an essay on gun violence

Gun Violence - Essay Samples And Topic Ideas For Free

Gun violence refers to acts of violence committed with the use of firearms. Essays might discuss the causes and consequences of gun violence, the debate around gun control policies, the impact of gun violence on communities, and comparisons of gun violence and gun control measures across different countries. A substantial compilation of free essay instances related to Gun Violence you can find at PapersOwl Website. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

Solutions to Gun Violence

Firearms are one of the most debated issues in the United States. On the one hand are the people who demand and require more strict control in the possession and distribution of guns, and on the other side are the people who pressure the government to keep the laws as they are. Buying a gun in this country takes less than an hour. It is very sad how an individual can purchase a gun easily. It is unhappy because some […]

Gun Violence and Gun Control

Gun violence in America is a never-ending series of tragedy after tragedy, mass-shooting and the one of the constant social problem in United State. Many innocent lives have been taken to gun violence from Sandy Hook elementary, Pulse nightclub in Orlando, 2017 Las Vegas, Columbine High School, and all of that violence has been increasing. The Second Amendment, the right of the people to bear arms, has given the individual to own a gun, but many have abused the power […]

The Gun Problem in America

Introduction As stated in the Social Problems textbook, “Social problems: Continuity and change”, “A social problem is any condition or behavior that has negative consequences for large numbers of people and that is generally recognized as a condition or behavior that needs to be addressed” (2015). As a result, I decided to discuss the social problem of the second amendment. Since the founding of the United States of America, the right to bear arms has always been a hot button […]

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Examining the Deep Impact of U.S. Gun Violence on American Society

U.S. gun violence has had put a struggle on american living and the quality of it. Its put America into a spiral of fear, a lot of people don't know the extent of how its effecting are lives and the way we live. Schools have built there security, airports and all other large businesses and or public businesses have also done the same. Laws have been getting stricter and stricter but simply some people just dont listen and obey those […]

The Problem of the Gun Violence

In success central, I attended a small breakout session about gun violence. At first, I thought this breakout session was going to be over gun control and politics but it was more in depth. The session was about how a victim truly feels after being affected by gun violence. Some of the statistics that I learned at the session is, gun-related deaths are now the third leading cause of death for American children. One of the main reasons i enjoyed […]

Should Teachers Carry Guns

Over the past several years there have been mass shootings in America that has struck the feelings of many Americans. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, extended family, and strangers have all been affected by the victims of shootings at Aurora, Colorado, Columbine High school, and Sandy Hook Elementary school. Because of these tragedies, U.S. citizens have become more involved and interested in gun control and prevention of gun violence. Gun Control is a controversial issue that many people have different views […]

Why Gun Violence Increasing

Gun violence has had a drastic increase over the years, leaving the United States desperate for laws to be implemented concerning the well-being and safety of citizens. Terrifying events surrounding gun violence have left researchers with no option but to investigate gun laws and regulations. Only some states require permits in order to purchase a firearm and background checks are required by federal law to anyone purchasing a gun as well. A citizen at the age of 21 is legal […]

Mental Health Screenings and the Effect on Gun Violence

Historically speaking, guns were used for hunting and for protection. In the late 1700's, the Revolutionary War began from Britain's pursuit to take away the colonists weaponry and oppress them. Lexington and Concord was the beginning of the fight for freedom. When Britain surrendered at Yorktown in 1781, the colonists had won their independence. The first constitution called the Articles of Confederation was ratified by all thirteen colonies in 1781 and was in place until 1789 when the U.S Constitution […]

Gun Control Vs Gun Rights

In the U.S, there is a lot of controversy about gun control laws. There are protests, arguments, and laws that not many agree with because it does not support their Second Amendment rights. What truly did the Founding Fathers mean by the Second Amendment? Pro-gun supporters believe it was meant for individuals to have access to guns while gun control supporters believe it was for trained officials. Many people are trying to find a solution on how it should be […]

Combating Gun Violence

A school shooting is an attack at an educational institution, such as a school or university, involving the use of firearms. The first recorded school shooting in the United States took place in 1840, when a law student shot and killed his professor at the University of Virginia. Despite that crime rates in the United States are declining, and homicide specifically is especially rare, many people believe that school shootings are becoming epidemic, occurring more frequently than the have in […]

Students Protest and Addresses Gun Violence

A schools' biggest fear is having a shooter come onto campus. There has been so many incidents on the news that people are trying to find solutions for this issue. Students need to feel safe while they are learning. I have found three articles of school shootings that go into detail about what took place on those days. Each author has had an interesting stand-point about what should happen next. In this paper, i will be comparing the authors perspective […]

The Second Amendment – Firearm Legislation

Americans are being murdered at unprecedented rates and little action has been attempted to prevent similar events from reoccurring. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, ninety-six Americans die by firearms every day (The Editorial Board). Ninety-six lives end because of a bullet. It is unethical and immoral for that many people to perish, and for there to be little change made. Unfortunately, legislators can not just simply change firearm laws due to the long-standing and well-respected second […]

The State of Gun Violence in the US

Gun violence in today's America has become routine and common. This violence causes a surprising number of deaths and injuries throughout the United States. The main lethal weapon used to take part in violence is the gun. That's one of the reason why stricter gun control policy is needed to make it impossible to own a gun for those who should not own them in the first place. Taking such action could make our neighborhood is a safer place to […]

Stop Gun Violence

Guns in America are ruining our society. Watch the news any day and you will most likely see either a school shooting ora shooting at some type of gathering. For some children going to school is horrifying because they are extremely disturbed by the school shootings that are going in our society. Children as young as kindergarten are learning how to act in the case of a school shooting. Yet, guns are killing innocent people by being able to have […]

Understanding Gun Violence

Almost each and every other year there gets to be cases and more cases related to gun violence where from one point one gets to hear about some suicide by gun, some forceful assaults, some kind of accidental occurrences with a gun and many more. With the unending rising cases linked to the same, there still is quite a lot to be looked at especially when trying to cover the same situation and be able to make sure that one […]

Gun Violence and the Second Amendment

According the Cornell Law Studies Institute, the second amendment states, "A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." The Second Amendment of the constitution is one of the most misunderstood and confusing sentences in the history of America. The 27-word sentence has a partial collectivist ora while still maintaining the individualistic right to keep and bear arms. Before discussing the reasons behind […]

The Problem of Mass Shootings

Mass shootings are problematic, because they are getting more deadly and more frequent. Mass shootings are defined as a single shooting incident which kills or injures four or more people, including the assailant/shooter ("Guns in the US: The Statistics"). Mass shootings have been shown to be contagious, meaning that a mass shooting one day increases the likelihood of others in the following days (Leatherby). Five of the eighteen most lethal shootings in America since 1949 have occured between 2007 and […]

Gun Violence Prevention

The right to own a gun is established as the Second Amendment in the United States Constitution. Though this right is guaranteed, our country’s relationship with guns is a tumultuous one. Gun laws vary by each state, for instance California gun laws states that, “An application for sale or transfer must be made with a licensed California gun dealer before any firearm may be sold or transferred. The purchaser must present the dealer with a valid California Driver’s License or […]

How the Government Can Decrease Gun Violence

There should be more gun control laws to control gun violence. The debate on gun control in America has been up for deliberation for decades. Almost forty thousand people are killed each year due to homicidal, accidental, and suicidal use of guns (Politics 7). Despite the fact that America has approximately twenty thousand gun laws, there are still often occurring crime due to gun violence. To fix this problem, the government should enforce stricter background checks for all gun sales, […]

Impact of Gun Violence

The constitution of America has various amendments that provide many kinds of leverage to its people, like right to vote, right to speech etc. Among them, one of the most controversial amendment is Second Amendment which gives people right to bear weapons like gun, for their safety. Safety is one of the basic needs of people and they should be provided to the people. However, the word 'safety' is a critical term here; is it really safe to have people […]

How to Change the Gun Violence Situation in the US

In the United States, the number of cases of gun violence have increased tremendously. The reason why these numbers have been so high is because guns have been made easily accessible to the general public. The implications that gun violence has had on the country are so damaging that it is time that the American government come up with ways in which the availability of guns to the American citizens can be restrained. Due to the gun violence situation; people […]

The Las Vegas Shooting, Gun Control and American Violence

The night of October 1, 2017 at the Route 91 Harvest festival in Las Vegas was interrupted by the sound of gun fire that was opened by a gunman from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino (Time, 2017). As Time reported, in this massive shooting, which went on for 10-15 minutes at about a crowd of 20,000 people, more than 500 people were injured and at least 50 people were killed (Time, 2017). With this tragic […]

The Question of Gun Violence

The first step in solving a problem is recognizing there is one (Mcavoy). America is a country overflowing with individuals holding a great sense of nationalism and pride. Many of these individuals remark that America is the greatest country in the world. This statement is direct, and it takes a stand that no other country is as great as America. Although the United States has many aspects that are great, gun violence is a rising issue holding back the country. […]

