence in the United States.

For more information on government and private data sources related to firearms, see NORC’s “First Report of the Expert Panel on Firearms Data Infrastructure: The State of Firearms Data in 2019.”

Even during the time of lapsed federal funding for gun violence research, and despite robust, accurate, and timely data reporting, research persisted across the country to better understand the burden of gun violence in the United States. Importantly, much of what we know today about the solutions for stopping gun violence is due to the Joyce Foundation. For over 25 years, the Joyce Foundation has funded informative gun violence prevention research. When there was little private or public funding for gun violence prevention research, Joyce filled this void and sustained the field and funded hundreds of scientific publications. To learn more about the Joyce Foundation’s contributions to gun violence prevention research, see their report: 25 Years of Impactful Grant Making: Gun Violence Prevention Research Supported by the Joyce Foundation .

In addition to the Joyce Foundation’s contributions, colleges and universities are home to some of the most reputable gun policy centers. These centers, which are either state-funded or funded by private universities and foundations, continue critical research on gun policy despite barriers in federal funding. In addition, there are privately-funded collaboratives also working to understand and prevent gun violence.

To learn more about the work that these Centers and Collaboratives do, click on the resources below:

• AFFIRM Research
• Center for Gun Violence Reporting

Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy

• Cure Violence
• Duke Center for Firearms Law
• Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens (FACTS) at the University of Michigan
• Gun Violence Prevention Forum (Northwell Health)
• Harvard Injury Control Research Center
• Healing Justice Alliance
• The Health Alliance for Violence Intervention (HAVI)
• Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research (JHCGPR)
• Kaiser Permanente
• National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform
• National Network for Safe Communities
• National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research (NCGVR)
• Gun Policy in America initiative
• Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium at the Rockefeller Institute of Government
• University of Chicago Crime Lab
• University of Washington School of Public Health
• University of Virginia’s Youth Violence Project
• Urban Institute: Justice Policy Center

State-funded Research Centers and Offices:

• New Jersey’s Center on Gun Violence Research (Center) at Rutgers
• Office of Firearm Safety and Violence Prevention (Washington)
• University of California Firearm Violence Research Center (UCFC)

In addition, there are many researchers working throughout the country that conduct research on gun violence and contribute to the field without the support or backdrop of a gun violence research center. Significant progress has been made because of these researchers.

Spotlight on the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center (UCFC)

California is one of just a few states that fund gun violence research. The Firearm Violence Research Center , led by Dr. Garen Wintemute at UC Davis, was established in 2017 and is the first state-funded gun violence prevention research center in the country. 17

According to the California Firearm Violence Research Act, 18 “UCFC will conduct interdisciplinary work to address:

• The nature of firearm violence, including individual and societal determinants of risk for involvement in firearm violence, whether as a victim or a perpetrator.
• The individual, community, and societal consequences of firearm violence.
• Prevention and treatment of firearm violence at the individual, community, and societal levels.”

The Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy (Consortium) , which was co-founded and is staffed by the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, includes the nation’s leading researchers, practitioners, and advocates in gun violence prevention, public health, law, and mental health. In the spring following the horrific shooting in Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012, members of the Consortium convened for the first time to discuss research evidence and identify areas of consensus regarding risk factors for future violence. This initial meeting resulted in a commitment to advance evidence-based gun violence prevention policy recommendations through the newly formed Consortium.

Policymakers on the federal and state level have relied on the Consortium’s recommendations to craft legislation and executive action which continue to shape the policy landscape of the gun violence prevention movement.

To learn more, visit our page on the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy .

“For far too long, legislators have held gun violence researchers hostage by refusing to appropriate dedicated funds for gun violence research. As gun deaths have climbed, researchers and scientists have been limited in their efforts to research solutions to reduce American gun fatalities and injuries. It is time for Leader McConnell to take action and fund gun violence prevention research to help solve this uniquely American epidemic.”

- Dakota Jablon, Director of Federal Affairs

Research translation bridges the gap between research, researchers, and policymakers. The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence acts as a research intermediary by translating the research into effective advocacy for evidence-based policies and programs.

In order to do this, our team synthesizes and applies existing research and the best available scientific evidence to develop gun violence prevention policy recommendations to address gun violence. We inform relevant stakeholders of these policy recommendations by developing educational materials, including reports and issue briefs, conducting public forums, and submitting expert testimony.