Gun Violence in Parkland Florida

There are over thirty thousand deaths a year in the United States related to gun violence with Americans using guns for defensive purposes as many as a million times every year. These deaths are a result of suicides, homicides and accidents. It is evident that gun violence and gun control are issues of serious national importance and are worth debating. The main issues and arguments found in the debate over gun control in the United States have not changed a […]

Public Health Solutions: Gun Violence

Gun violence accounts for approximately 35,000 deaths and 89,600 injuries annually in the United States (Gun Violence in America, 2018). It consists of both intentional and unintentional assault, domestic and family violence, law enforcement intervention, homicide, suicide, self-harm, and undetermined causes (Gun Violence in America, 2018). According to Santhanam (2018), in 2016 the United States ranked second in gun-related deaths, after Brazil and before India. Gun violence is a prominent issue in American society and is certainly a public health […]

Reducing School Gun Violence in New Mexico

School gun violence in the United States is on the rise. Since 2014 there have been an average of five school shootings per month. Since Sandy Hook in 2012, there have been at least 239 school shootings nationwide. In these school shootings 438 were shot, and 138 were killed, and 16 shootings were classified as where 4 or more people were shot. (Preventing School Violence: Assessing Armed Guardians, School Policy, and Context.) More people, including students and teachers, were killed […]

The Problem of Gun Politics in the United States

The Brady campaign to prevent gun violence states every day 8 children and teens die from gun violence, 4 are murdered, 3 die from suicide and 1 killed unintentionally. Every day 39 children and teens are shot and survive, 31 injured in an attack, 1 survives a suicide attempt and 7 shot unintentionally Not only is the 2nd amendment giving access to have a gun to protect ourselves, it is giving others access to commit violent crimes that involve a […]

Gun Violence in America

The issue of gun violence has attracted a heated debate in the US. With time, people have advanced significantly in gun availability and the power to buy military-style firearms, which has led to more likelihood of criminals getting guns that they can use for mass destruction. Yet, burning gun ownership can be a significant issue since most civilians who buy firearms do so to ensure their protection and safety. Many supporters of gun ownership postulate that firearms do not kill, […]

Why does Drug Trafficking Cause Gun Violence

There is a strong relationship between drug trafficking, drug use, and gun violence. The research attempts to come up with a solution for the research question why does drug trafficking cause gun violence. Most youths have been involved in the use of drugs like marijuana, stimulants, hallucinogens, crack cocaine, heroin, and cocaine hence being involved in violence including gun violence (Johnson, Golub, Dunlap, 2000) This research will play a major role in improving academic research, sow the existing causal effect […]

Gun Violence in America: who is to Blame?

Too often, when you raise the issue of guns in this country, it starts a debate with both sides pointing the blame at each other. In the middle, we hear the voices of children who’ve witnessed the killing of their friends and teachers and who are sounding out for action. The question is, will we listen to them? Will we care enough to do something? Horrific tragedies like the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School a little under a […]

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How To Write an Essay About Gun Violence

Introduction to the issue of gun violence.

Gun violence is a pressing issue in today's society, affecting countless lives and communities. When setting out to write an essay on this topic, it's crucial to first establish a comprehensive understanding of what gun violence entails. This involves not just looking at the statistics and incidents of shootings, but also understanding the various forms of gun violence – from mass shootings to domestic incidents and suicides. The introduction of your essay should present the topic's relevance and urgency, outlining the scope of the issue and its impact on society. This stage is about laying the groundwork for your argument, identifying the key aspects of gun violence that you will explore in the rest of your essay.

Developing Your Argument

The body of your essay should be dedicated to developing a well-structured argument. Start by defining your thesis statement clearly. What aspect of gun violence are you focusing on? Are you examining its causes, the effectiveness of gun control laws, or the societal impact of gun-related incidents? Each paragraph should tackle a specific point that supports your thesis, with evidence and examples to back up your claims. This might include data on gun violence rates, analysis of legislation and its effectiveness, or case studies of particular incidents. It's also important to consider and address counterarguments, as this demonstrates a thorough understanding of the topic and strengthens your own position.

Ethical and Societal Implications

An essay on gun violence should also delve into the ethical and societal implications of the issue. This is where you can explore the broader context of gun violence, such as its impact on public health, the ethical debates surrounding gun ownership and rights, and the societal factors that contribute to the prevalence of gun violence. Discuss the balance between individual rights and public safety, the role of mental health, and the impact of cultural and societal norms around guns. This part of the essay challenges readers to think beyond the immediate effects of gun violence and consider the larger societal structures that enable it.

Concluding the Discussion

In your conclusion, bring together all the threads of your argument, reaffirming your thesis and summarizing the key points you've discussed. This is your opportunity to leave a lasting impression on the reader. You might want to reflect on the broader implications of gun violence for future societal and legislative changes. Suggest possible solutions or areas for further research, and encourage your readers to think critically about their stance on gun violence. A strong conclusion will not only wrap up your essay neatly but will also provoke further thought and discussion on this critical issue.

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5 Essays about Gun Violence

Gun violence impacts every part of society. There are certain places in the world where it’s more prevalent. According to a 2018 report, the United States had the 28th highest rate of gun violence deaths in the world. That puts the US above other wealthy countries. Gun violence is also a major issue in places like the Caribbean, Central America, and Venezuela. Here are five essays that address the financial and emotional impact of gun violence, how people use art to cope, and how the problem can be addressed.

“What Does Gun Violence Really Cost?”

Mark Follman, Julia Lurie, Jaeah Lee, and James West

This article opens with the story of a woman and her fiance shot on their way to dinner. After being close to death and staying in a hospital for five months, Jennifer Longdon couldn’t move her body from the chest down. After more hospitalizations, the bills got close to $1 million in just the first year, forcing her to file for personal bankruptcy. More expensive hospital stays followed for problems like sepsis, while wheelchair modifications for her house added up, as well.

For many people, their knowledge of gun violence comes from the news or movies. These venues tend to focus on the moment the violence occurs or the emotional impact. The long-term financial consequences as a result of health issues are less known. This article examines the existing data while telling a personal story.

“I Think of People Who Died At Sandy Hook Every Day”

Mary Ann Jacob

In this essay from 2016, Mary Ann Jacob remembers the horrific elementary school shooting from 2012. She worked at the library at the time and recalls hearing shouting from the intercom on the morning of December 14. Believing someone had pushed it by mistake, she called in, only to have the secretary answer the phone and shout, “There’s a shooter!” Mary Ann Jacob lived through one of the deadliest school shootings in US history. The essay goes on to describe what happened after and the steps survivors took to advocate for better gun control.

“You May Not See Me On TV, But Parkland Is My Story, Too”

Kyrah Simon

In 2018, a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killed 17 students and wounded 17 others. Several students became vocal afterwards, challenging the lack of gun control in the face of such violence. They founded an advocacy group and many of the young people became household names. Kyrah Simon, a senior at the school, lost one of her best friends. She also wanted to speak up and share her story but realized that the media wanted certain speeches, certain faces. She writes, “I was just a girl that lost her friend. And it wasn’t enough.” Raw, honest, and enlightening, this personal essay is a must-read.

“Mexican Artist Transforms 1,527 Deadly Guns Into Life-Giving Shovels To Plant Trees”

In Culiacan, Mexico, the city with the highest rate of deaths by gun violence in the country, an artist and activist began a special project. Pedro Reyes used local media and TV ads paid for by the city’s botanical garden to advertise his gun-trading project. In exchange for bringing their weapons, people received electronics and appliances coupons. Reyes made over 1,500 trades. What came next? The guns were crushed by a steamroller and melted down. Reyes used the material to create shovels. He made the same number of shovels as guns, so each gun was represented as something new.

Turning guns into art is not an uncommon action. Reyes has also made instruments while other artists make sculptures. The transformation of an object of death into something that plays a part in fostering life – like planting trees – sends a powerful message.

“Forum: Doing Less Harm”

David Hemenway

What is the best approach to gun violence? David Hemenway, a professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center and Harvard Youth Violence Prevention Center, advocates for a public-health approach. He believes gun violence is a public-safety problem and a problem-health problem, but gun lobbyists dismiss both claims. The gun lobby focuses on the shooter – the individual – so attention is diverted from the firearms industry. In focusing so much on who to blame, prevention is left out of the equation.

A public-health approach returns the attention to prevention and asks everyone to work together on the issue. Hemenway uses motor-vehicle injury prevention as a blueprint for why gun violence prevention can work. Not sure what prevention could look like? Hemenway provides examples of how actors like healthcare workers, consumers, and the federal government can work together.

Learn about the consequences of gun violence in America and which interventions are most effective to reduce gun violence in homes, schools and communities!