Effective translation of research is key to disseminating policy recommendations to legislators and other important stakeholders. In addition, elevating the voices of researchers and health professionals is critical to ensuring public health policies are designed, discussed, and considered based on research and evidence. Our organization provides staff support to the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy, effectively acting as a research intermediary between researchers and policy makers.

To learn more about the Ed Fund’s role as a research intermediary, read McGinty EE, Siddiqi S, Linden S, Horwitz J, & Frattaroli S. (2019). Improving the use of evidence in public health policy development, enactment and implementation: a multiple-case study . Health Education Research .

Fund and conduct gun violence research, which is fundamental for effective gun violence prevention.

Public health is the science of reducing and preventing injury, disease, and death and promoting the health and well-being of populations through the use of data, research, and effective policies and practices. Research is the first step in the public health approach for gun violence prevention and increases understanding of the root causes, risk factors, and solutions to gun violence. These research findings can then be translated into effective interventions, whether through policy or practice. Solid data, scientific research, and funding to support such research are critical for effective gun violence prevention. We recommend:

• Better data collection : Federal, state, and local governments should collect more comprehensive gun violence data for fatal and non-fatal firearm injuries, shootings that may not involve physical injuries, police-involved shootings, and firearm-involved crimes where no shots were fired, including domestic violence-related threats. Federal, state, and local governments should make data publicly available where possible and particularly to researchers studying gun violence and its prevention.
• Conduct scientific research: Universities and other research institutions should conduct robust research on the root causes, risk factors, and solutions to gun violence in all its forms and support education and training of students in gun violence research.
• Research translation: Research should be translated and applied to ensure that gun violence prevention policies and practices are evidence-based.
• Development, implementation, and evaluation : Gun violence prevention policies and practices should be developed based on research and should be continuously monitored and evaluated to ensure equitable implementation and ongoing effectiveness. These findings then contribute to the body of evidence upon which new interventions are developed.
• Research funding : Enhanced research funding is key for advancing knowledge and improving public health interventions and outcomes. Congress should provide dedicated funding for the CDC, NIH, NIJ, and other government agencies to study gun violence prevention, while state governments should establish and fund interdisciplinary research centers dedicated to gun violence research. Foundations have long been the backbone of gun violence research; their continued support is fundamental to gun violence prevention.

Educational Materials

Fact sheets.

• Breaking Through Barriers Fact Sheet
• Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy: Breaking Through Barriers: The Emerging Role of Healthcare Provider Training Programs in Firearm Suicide Prevention
• Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy: Firearms Removal/Retrieval in Cases of Domestic Violence
• Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy: Guns, Public Health, and Mental Illness: An Evidence-Based Approach for State Policy
• Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy: Guns, Public Health, and Mental Illness: An Evidence-Based Approach for Federal Policy
• June 2019 op-ed in The Hill , Congress must vote to fund gun violence research
• Cone J, Williams B, Hampton D, Prakash P, Bendix P, Wilson K, et al. (2019). The ethics and politics of gun violence research . Journal of Laparoendoscopic & Advanced Surgical Techniques.
• Cunningham RM, Ranney ML, Goldstick JE, Kamat SV, Roche JS, & Carter PM. (2019). Federal funding for research on the leading causes of death among children and adolescents . Health Affairs. 
• Denne, SC, Baumberger J, & Mariani M. (2020). Funding for gun violence research: the importance of sustained advocacy by academic pediatricians . Pediatric Research.
• Galea S, Branas CC, Flescher A, Formica MK, Hennig N, Liller KD, et al. (2018). Priorities in recovering from a lost generation of firearms research . American Journal of Public Health.
• Jaffe S. (2020). Decisions to be made on US gun violence research funds . The Lancet.
• Jaffe S. (2018). Gun violence research in the USA: the CDC's impasse . The Lancet.
• McGinty EE, Siddiqi S, Linden S, Horwitz J, & Frattaroli S. (2019). Improving the use of evidence in public health policy development, enactment and implementation: A multiple-case study . Health Education Research .
• Stark DE & Shah NH. (2017). Funding and publication of research on gun violence and other leading causes of death . Journal of the American Medical Association.

Additional Resources

• Greenfieldboyce N. (2019). How The CDC's Reluctance To Use The 'F-Word' — Firearms — Hinders Suicide Prevention . NPR .
• Hauck G, Ellis NT, & Filby M. (2020). Congress Approved $25M in Funding for Gun Safety Research. Now What? USA Today.
• Koerth M. Congress Is Throwing A Little Money At Gun Violence Research. It Might Go A Long Way . FiveThirtyEight .
• Laslo M. (2019). The CDC Could Totally Study Gun Violence—It Just Needs Money . WIRED .
• Sanger-Katz M. (2019). Gun Research is Suddenly Hot . New York Times .
• Schumaker E. (2019). Gun Violence Researchers Find Their Field at a Crossroads . The Trace.
• Turnbell L. (2019). Gun Violence Research Matters. Here’s Why . Yes Magazine .
• Van Brocklin E. (2019). States Are Funding the Gun Violence Research the Feds Won’t . The Trace. 
• Wan W. (2019). Congressional Deal Could Fund Gun Violence Research for First Time since 1990s . Washington Post .
• Wexler L. (2017). Gun Shy . Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Magazine .

Last updated July 2020

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More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the CDC.

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens rose 50% in two years

In 2021, there were 2,590 gun deaths among U.S. children and teens under the age of 18, up from 1,732 in 2019.

About a third of K-12 parents are very or extremely worried a shooting could happen at their children’s school

Mothers are more likely than fathers to be extremely or very worried about a school shooting, and concerns also vary by race and ethnicity.

Republicans in Congress are about three times as likely as Democrats to indicate that they own a gun

At least 110 representatives and senators in the current 117th Congress have publicly stated or otherwise confirmed that they own a gun.

Abortion Rises in Importance as a Voting Issue, Driven by Democrats

While the economy remains the dominant issue in this fall’s midterm elections, the issue of abortion has increased markedly in importance. More voters continue to view their midterm vote as an expression of opposition to Joe Biden than support for him. But across both parties, more voters now say Biden is not much of a factor in their vote.

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California Today

This Is How Close We Live to Gun Violence

The New York Times mapped where and how the number of fatal shootings in the United States has grown since 2020.

By Soumya Karlamangla

Here are some alarming findings about gun violence in the United States: About one in seven Americans now live on a block near a recent gun homicide, a figure that has grown drastically since before the pandemic.

The New York Times recently mapped every gun homicide in the United States since 2020, and then drew a quarter-mile circle around the scene of each one to determine how many people lived in proximity to the killings. The total was 47 million Americans, 8.7 million more than before the pandemic — a sign of how gun violence has spread into new neighborhoods.

“There are a lot more guns on the street, and when people get angry and frustrated, instead of getting into a fistfight, they get into a gunfight,” said Dr. Regan Williams, an emergency room director at a children’s hospital in Memphis. He told The Times he had seen a surge in the number of young shooting victims.

The level of violence seems to have fallen since the worst days of the pandemic, but it’s still higher than it was before 2020. “The long-term impact of the surge in violence is being felt in many corners of the nation,” my colleagues wrote.

Read their full analysis of how the pandemic reshaped American gun violence.

The analysis includes a searchable map that shows in detail where gun violence has occurred in U.S. cities. I learned that there was a fatal shooting half a block from my apartment building in San Francisco in 2022.

The map also includes data on how many people in a city live near a recent gun homicide, and how those numbers have changed. You can explore the map here.

In California, the percentage of people living within a quarter-mile of recent fatal gun violence can vary greatly from city to city. For example, in Stockton in the San Joaquin Valley, 40 percent of residents live near a shooting, while in Riverside in the Inland Empire, a city of roughly the same size, only 15 percent do.

Here are figures for the 10 most populous cities in California, in descending order of the share of residents living near gun violence:

Oakland : 73 percent of residents live near a recent fatal shooting

Long Beach : 46 percent

San Francisco : 37 percent

Los Angeles : 36 percent

Fresno : 33 percent

Bakersfield : 28 percent

Sacramento : 24 percent

Anaheim : 21 percent

San Diego : 17 percent

San Jose : 16 percent

The rest of the news

More than 5.8 million fentanyl pills were seized by law enforcement agencies across the state from January to April, with more than 2.3 million pills seized in April alone, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office announced yesterday.