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About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

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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 Control Essay: Important Topics, Examples, and More

Gun Control Definition

Gun control refers to the regulation of firearms to reduce the risk of harm caused by their misuse. It is an important issue that has garnered much attention in recent years due to the increasing number of gun-related incidents, including mass shootings and homicides. Writing an essay about gun control is important because it allows one to explore the various aspects of this complex and controversial topic, including the impact of gun laws on public safety, the constitutional implications of gun control, and the social and cultural factors that contribute to gun violence.

In writing an essay on gun control, conducting thorough research, considering multiple perspectives, and developing a well-informed argument is important. This may involve analyzing existing gun control policies and their effectiveness, exploring the attitudes and beliefs of different groups towards firearms, and examining the historical and cultural context of gun ownership and use. Through this process, one can develop a nuanced understanding of the issue and propose effective solutions to address the problem of gun violence.

Further information on writing essays on gun control can be found in various sources, including academic journals, policy reports, and news articles. In the following paragraphs, our nursing essay writing services will provide tips and resources to help you write an effective and informative guns essay. Contact our custom writer and get your writing request satisfied in a short term.

Gun Control Essay Types

There are various types of essays about gun control, each with its own unique focus and approach. From analyzing the effectiveness of existing gun laws to exploring the cultural and historical context of firearms in society, the possibilities for exploring this topic are virtually endless.

Let's look at the following types and examples from our essay writing service USA :

• Argumentative Essay : This essay clearly argues for or against gun control laws. The writer must use evidence to support their position and refute opposing arguments.
• Descriptive Essay: A descriptive essay on gun control aims to provide a detailed topic analysis. The writer must describe the history and evolution of gun laws, the different types of firearms, and their impact on society.
• Cause and Effect Essay: This type of essay focuses on why gun control laws are necessary, the impact of gun violence on society, and the consequences of not having strict gun control laws.
• Compare and Contrast Essay: In this type of essay, the writer compares and contrasts different countries' gun laws and their effectiveness. They can also compare and contrast different types of guns and their impact on society.
• Expository Essay: This type of essay focuses on presenting facts and data on the topic of gun control. The writer must explain the different types of gun laws, their implementation, and their impact on society.
• Persuasive Essay: The writer of a persuasive essay aims to persuade the reader to support their position on gun control. They use a combination of facts, opinions, and emotional appeals to convince the reader.
• Narrative Essay: A narrative essay on gun control tells a story about an individual's experience with gun violence. It can be a personal story or a fictional one, but it should provide insight into the human impact of gun violence.

In the following paragraphs, we will provide an overview of the most common types of gun control essays and some tips and resources to help you write them effectively. Whether you are a student, a researcher, or simply someone interested in learning more about this important issue, these essays can provide valuable insight and perspective on the complex and often controversial topic of gun control.

Persuasive Essay on Gun Control

A persuasive essay on gun control is designed to convince the reader to support a specific stance on gun control policies. To write an effective persuasive essay, the writer must use a combination of facts, statistics, and emotional appeals to sway the reader's opinion. Here are some tips from our expert custom writer to help you write a persuasive essay on gun control:

• Research : Conduct thorough research on gun control policies, including their history, effectiveness, and societal impact. Use credible sources to back up your argument.
• Develop a thesis statement: In your gun control essay introduction, the thesis statement should clearly state your position on gun control and provide a roadmap for your paper.
• Use emotional appeals: Use emotional appeals to connect with your reader. For example, you could describe the impact of gun violence on families and communities.
• Address opposing viewpoints: Address opposing viewpoints and provide counterarguments to strengthen your position.
• Use statistics: Use statistics to back up your argument. For example, you could use statistics to show the correlation between gun control laws and reduced gun violence.
• Use rhetorical devices: Use rhetorical devices, such as metaphors and analogies, to help the reader understand complex concepts.

Persuasive gun control essay examples include:

• The Second Amendment does not guarantee an individual's right to own any firearm.
• Stricter gun control laws are necessary to reduce gun violence in the United States.
• The proliferation of guns in society leads to more violence and higher crime rates.
• Gun control laws should be designed to protect public safety while respecting individual rights.

Argumentative Essay on Gun Control

A gun control argumentative essay is designed to present a clear argument for or against gun control policies. To write an effective argumentative essay, the writer must present a well-supported argument and refute opposing arguments. Here are some tips to help you write an argumentative essay on gun control:

• Choose a clear stance: Choose a clear stance on gun control policies and develop a thesis statement that reflects your position.
• Research : Conduct extensive research on gun control policies and use credible sources to back up your argument.
• Refute opposing arguments: Anticipate opposing arguments and provide counterarguments to strengthen your position.
• Use evidence: Use evidence to back up your argument. For example, you could use data to show the correlation between gun control laws and reduced gun violence.
• Use logical reasoning: Use logical reasoning to explain why your argument is valid.

Examples of argumentative essay topics on gun control include:

• Gun control laws infringe upon individuals' right to bear arms and protect themselves.
• Gun control laws are ineffective and do not prevent gun violence.

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How to Choose a Good Gun Control Topic: Tips and Examples

Choosing a good gun control topic can be challenging, but with some careful consideration, you can select an interesting and relevant topic. Here are seven tips for choosing a good gun control topic with examples:

• Consider current events: Choose a topic that is current and relevant. For example, the impact of the pandemic on gun control policies.
• Narrow your focus: Choose a specific aspect of gun control to focus on, such as the impact of gun control laws on crime rates.
• Consider your audience: Consider who your audience is and what they are interested in. For example, a topic that appeals to gun enthusiasts might be the ethics of owning firearms.
• Research : Conduct extensive research on gun control policies and current events. For example, the impact of the Second Amendment on gun control laws.
• Choose a controversial topic: Choose a controversial topic that will generate discussion. For example, the impact of the NRA on gun control policies.
• Choose a topic that interests you: You can choose an opinion article on gun control that you are passionate about and interested in. For example, the impact of mass shootings on public opinion of gun control.
• Consider different perspectives: Consider different perspectives on gun control and choose a topic that allows you to explore multiple viewpoints. For example, the effectiveness of background checks in preventing gun violence.

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Pro-Gun Control Essay Topics

Here are pro-gun control essay topics that can serve as a starting point for your research and writing, helping you to craft a strong and persuasive argument.

• Stricter gun control laws are necessary to reduce gun violence in America.
• The Second Amendment was written for a different time and should be updated to reflect modern society.
• Gun control and gun safety laws can prevent mass shootings and other forms of gun violence.
• Owning a gun should be a privilege, not a right.
• Universal background checks should be mandatory for all gun purchases.
• The availability of assault weapons should be severely restricted.
• Concealed carry permits should be harder to obtain and require more rigorous training.
• The gun lobby has too much influence on government policy.
• The mental health of gun owners should be considered when purchasing firearms.
• Gun violence has a significant economic impact on communities and the nation as a whole.
• There is a strong correlation between high gun ownership rates and higher gun violence rates.
• Gun control policies can help prevent suicides and accidental shootings.
• Gun control policies should be designed to protect public safety while respecting individual rights.
• More research is needed on the impact of gun control policies on gun violence.
• The impact of gun violence on children and young people is a significant public health issue.
• Gun control policies should be designed to reduce the illegal gun trade and access to firearms by criminals.
• The right to own firearms should not override the right to public safety.
• The government has a responsibility to protect its citizens from gun violence.
• Gun control policies are compatible with the Second Amendment.
• International examples of successful gun control policies can be applied in America.

Anti-Gun Control Essay Topics

These topics against gun control essay can help you develop strong and persuasive arguments based on individual rights and the importance of personal freedom.

• Gun control laws infringe on the Second Amendment and individual rights.
• Stricter gun laws will not prevent criminals from obtaining firearms.
• Gun control laws are unnecessary and will only burden law-abiding citizens.
• Owning a gun is a fundamental right and essential for self-defense.
• Gun-free zones create a false sense of security and leave people vulnerable.
• A Gun control law will not stop mass school shootings, as these are often premeditated and planned.
• The government cannot be trusted to enforce gun control laws fairly and justly.
• Gun control laws unfairly target law-abiding gun owners and punish them for the actions of a few.
• Gun ownership is a part of American culture and heritage and should not be restricted.
• Gun control laws will not stop criminals from using firearms to commit crimes.
• Gun control laws often ignore the root causes of gun violence, such as mental illness and poverty.
• Gun control laws will not stop terrorists from using firearms to carry out attacks.
• Gun control laws will only create a black market for firearms, making it easier for criminals to obtain them.
• Gun control laws will not stop domestic violence, as abusers will find other ways to harm their victims.
• Gun control laws will not stop drug cartels and organized crime from trafficking firearms.
• Gun control laws will not stop gang violence and turf wars.
• Gun control laws are an infringement on personal freedom and individual responsibility.
• Gun control laws are often rooted in emotion rather than reason and evidence.
• Gun control laws ignore the important role that firearms play in hunting and sport shooting.
• More gun control laws will only give the government more power and control over its citizens.

Example Essays

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Final Words

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Daniel Parker

is a seasoned educational writer focusing on scholarship guidance, research papers, and various forms of academic essays including reflective and narrative essays. His expertise also extends to detailed case studies. A scholar with a background in English Literature and Education, Daniel’s work on EssayPro blog aims to support students in achieving academic excellence and securing scholarships. His hobbies include reading classic literature and participating in academic forums.

is an expert in nursing and healthcare, with a strong background in history, law, and literature. Holding advanced degrees in nursing and public health, his analytical approach and comprehensive knowledge help students navigate complex topics. On EssayPro blog, Adam provides insightful articles on everything from historical analysis to the intricacies of healthcare policies. In his downtime, he enjoys historical documentaries and volunteering at local clinics.

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How do we stop gun violence in America?

Johns hopkins experts suggest steps the u.s. can take to address the epidemic of mass shootings in the u.s..

By Amy Lunday

N ot again.

It's the crushing thought so many of us had in the days following the latest, horrifying mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 children and two teachers were gunned down in an elementary school—just 10 days after another gunman killed 10 people in a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. In both cases, the shooters were 18-year-old men.

Why does this keep happening and what can we do to make sure it never happens again? The Hub reached out to experts from across Johns Hopkins University for their thoughts on those questions and on how the U.S. can address what seems to be a uniquely American problem.

Make it harder to turn violent thoughts into violence

Paul Nestadt , assistant professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a core faculty member at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions

I t is becoming far too common for us to use "far too common" to describe these shootings. Tuesday's gun violence in Texas was a redundant reminder of our continued failure to pass meaningful firearm law reform. Research from our Center for Gun Violence Solutions has demonstrated that permits to purchase , child access protection laws , and extreme risk protection orders all reduce the likelihood of firearm deaths. Lessening casual access to dangerous firearms has been repeatedly shown to decrease rates of suicide and homicide, of which this incident was arguably both.

There is much we can do to address the contributors to violent thoughts, including addressing poverty, broadening access to mental health care, and strengthening supportive networks. But violent thoughts are not unique to America. America suffers more shootings because it is so much easier for even fleeting violent thoughts here to be immediately translated into deadly action thanks to easy access to military grade weaponry. That is a problem we must demand that our legislators address.

More police in schools doesn't solve the problem of easy access to guns

Odis Johnson , executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of social policy and STEM equity. He is a leading researcher of social inequity in America.

S chool safety policy has not slowed the occurrence of school shootings in the United States. Policymakers have allocated more tax dollars to hire more school police after each school shooting. Yet the National Center for Education Statistics reports the number of school shootings with injuries or fatalities has increased steadily for the last seven years. Law enforcement on school grounds is not an effective policy response to the kind of tragedy that occurred in Uvalde, Texas.

Instead of addressing the problem of easy access to guns, lawmakers have increased the placement of law enforcement within our schools. This has led to higher rates of school arrest for minor school disturbances and made many of our young people feel like suspects instead of students. Our research shows students who attend schools that rely on law enforcement and other means of surveillance have lowered test score performances and rates of college attendance relative to students in other schools with similar social background characteristics. Knee-jerk school police policies have not ended school shootings, and may have undermined achievement in U.S. schools.

While NCES data show a 10-year decline in reports of students with weapons at school , rates of gun-related injury and death have increased over the last seven years and are currently higher than they have ever been recorded.

Gun access remains high in the general public. The high number of guns in the U.S. increases the likelihood that young people will access them illegally. Schools and their students are not isolated from the impact and problems associated with the abundance of guns in their homes and communities. Making schools safer requires policymakers to address how young people access firearms. This can be achieved with biometric fingerprint locks for firearms and other gun permit requirements.

Image caption: Flowers and candles are placed outside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Wednesday, May 25, 2022

Image credit : AP Photo/Jae C. Hong

Focus on humiliation in schools as a driver of withdrawal, confrontation, and violence

Sheldon Greenberg , a retired professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Education with a joint appointment in the School of Public Health. Greenberg is a former police officer and former Associate Director of the Police Executive Research Forum. He continues his research on humiliation in schools, selection of school resource officers, and characteristics of safe and healthy schools.

H umiliation is a form of emotional abuse that affects people of all ages and walks of life. For many people, especially young people, people of color, and those in marginalized groups and communities, humiliation is directly connected to being judged and/or treated as different. Students with special needs are particularly vulnerable. Research on humiliation in schools and approaches for reducing it is lacking.

Humiliation is a factor in bullying, cyberbullying, fear, violence, hate, discrimination, vengeance, self-harm—and it is a factor that contributes to many school shootings. Humiliation is recognized globally as a barrier to social inclusion; yet it has received limited attention in research, policy, and teacher and administrator education and training.

Firearm suicides are rising in the U.S. despite declining globally

Robb elementary had security. it didn’t stop a massacre., research shows nearly 70% of mass shootings involve domestic violence, surgeon who treated kids shot in uvalde describes assault weapons' extreme trauma to victims' bodies.

All students have a fundamental right to participate in their school and community free from degradation. Most students look to school as a place of acceptance, impartial treatment, and protection from harm. Some students experience humiliation at school at the hands of peers, teachers, administrators, and parents, and its effects linger. Of course, not all students who are humiliated commit acts of violence. For all students who are humiliated, it is hard to forgive or forget the person who demeaned them, especially if the act occurred in the presence of others.

Humiliating behavior is learned and can be changed through a collective effort by school stakeholders. Understanding the practices used by people to humiliate is a first step toward preventing the abusive behavior. It is important to avoid masking humiliation under the catch-all term "bullying." Strategies and approaches to reduce humiliation in schools include assessing the culture, adopting a human rights doctrine, and establishing policy and training for teachers and staff. It requires understanding the difference between humiliation and "simple teasing," establishing support systems for students who have been humiliated, addressing those who humiliate, and more.

Ensure school buildings are secure

Annette Anderson , deputy director of Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools

W hen I heard about the tragic shooting in Uvalde, Texas, my first thought was: How did a gunman get into the school? Among the many policy issues the Uvalde shooting raises, for those who work in schools, one of those is building security. From experience I know that school administrators are frequently conducting building sweeps in preventative action mode, searching out the gaps where something could be wrong or missing or broken, instinctively checking locks and peering around corners and into dark spaces on building walks early in the morning looking for things that could potentially be problematic for a child or staff member, and staying on high alert for the areas in their buildings where possible trouble could be brewing. And yet I suddenly also remembered all of the days as a principal when the doors between the lunchroom and the recess yard of my school were opened—from the beginning of the first period lunch to the end of the third lunch shift—and I realized that perhaps it would not be too far-fetched for a former student to recall where the doors would be opened in school at that time of day. Clearly, one conversation to emerge from this tragic period is to consider how we can make small yet consequential building upgrades to school doors so that every child can be safe and healthy in school. It's also true that a school community can do everything right and have a robust security plan in place and still fall victim to tragedy.

Leaders who fail to act are culpable

Spencer Cantrell, federal affairs adviser at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions. Cantrell uses her experience representing survivors to promote evidence-based and equitable legal reforms at the federal level to reduce violence.

I am heartbroken by the shooting that occurred in Uvalde. As a parent, the news hits closer to home, and I cannot imagine the anguish of the families who lost their loved ones. As a professional working on federal policy to prevent gun violence, I am frustrated by the inaction. Leaders who fail to act are also culpable in these situations. I hope that we can use Extreme Risk Protective Orders at the state and federal levels to prevent firearms from ending up in the hands of those who pose a risk to themselves and others.

There are policies that work to prevent gun violence—if we deploy them

Lisa Geller, state affairs advisor for the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions

T he news of yet another mass shooting leaves me angry and frustrated. The community in Uvalde, Texas, now joins the long list that no community wants to join. What frustrates me most is that we have solutions to our gun violence epidemic. We know which policies—including firearm purchaser licensing, extreme risk protection orders, and firearm removal for individuals with histories of domestic violence—work to reduce and prevent gun violence. Research I published last year found that nearly 70% of mass shootings in the U.S. have a connection to domestic violence . In the case of the mass shooting in Uvalde, we know that the perpetrator shot his grandmother before arriving at Robb Elementary. Identifying those at the highest risk of violence—including those with histories of domestic violence—and ensuring that they cannot access firearms is critical to preventing gun violence.

We cannot sit around and wait for the next shooting to occur. Public health means prevention, and our center will continue to educate policymakers and the public about preventive measures to curb this epidemic.

Turn heartache into action

Katherine Hoops , assistant professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and a core faculty member at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions

A s a pediatric intensivist physician, I care for the sickest children—those who are critically ill and injured requiring life-saving therapies in the face of devastating disease. My heart aches any time I lose a patient, when everything medicine has to offer isn't enough.