A proposed ballot initiative that would require schools in California to notify parents if their child asks to change their gender identification failed to attract enough signatures to qualify for the ballot in November, The Associated Press reported.

Southern California

Academic workers expanded their strike to U.C.L.A. and U.C. Davis yesterday, protesting the University of California system’s handling of pro-Palestinian protests on its campuses, The Los Angeles Times reports.

Bill Walton, the N.B.A. Hall of Famer who won championships in high school, college and the pros before becoming a TV commentator, died on Monday at his home in San Diego.

Central California

A former water district manager in the San Joaquin Valley pleaded guilty on Tuesday to conspiring to steal water from a federal irrigation canal and sell it to farmers and other water districts, The Los Angeles Times reported.

Northern California

David DePape, who was convicted for breaking into Nancy Pelosi’s home two years ago and beating her husband with a hammer, apologized for the attack as a judge considered a more lenient prison sentence. But the judge kept the original 30-year sentence.

The Atherton Police Department has turned about 50 homes into “bait houses” in an attempt to quell a recent spike in burglaries, NBC News reports.

A Starbucks outlet in Sacramento, the first in the region to unionize, shut down this month , The Sacramento Bee reports.

And before you go, some good news

Spending time at the beach is a staple activity for many families in the summer. Depending on the children’s ages and personalities, different beaches will appeal to different families.

The travel writer Freda Moon recently compiled for The Times a list of six beaches in the United States and Mexico that are especially good for specific beach activities, and one that made the list is Mission Beach in San Diego .

Moon wrote that Mission Beach is a sand-castle builder’s dream, offering not just the ideal type of sand for creating imaginative castles, but also castle-building lessons from the sand sculptor JT Estrela. The beach has a boardwalk amusement park, a beachfront swimming pool and several playgrounds as well.

Thanks for reading. I’ll be back tomorrow. — Soumya

P.S. Here’s today’s Mini Crossword .

Halina Bennet , Briana Scalia and Lauren Hard contributed to California Today. You can reach the team at [email protected].

Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox .

Soumya Karlamangla reports on California news and culture and is based in San Francisco. She writes the California Today newsletter. More about Soumya Karlamangla

Triggers and Consequences: Unpacking the Complex Web of America's Gun Culture and Its Violent Manifestations

 In the shadow of America’s rugged individualism, a narrative emerges of a populace perpetually on edge, where the ethos of “ready to shoot at any given moment” is not only a personal creed but a marketing mantra that fuels sales in an industry where fear and protection are inextricably linked. Gun rights advocates, like Dave Workman of the Second Amendment Foundation, speak of a “culture of preparedness,” emphasizing the role of firearms in self-defense against perceived threats. Conversely, this view is challenged by the harsh reality that often those threats are misinterpreted, leading to tragic outcomes.

The incidents of Ralph Yarl, Kaylin Gillis, and two cheerleaders mistaken for intruders and subsequently shot, illustrate a dark facet of America’s gun culture that gun control advocates argue has been spurred on by permissive self-defense laws. Such legislation, like “stand your ground” laws present in roughly 30 states, provide legal protection for individuals who use deadly force without the obligation to retreat, under the belief that they are facing a threat. This legal foundation has been scrutinized, as it arguably emboldens individuals to act with lethal force in moments of uncertainty and fear.

The consequences of such authorizations extend beyond these high-profile cases; an average of 43,375 people die from gun-related causes in the United States each year. Nearly six in 10 gun deaths are suicides. And the U.S. gun homicide rate is 26 times higher than that of other high-income countries, contributing to statistics showing that the U.S. gun homicide rate is 26 times higher than that of other high-income countries. The calls for reform echo from various corners of the nation, from epidemiologists like Gary Slutkin, who describes America’s penchant for gun ownership as a “dangerous epidemic,” to sociology professor Jonathan Metzl, who notes the natural outcome of ‘stand your ground’ laws is people misinterpreting everyday situations as threats.

In response to the visceral impact of gun violence, women governors in states that have endured mass shootings are taking legislative action. They have initiated measures ranging from extreme risk protection orders to safe storage mandates, reflecting a movement within the political sphere that is driven by personal experience and public outcry. The intertwining of personal initiative and policy-making becomes evident when Governor Kathy Hochul of New York describes her legislative push following the Topps Supermarket shooting as “deeply personal.”