But as a violence prevention researcher, when I lose a patient to gun violence, there is a special heartache that is mixed with rage because I know there is so much that medicine and public health have to offer that wasn't done to prevent the loss of that precious life.

As a mother, I am heartbroken for the families whose children did not come home from school at Robb Elementary, for those families and a community whose lives are forever changed. I am also fueled by a righteous anger and determined that this can truly be the last time. I send my thoughts and my constant prayers, and I also roll up my sleeves to work for prevention.

We can prevent violence. Through comprehensive firearm licensing policies, large capacity magazine limits, safe firearm storage, and extreme risk protective orders but also hospital-based and community-based violence intervention programs, police reform, addressing social determinants of health, and dismantling structural racism. But to do this, we must all turn our heartache into action.

Posted in Voices+Opinion , Politics+Society

Tagged education , gun policy , center for gun violence solutions , center for safe and healthy schools , gun violence

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Op-Ed Columnist

How to Reduce Shootings

By Nicholas Kristof Nov. 6, 2017

• Share full article

America has been shaken — once again — by mass shootings . On May 14, a gunman killed 10 people in a supermarket in Buffalo. On Tuesday, at least 19 children and two adults were killed in Uvalde, Texas. It was the deadliest shooting at an elementary school since the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary.

This essay originally ran in 2017, after a shooter killed 26 people in a Texas church . But the issue is still tragically relevant, and will remain so until America tightens its gun safety policies.

America has more guns than any other country

The first step is to understand the scale of the challenge America faces: The U.S. has more than 300 million guns — roughly one for every citizen — and stands out as well for its gun death rates. At the other extreme, Japan has less than one gun per 100 people, and typically fewer than 10 gun deaths a year in the entire country.

Guns per 100 people

Among developed countries, the United States has by far the highest rate of firearms ownership.

United States

Switzerland

England, Wales

Gun murders per 100,000 people

America’s private arsenal is five times as lethal as Canada’s, and 30 times worse than Australia’s.

We have a model for regulating guns: automobiles

Gun enthusiasts often protest: Cars kill about as many people as guns, and we don’t ban them! No, but automobiles are actually a model for the public health approach I’m suggesting.

We don’t ban cars, but we work hard to regulate them — and limit access to them — so as to reduce the death toll they cause. This has been spectacularly successful, reducing the death rate per 100 million miles driven to less than one-seventh of what it was in 1946.

Deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled

First federal safety

standards for cars

First seatbelt offered

in an American car

55 m.p.h. national

speed limit

Car safety ratings

Tennessee is first

to require child safety seats

Airbags, invented

in 1951, become mandatory

Mandatory reporting

of defects by

The liberal approach is ineffective. Use a public health approach instead.

Frankly, liberal opposition to guns has often been ineffective, and sometimes counterproductive. The 10-year ban on assault weapons accomplished little, partly because definitions were about cosmetic features like bayonet mounts (and partly because even before the ban, such guns were used in only 2 percent of crimes).

The left sometimes focuses on “gun control,” which scares off gun owners and leads to more gun sales. A better framing is “gun safety” or “reducing gun violence,” and using auto safety as a model—constant efforts to make the products safer and to limit access by people who are most likely to misuse them.

What would a public health approach look like for guns if it were modeled after cars? It would include:

If someone steals my iPhone, it’s useless, and the same should be true of guns. Gun manufacturers made child-proof guns back in the 19th century (before dropping them), and it’s time to advance that technology today. Some combination of smart guns and safe storage would also reduce the number of firearms stolen in the U.S. each year, now about 200,000, and available to criminals.

We also need to figure out whether gun buybacks, often conducted by police departments, are cost-effective and help reduce violence. And we can experiment more with anti-gang initiatives, such as Cure Violence, that have a good record in reducing shootings.

Fewer guns = fewer deaths

It is true that guns are occasionally used to stop violence. But contrary to what the National Rifle Association suggests, this is rare. One study by the Violence Policy Center found that in 2012 there were 259 justifiable homicides by a private citizen using a firearm.

Estimated share of households with guns, by state

U.S. AVERAGE: 32% OF

HOUSEHOLDS HAVE GUNS

States in red

have gun death

rates above the

national average

of 10.5 per

100,000 people.

Massachusetts

Rhode Island

U.S. AVERAGE: 32% OF HOUSEHOLDS HAVE GUNS

States in red have gun death rates above the national average of 10.5 per 100,000 people.

Connecticut

New Hampshire

Pennsylvania

North Dakota

North Carolina

South Carolina

South Dakota

West Virginia

Mississippi

Lax laws too often make it easy not only for good guys to get guns, but also for bad guys to get guns. The evidence is overwhelming that overall more guns and more relaxed gun laws lead to more violent deaths and injuries. One study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that a gun in the house was associated with an increased risk of a gun death, particularly by suicide but also apparently by homicide.

Gun law ‘grades’ and gun death rates

The giffords law center finds that states where guns are more regulated tend to have lower gun death rates. in its grading system, the strongest gun regulations get an “a;” the weakest, an “f.”.

Gun deaths per 100,000 people

States with “F”

gun law grades

Stronger gun laws

are correlated with

lower death rates

Stronger laws

Weaker laws

Gun law strength (rank)

In 2015, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas tweeted that he was “ embarrassed ” that his state was ranked second (behind California) in requests to buy new guns, albeit still with one million requests. “Let’s pick up the pace Texans,” he wrote.

Abbott apparently believes, along with the N.R.A., that more guns make a society more safe, but statistics dispute that. Abbott should look at those charts.

Mass shootings are not the main cause of loss of life

Critics will say that the kind of measures I cite wouldn’t prevent many shootings. The 2017 shooting in Las Vegas , for example, might not have been prevented by any of the suggestions I make.

That’s true, and there’s no magic wand available. Yet remember that although it is mass shootings that get our attention, they are not the main cause of loss of life. Much more typical is a friend who shoots another, a husband who kills his wife — or, most common of all, a man who kills himself. Skeptics will say that if people want to kill themselves, there’s nothing we can do. In fact, it turns out that if you make suicide a bit more difficult, suicide rates drop.

Here are the figures showing that mass shootings are a modest share of the total, and the same is true of self-defense — despite what the N.R.A. might have you believe.

EACH SYMBOL REPRESENTS 500 GUN DEATHS IN 2016

AN ESTIMATED 22,000 GUN SUICIDES

ABOUT 11,760 HOMICIDES

OTHER CAUSES

VICTIMS KILLING

PERPETRATORS IN

SELF-DEFENSE:

SHARE OF ALL

GUN DEATHS:

Tightening gun laws lowered firearm homicide rates

For skeptics who think that gun laws don’t make a difference, consider what happened in two states, Missouri and Connecticut. In 1995, Connecticut tightened licensing laws, while in 2007 Missouri eased gun laws.

The upshot? After tightening gun laws, firearm homicide rates dropped 40 percent in Connecticut. And after Missouri eased gun laws, gun homicide rates rose 25 percent.

Connecticut after 1995 law

tightening licensing requirements

Estimated change in

rate of gun homicide

rate of gun suicide

Missouri after 2007 repeal

of license requirements

Missouri after

2007 repeal

One of the lessons of gun research is that we often focus just on firearms themselves, when it may be more productive to focus on who gets access to them. A car or gun is usually safe in the hands of a 45-year-old woman with no criminal record, but may be dangerous when used by a 19-year-old felon with a history of alcohol offenses or domestic violence protection orders.

Yet our laws have often focused more on weapons themselves (such as the assault weapons ban) rather than on access. In many places, there is more rigorous screening of people who want to adopt dogs than of people who want to purchase firearms.

In these two states, the laws affected access, and although there’s some indication that other factors were also involved in Connecticut (and correlations don’t prove causation), the outcomes are worth pondering.

There is a shocking lack of research on guns

There’s simply a scandalous lack of research on gun violence, largely because the N.R.A. is extremely hostile to such research and Congress rolls over. When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did try to research gun violence, Congress responded by cutting its funding.

Here is the American toll from four diseases and firearms over the years 1973-2012 — and the number of National Institutes of Health research grants to explore each problem over that same time.

N.I.H. research awards

The right type of training could go a long way

One approach that could reduce the abuse of guns is better training. As a 13-year-old farm boy in Oregon, I attended a N.R.A. gun safety class (which came with a one-year membership to the N.R.A., making me an N.R.A. alum who despises what that organization has become). These classes can be very useful, and audits found that more than 80 percent cover such matters as checking the gun to see if it’s loaded, keeping one’s finger off the trigger until ready to fire and being certain of the target.

Yet the audits also suggest that trainers are more likely to advocate for the N.R.A. or for carrying guns than for, say, safe storage. This is a missed opportunity, for all classes should cover the risks of guns and alcohol, the risks of abuse with suicide and domestic violence, the need for safe storage, and so on. Here’s what researchers found that the gun classes they audited between 2014 and 2016 actually covered:

PERCENT OF CLASSES

WHERE DISCUSSED

Trainers encouraged

gun carrying

gun ownership

Prevent unsupervised

access by children

Encouraged gun use

for self-defense

Theft prevention

Encouraged membership

in gun-rights group

Legal ramifications of

shooting in self-defense

Child access laws

Recommendation: when

not in use, store unloaded

Recommendation: use

gun only as last resort

Young children

and gun accidents

Decision-making in crises

Theft is important source

of firearms used in crime

Techniques for

de-escalating threats

Recommendation:

report stolen firearms

Watch for signs of suicide

in household members

Domestic violence risk

Percent of classes

where discussed

Trainers encouraged gun carrying

Encouraged gun ownership

Prevent unsupervised access by children

Encouraged gun use for self-defense

Encouraged membership in gun-rights group

Legal ramifications of shooting in self-defense

Recommendation: when not in use, store unloaded

Recommendation: use gun only as last resort

Young children and gun accidents

Theft is an important source of firearms used in crime

Techniques for de-escalating threats

Recommendation: report stolen firearms

Watch for signs of suicide in household members

A way forward: On some issues, majorities agree

It may sometimes seem hopeless to make progress on gun violence, especially with the N.R.A. seemingly holding Congress hostage. But I’m more optimistic.

Look, we all agree on some kinds of curbs on guns. Nobody believes that people should be able to drive a tank down Main Street, or have an anti-aircraft gun in the backyard. I’ve been to parts of northern Yemen where one could actually buy a tank or an anti-aircraft gun, as well as fully automatic weapons — and that area’s now embroiled in a civil war — but fortunately in America we have agreed to ban those kinds of weaponry.

So the question isn’t whether we will restrict firearms, but where to draw the line and precisely which ones to restrict.

Check out these polling numbers as a basis for action on gun safety:

the following:

with no guns

Background checks

for all gun buyers

Preventing mentally

ill from buying guns

Nationwide ban on the sale of guns to people convicted of violent crimes

Barring gun purchases by people on no-fly or watch lists

Background checks for private sales and at gun shows

Federal mandatory waiting period on all gun purchases

Ban on modifications that make a semi- automatic gun work like an automatic gun

A ban on the sale of guns to people convicted of violent crimes would reduce gun violence

New gun laws will not interfere with the right to own guns

Congress is not doing enough to reduce gun violence

Creating a federal database to track gun sales

A ban on the sale of high-capacity magazines

(10+ bullets)*

Agree with the following:

Background checks for all gun buyers

Preventing the mentally ill from buying guns

A ban on modifications that make a semi- automatic gun work like an automatic gun

A ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines (10+ bullets)*

Looking ahead, I’m optimistic that there can be progress at the state level, and some of the necessary research funding will come from private foundations. Maybe some police departments will put in orders for smart guns to help create a market.

But the real impetus for change will come because the public favors it. In particular, note that 93 percent of people even in gun households favor universal background checks for gun purchases.

This is the blunt, damning truth: The latest shooting was 100 percent predictable.

After each such incident, we mourn the deaths and sympathize with the victims, but we do nothing fundamental to reduce our vulnerability.

Some of you will protest that the immediate aftermath of a shooting is too soon to talk about guns, or that it is disrespectful to the dead to use such a tragedy to score political points. Yet more Americans have died from gun violence, including suicides, since 1970 (about 1.4 million) than in all the wars in American history going back to the Revolutionary War (about 1.3 million). And it’s not just gang-members: In a typical year, more pre-schoolers are shot dead in America (about 75) than police officers are.

Yes, making America safer will be hard: There are no perfect solutions. The Second Amendment is one constraint, and so is our polarized political system and the power of the gun lobby. It’s unclear how effective some of my suggestions will be, and in any case this will be a long, uncertain, uphill process.

But automobiles are a reminder that we can chip away at a large problem through a public health approach: Just as auto safety improvements have left us far better off, it seems plausible to some gun policy experts that a sensible, politically feasible set of public health steps could over time reduce firearm deaths in America by one-third — or more than 10,000 lives saved each year.

So let’s not just shed tears for the dead, give somber speeches and lower flags. Let’s get started and save lives.

Parents, did you talk to your kids about the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas?

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• Published: 10 December 2019

The psychology of guns: risk, fear, and motivated reasoning

• Joseph M. Pierre 1  

Palgrave Communications volume  5 , Article number:  159 ( 2019 ) Cite this article

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The gun debate in America is often framed as a stand-off between two immutable positions with little potential to move ahead with meaningful legislative reform. Attempts to resolve this impasse have been thwarted by thinking about gun ownership attitudes as based on rational choice economics instead of considering the broader socio-cultural meanings of guns. In this essay, an additional psychological perspective is offered that highlights how concerns about victimization and mass shootings within a shared culture of fear can drive cognitive bias and motivated reasoning on both sides of the gun debate. Despite common fears, differences in attitudes and feelings about guns themselves manifest in variable degrees of support for or opposition to gun control legislation that are often exaggerated within caricatured depictions of polarization. A psychological perspective suggests that consensus on gun legislation reform can be achieved through understanding differences and diversity on both sides of the debate, working within a common middle ground, and more research to resolve ambiguities about how best to minimize fear while maximizing personal and public safety.

Discounting risk

Do guns kill people or do people kill people? Answers to that riddle draw a bright line between two sides of a caricatured debate about guns in polarized America. One side believes that guns are a menace to public safety, while the other believes that they are an essential tool of self-preservation. One side cannot fathom why more gun control legislation has not been passed in the wake of a disturbing rise in mass shootings in the US and eyes Australia’s 1996 sweeping gun reform and New Zealand’s more recent restrictions with envy. The other, backed by the Constitutional right to bear arms and the powerful lobby of the National Rifle Association (NRA), fears the slippery slope of legislative change and refuses to yield an inch while threatening, “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands”. With the nation at an impasse, meaningful federal gun legislation aimed at reducing firearm violence remains elusive.

Despite the 1996 Dickey Amendment’s restriction of federal funding for research on gun violence by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Rostron, 2018 ), more than 30 years of public health research supports thinking of guns as statistically more of a personal hazard than a benefit. Case-control studies have repeatedly found that gun ownership is associated with an increased risk of gun-related homicide or suicide occurring in the home (Kellermann and Reay, 1986 ; Kellermann et al., 1993 ; Cummings and Koepsell, 1998 ; Wiebe, 2003 ; Dahlberg et al., 2004 ; Hemenway, 2011 ; Anglemeyer et al., 2014 ). For homicides, the association is largely driven by gun-related violence committed by family members and other acquaintances, not strangers (Kellermann et al., 1993 , 1998 ; Wiebe, 2003 ).

If having a gun increases the risk of gun-related violent death in the home, why do people choose to own guns? To date, the prevailing answer from the public health literature has been seemingly based on a knowledge deficit model that assumes that gun owners are unaware of risks and that repeated warnings about “overwhelming evidence” of “the health risk of a gun in the home [being] greater than the benefit” (Hemenway, 2011 ) should therefore decrease gun ownership and increase support for gun legislation reform. And yet, the rate of US households with guns has held steady for two decades (Smith and Son, 2015 ) with owners amassing an increasing number of guns such that the total civilian stock has risen to some 265 million firearms (Azrael et al., 2017 ). This disparity suggests that the knowledge deficit model is inadequate to explain or modify gun ownership.

In contrast to the premise that people weigh the risks and benefits of their behavior based on “rational choice economics” (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ), nearly 50 years of psychology and behavioral economics research has instead painted a picture of human decision-making as a less than rational process based on cognitive short-cuts (“availability heuristics”) and other error-prone cognitive biases (Tversky and Kahneman, 1974 ; Kunda, 1990 ; Haselton and Nettle, 2006 ; Hibert, 2012 ). As a result, “consequentialist” approaches to promoting healthier choices are often ineffective. Following this perspective, recent public health efforts have moved beyond educational campaigns to apply an understanding of the psychology of risky behavior to strike a balance between regulation and behavioral “nudges” aimed at reducing harmful practices like smoking, unhealthy eating, texting while driving, and vaccine refusal (Atchley et al., 2011 ; Hansen et al., 2016 ; Matjasko et al., 2016 ; Pluviano et al., 2017 ).