On a parallel plane, the Catholic Church’s involvement in advocating for gun control and providing support for communities affected by gun violence stands as a testament to the power of compassion and moral leadership. Figures like Father Mike Murphy of Baltimore and Sister Maria Orlandini of the Franciscan Action Network embody the church’s movement to not only raise awareness but take concrete actions to promote a culture of peace. “Our goal was to get weapons off the street as much as possible,” Murphy says. “Having it in a place where somebody lost his life was a way of showing, ‘We have to do better at promoting a culture of peace.’ ”

In the larger landscape, suicides—another grim facet of gun violence—tell a tale that is often overshadowed by the immediacy of mass shootings. The alarming rise in suicides, with firearms involved in almost 55% of such deaths.

Relevant articles:

– America’s gun culture is empowering people to shoot others, even when they’re not a threat , Yahoo Movies UK, 05/29/2024

– After mass shootings shook their states, these women governors took action , The 19th*, 05/29/2024

– Suicides are at an all-time high in America. One of the best ways to reduce them is gun control , Salon, 05/28/2024

– Meet the Catholics working to end gun violence , U.S. Catholic magazine, 05/28/2024

Glad you enjoyed above story, be sure to follow TrendyDigests on Microsoft Start.

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Column: Gun violence in America is a problem and it's getting worse

Gun violence is a big problem in America because of the increasing death and injury rate.

I recently interviewed Paul Helmke from Indiana University on gun violence. Professor Helmke started getting involved with gun violence prevention in the ninth grade because one of his friends got shot due to a prank. Sadly, we are starting to see incidents like this more often because not enough is being done to reduce and prevent gun violence.

Gun violence is commonly referred to as violence including guns. To some, the term “gun violence” is incorrect because the guns aren’t harming people, the people are. Helmke describes gun violence as one of the things that impacts people in many ways. Murders, homicides, mass shootings, and suicides are all ways guns are used to harm people.

When a person is involved in gun violence, it can impact their physical and mental health. Not only is the victim impacted, but their families and friends can be affected too. Gun violence costs America about $557 billion annually , according to Everytown for Gun Safety. This amount is divided into medical, work-loss, political and criminal justice, employer and quality of life costs. Basically, America cannot afford gun violence.

In April, a shooting occurred at a bar in CityPlace Doral in Florida. The shooter was killed along with a security guard at the scene. Seven people were injured and two dead. This event shattered lots of people in the community.

The United States has the second most gun-related deaths and accidents in the entire world, according to the Gale Encyclopedia of Public Health. Events like this can affect how people act, their routines, and where they go. Gun violence affects the physical and mental health of victims and their families, but it also impacts economic growth and the natural trade that happens in the world.

Now, after reading about the gun violence that has been happening around us, you might be wondering why lawmakers and citizens aren’t pressing to start preventing and reducing gun violence more effectively. One of the reasons is because of the very rooted opinions of lawmakers and citizens, so strict gun laws aren’t able to be passed.

More downstream strategies are being put in place, such as enacting active shooter drills in schools and limiting the number of firearms for a single person, as reported by Ann Sheehan in “Gun Violence in Schools: Defining the Problem,” published in the November 2023 issue of "Pediatric Nursing." However, not enough research is being done about how to prevent gun violence and why gun violence rates are rising. While lots of downstream strategies are effective, I think we would have a better chance at preventing gun violence if more research could be done by the CDC or if more upstream strategies were put in place such as repealing the PLCAA ( Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act ) and initiating universal background checks.

Also, in the United States, the amount of guns is more than the entire population, children included. Spreading information on the risks and consequences of gun violence is extremely important to stop more shootings, murders, homicides, and suicides from happening in the future.

Gun violence is a big problem, and I hope that more people can see how it affects people and their communities. America cannot continue paying for all the damage guns cause, and our only hope is to start taking action now. We need to keep working to prevent and reduce gun violence so that future generations to come do not have to worry about this issue the same way we do now.

Kanaco Kitano is a student going into middle school in MCCSC.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Columnist hopes more research, education can curtail gun violence

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