A similar public health approach aimed at reducing gun violence should take into account how gun owners discount the risks of ownership according to cognitive biases and motivated reasoning. For example, cognitive dissonance may lead those who already own guns to turn a blind eye to research findings about the dangers of ownership. Optimism bias, the general tendency of individuals to overestimate good outcomes and underestimate bad outcomes, can likewise make it easy to disregard dangers by externalizing them to others. The risk of suicide can therefore be dismissed out of hand based on the rationale that “it will never happen to me,” while the risk of homicide can be discounted based on demographic factors. Kleck and Gertz ( 1998 ) noted that membership in street gangs and drug dealing might be important confounds of risk in case control studies, just as unsafe storage practices such as keeping a firearm loaded and unlocked may be another (Kellerman et al., 1993 ). Other studies have found that the homicide risk associated with guns in the home is greater for women compared to men and for non-whites compared to whites (Wiebe, 2003 ). Consequently, white men—by far the largest demographic that owns guns—might be especially likely to think of themselves as immune to the risks of gun ownership and, through confirmation bias, cherry-pick the data to support pre-existing intuitions and fuel motivated disbelief about guns. These testable hypotheses warrant examination in future research aimed at understanding the psychology of gun ownership and crafting public health approaches to curbing gun violence.

Still, while the role of cognitive biases should be integrated into a psychological understanding of attitudes towards gun ownership, cognitive biases are universal liabilities that fall short of explaining why some people might “employ” them as a part of motivated reasoning to support ownership or to oppose gun reform. To understand the underlying motivation that drives cognitive bias, a deeper analysis of why people own guns is required. In the introductory essay to this journal’s series on “What Guns Mean,” Metzl ( 2019 ) noted that public health efforts to reduce firearm ownership have failed to “address beliefs about guns among people who own them”. In a follow-up piece, Galea and Abdalla ( 2019 ) likewise suggested that the gun debate is complicated by the fact that “knowledge and values do not align” and that “these values create an impasse, one where knowing is not enough” (Galea and Abdalla, 2019 ). Indeed, these and other authors (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ; Braman and Kahan, 2006 ; Pierre, 2015 ; Kalesan et al., 2016 ) have enumerated myriad beliefs and values, related to the different “symbolic lives” and “social meanings” of firearms both within and outside of “gun culture” that drive polarized attitudes towards gun ownership in the US. This essay attempts to further explore the meaning of guns from a psychological perspective.

Fear and gun ownership

Modern psychological understanding of human decision-making has moved beyond availability heuristics and cognitive biases to integrate the role of emotion and affect. Several related models including the “risk-as-feelings hypothesis” (Loewenstein et al., 2001 ), the “affect heuristic” (Slovic et al., 2007 ); and the “appraisal-tendency framework” (Lerner et al., 2015 ) illustrate how emotions can hijack rational-decision-making processes to the point of being the dominant influence on risk assessments. Research has shown that “perceived risk judgments”—estimates of the likelihood that something bad will happen—are especially hampered by emotion (Pachur et al., 2012 ) and that different types of affect can bias such judgments in different ways (Lerner et al., 2015 ). For example, fear can in particular bias assessments away from rational analysis to overestimate risks, as well as to perceive negative events as unpredictable (Lerner et al., 2015 ).

Although gun ownership is associated with positive feelings about firearms within “gun culture” (Pierre, 2015 ; Kalesan et al., 2016 ; Metzl, 2019 ), most research comparing gun owners to non-gun owners suggests that ownership is rooted in fear. While long guns have historically been owned primarily for hunting and other recreational purposes, US surveys dating back to the 1990s have revealed that the most frequent reason for gun ownership and more specifically handgun ownership is self-protection (Cook and Ludwig, 1997 ; Azrael et al., 2017 ; Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Research has likewise shown that the decision to obtain a firearm is largely motivated by past victimization and/or fears of future victimization (Kleck et al., 2011 ; Hauser and Kleck, 2013 ).

A few studies have reported that handgun ownership is associated with past victimization, perceived risk of crime, and perceived ineffectiveness of police protection within low-income communities where these concerns may be congruent with real risks (Vacha and McLaughlin, 2000 , 2004 ). However, gun ownership tends to be lower in urban settings and in low-income families where there might be higher rates of violence and crime (Vacha and McLaughlin, 2000 ). Instead, the largest demographic of gun owners in the US are white men living in rural communities who are earning more than $100K/year (Azrael et al., 2017 ). Mencken and Froese ( 2019 ) likewise reported that gun owners tend to have higher incomes and greater ratings of life happiness than non-owners. These findings suggest a mismatch between subjective fear and objective reality.

Stroebe and colleagues ( 2017 ) reported that the specific perceived risk of victimization and more “diffuse” fears that the world is a dangerous place are both independent predictors of handgun ownership, with perceived risk of assault associated with having been or knowing a victim of violent crime and belief in a dangerous world associated with political conservatism. These findings hint at the likelihood that perceived risk of victimization can be based on vicarious sources with a potential for bias, whether through actual known acquaintances or watching the nightly news, conducting a Google search or scanning one’s social media feed, or reading “The Armed Citizen” column in the NRA newsletter The American Rifleman . It also suggests that a general fear of crime, independent of actual or even perceived individual risk, may be a powerful motivator for gun ownership for some that might track with race and political ideology.

Several authors have drawn a connection between gun ownership and racial tensions by examining the cultural symbolism and socio-political meaning of guns. Bhatia ( 2019 ) detailed how the NRA’s “disinformation campaign reliant on fearmongering” is constructed around a narrative of “fear and identity politics” that exploits current xenophobic sentiments related to immigrants. Metzl ( 2019 ) noted that during the 1960s, conservatives were uncharacteristically in favor of gun control when armed resistance was promoted by Malcolm X, the Black Panther Party, and others involved in the Black Power Movement. Today, Metzl argues, “mainstream society reflexively codes white men carrying weapons in public as patriots, while marking armed black men as threats or criminals.” In support of this view, a 2013 study found that having a gun in the home was significantly associated with racism against black people as measured by the Symbolic Racism Scale, noting that “for each 1 point increase in symbolic racism, there was a 50% greater odds of having a gun in the home and a 28% increase in the odds of supporting permits to carry concealed handguns” (O’Brien et al., 2013 ). Hypothesizing that guns are a symbol of hegemonic masculinity that serves to “shore up white male privilege in society,” Stroud ( 2012 ) interviewed a non-random sample of 20 predominantly white men in Texas who had licenses for concealed handgun carry. The men described how guns help to fulfill their identities as protectors of their families, while characterizing imagined dangers with rhetoric suggesting specific fears about black criminals. These findings suggest that gun ownership among white men may be related to a collective identity as “good guys” protecting themselves against “bad guys” who are people of color, a premise echoed in the lay press with headlines like, “Why Are White Men Stockpiling Guns?” (Smith, 2018 ), “Report: White Men Stockpile Guns Because They’re Afraid of Black People” (Harriott, 2018 ), and “Gun Rights Are About Keeping White Men on Top” (Wuertenberg, 2018 ).

Connecting the dots, the available evidence therefore suggests that for many gun owners, fears about victimization can result in confirmation, myside, and optimism biases that not only discount the risks of ownership, but also elevate the salience of perceived benefit, however remote, as it does when one buys a lottery ticket (Rogers and Webley, 2001 ). Indeed, among gun owners there is widespread belief that having a gun makes one safer, supported by published claims that where there are “more guns”, there is “less crime” (Lott, 1998 , 1999 ) as well as statistics and anecdotes about successful defensive gun use (DGU) (Kleck and Gertz, 1995 , 1998 ; Tark and Kleck, 2004 ; Cramer and Burnett, 2012 ). Suffice it to say that there have been numerous debates about how to best interpret this body of evidence, with critics claiming that “more guns, less crime” is a myth (Ayres and Donohue, 2003 ; Moyer, 2017 ) that has been “discredited” (Wintemute, 2008 ) and that the incidence of DGU has been grossly overestimated and pales in comparison to the risk of being threatened or harmed by a gun in the home (Hemenway, 1997 , 2011 ; Cook and Ludwig, 1998 ; Azrael and Hemenway, 2000 ; Hemenway et al., 2000 ). Attempts at objective analysis have concluded that surveys to date have defined and measured DGU inconsistently with unclear numbers of false positives and false negatives (Smith, 1997 ; McDowall et al., 2000 ; National Research Council, 2005 ; RAND, 2018 ), that the causal effects of DGU on reducing injury are “inconclusive” (RAND, 2018 ), and that “neither side seems to be willing to give ground or see their opponent’s point of view” (Smith, 1997 ). With the scientific debate about DGU mirrored in the lay press (Defilippis and Hughes, 2015 ; Kleck, 2015 ; Doherty, 2015 ), a rational assessment of whether guns make owners safer is hampered by a lack of “settled science”. With no apparent consensus, motivated reasoning can pave the way to the nullification of opposing arguments in favor of personal opinions and ideological stances.

For gun owners, even if it is acknowledged that on average successful DGU is much less likely than a homicide or suicide in the home, not having a gun at all translates to zero chance of self-preservation, which are intolerable odds. The bottom line is that when gun owners believe that owning a gun will make them feel safer, little else may matter. Curiously however, there is conflicting evidence that gun ownership actually decreases fears of victimization (Hauser and Kleck, 2013 ; Dowd-Arrow et al., 2019 ). That gun ownership may not mitigate such fears could help to account for why some individuals go on to acquire multiple guns beyond their initial purchase with US gun owners possessing an average of 5 firearms and 8% of owners having 10 or more (Azrael et al., 2017 ).

Gun owner diversity

A psychological model of the polarized gun debate in America would ideally compare those for or against gun control legislation. However, research to date has instead focused mainly on differences between gun owners and non-gun owners, which has several limitations. For example, of the nearly 70% of Americans who do not own a gun, 36% report that they can see themselves owning one in the future (Pew Research Center, 2017 ) with 11.5% of all gun owners in 2015 having newly acquired one in the previous 5 years (Wertz et al., 2018 ). Gun ownership and non-ownership are therefore dynamic states that may not reflect static ideology. Personal accounts such as Willis’ ( 2010 ) article, “I Was Anti-gun, Until I Got Stalked,” illustrate this point well.

With existing research heavily reliant on comparing gun owners to non-gun owners, a psychological model of gun attitudes in the US will have limited utility if it relies solely on gun owner stereotypes based on their most frequent demographic characteristics. On the contrary, Hauser and Kleck ( 2013 ) have argued that “a more complete understanding of the relationship between fear of crime and gun ownership at the individual level is crucial”. Just so, looking more closely at the diversity of gun owners can reveal important details beyond the kinds of stereotypes that are often used to frame political debates.

Foremost, it must be recognized that not all gun owners are conservative white men with racist attitudes. Over the past several decades, women have comprised 9–14% of US gun owners with the “gender gap” narrowing due to decreasing male ownership (Smith and Son, 2015 ). A 2017 Pew Survey reported that 22% of women in the US own a gun and that female gun owners are just as likely as men to belong to the NRA (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Although the 36% rate of gun ownership among US whites is the highest for any racial demographic, 25% of blacks and 15% of Hispanics report owning guns with these racial groups being significantly more concerned than whites about gun violence in their communities and the US as a whole (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Providing a striking counterpoint to Stroud’s ( 2012 ) interviews of white gun owners in Texas, Craven ( 2017 ) interviewed 11 black gun owners across the country who offered diverse views on guns and the question of whether owning them makes them feel safer, including if confronted by police during a traffic stop. Kelly ( 2019 ) has similarly offered a self-portrait as a female “left-wing anarchist” against the stereotype of guns owners as “Republicans, racist libertarians, and other generally Constitution-obsessed weirdos”. She reminds us that, “there is also a long history of armed community self-defense among the radical left that is often glossed over or forgotten entirely in favor of the Fox News-friendly narrative that all liberals hate guns… when the cops and other fascists see that they’re not the only ones packing, the balance of power shifts, and they tend to reconsider their tactics”.

Although Mencken and Froese ( 2019 ) concluded that “white men in economic distress find comfort in guns as a means to reestablish a sense of individual power and moral certitude,” their study results actually demonstrated that gun owners fall into distinguishable groups based on different levels of “moral and emotional empowerment” imparted by guns. For example, those with low levels of gun empowerment were more likely to be female and to own long guns for recreational purposes such as hunting and collecting. Other research has shown that the motivations to own a gun, and the degree to which gun ownership is related to fear and the desire for self-protection, also varies according to the type of gun (Stroebe et al., 2017 ). Owning guns, owning specific types of guns (e.g. handguns, long guns, and so-called “military style” semi-automatic rifles like AR-15s), carrying a gun in public, and keeping a loaded gun on one’s nightstand all have different psychological implications. A 2015 study reported that new gun owners were younger and more likely to identify as liberal than long-standing gun owners (Wertz et al., 2018 ). Although Kalesan et al. ( 2016 ) found that gun ownership is more likely among those living within a “gun culture” where ownership is prevalent, encouraged, and part of social life, it would therefore be a mistake to characterize gun culture as a monolith.

It would also be a mistake to equate gun ownership with opposition to gun legislation reform or vice-versa. Although some evidence supports a strong association (Wolpert and Gimpel, 1998 ), more recent studies suggest important exceptions to the rule. While only about 30% of the US population owns a gun, over 70% believes that most citizens should be able to legally own them (Pew Research Center, 2017 ). Women tend to be more likely than men to support gun control, even when they are gun owners themselves (Kahan and Braman, 2003 ; Mencken and Froese, 2019 ). Older (age 70–79) Americans likewise have some of the highest rates of gun ownership, but also the highest rates of support for gun control (Pederson et al., 2015 ). In Mencken and Froese’s study ( 2019 ), most gun owners reporting lower levels of gun empowerment favored bans on semi-automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines and opposed arming teachers in schools. Kahan and Braman ( 2003 ) theorized that attitudes towards gun control are best understood according to a “cultural theory of risk”. In their study sample, those with “hierarchical” and “individualist” cultural orientations were more likely than those with “egalitarian” views to oppose gun control and these perspectives were more predictive than other variables including political affiliation and fear of crime.

In fact, both gun owners and non-owners report high degrees of support for universal background checks; laws mandating safe gun storage in households with children; and “red flag” laws restricting access to firearms for those hospitalized for mental illness or those otherwise at risk of harming themselves or others, those convicted of certain crimes including public display of a gun in a threatening manner, those subject to temporary domestic violence restraining orders, and those on “no-fly” or other watch lists (Pew Research Center, 2017 ; Barry et al., 2018 ). According to a 2015 survey, the majority of the US public also opposes carrying firearms in public spaces with most gun owners opposing public carry in schools, college campuses, places of worship, bars, and sports stadiums (Wolfson et al., 2017 ). Despite broad public support for gun legislation reform however, it is important to recognize that the threat of gun restrictions is an important driver of gun acquisition (Wallace, 2015 ; Aisch and Keller, 2016 ). As a result, proposals to restrict gun ownership boosted gun sales considerably under the Obama administration (Depetris-Chauvin, 2015 ), whereas gun companies like Remington and United Sporting Companies have since filed for bankruptcy under the Trump administration.

A shared culture of fear

Developing a psychological understanding of attitudes towards guns and gun control legislation in the US that accounts for underlying emotions, motivated reasoning, and individual variation must avoid the easy trap of pathologizing gun owners and dismissing their fears as irrational. Instead, it should consider the likelihood that motivated reasoning underlies opinion on both sides of the gun debate, with good reason to conclude that fear is a prominent source of both “pro-gun” and “anti-gun” attitudes. Although the research on fear and gun ownership summarized above implies that non-gun owners are unconcerned about victimization, a closer look at individual study data reveals both small between-group differences and significant within-group heterogeneity. For example, Stroebe et al.’s ( 2017 ) findings that gun owners had greater mean ratings of belief in a dangerous world, perceived risk of victimization, and the perceived effectiveness of owning a gun for self-defense were based on inter-group differences of <1 point on a 7-point Likert scale. Fear of victimization is therefore a universal fear for gun owners and non-gun owners alike, with important differences in both quantitative and qualitative aspects of those fears. Kahan and Braham ( 2003 ) noted that the gun debate is not so much a debate about the personal risks of gun ownership, as it is a one about which of two potential fears is most salient—that of “firearm casualties in a world with insufficient gun control or that of personal defenselessness in a world with excessive control”.

Although this “shared fear” hypothesis has not been thoroughly tested in existing research, there is general support for it based on evidence that fear is an especially potent influence on risk assessment and decision-making when considering low-frequency catastrophic events (Chanel et al., 2009 ). In addition, biased risk assessments have been linked to individual feelings about a specific activity. Whereas many activities in the real world have both high risk and high benefit, positive attitudes about an activity are associated with biased judgments of low risk and high benefit while negative attitudes are associated with biased judgments of high risk and low benefit (Slovic et al., 2007 ). These findings match those of the gun debate, whereby catastrophic events like mass shootings can result in “probability neglect,” over-estimating the likelihood of risk (Sunstein, 2003 ; Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ) with polarized differences regarding guns as a root cause and gun control as a viable solution. For those that have positive feelings about guns and their perceived benefit, the risk of gun ownership is minimized as discussed above. However, based on findings from psychological research on fear (Loewenstein et al., 2001 ; Slovic et al., 2007 ), the reverse is also likely to be true—those with negative feelings about guns who perceive little benefit to ownership may tend to over-estimate risks. Consistent with this dichotomy, both calls for legislative gun reform, as well as gun purchases increase in the wake of mass shootings (Wallace, 2015 ; Wozniak, 2017 ), with differences primarily predicted by the relative self-serving attributional biases of gun ownership and non-ownership alike (Joslyn and Haider-Markel, 2017 ).

Psychological research has shown that fear is associated with loss of control, with risks that are unfamiliar and uncontrollable perceived as disproportionately dangerous (Lerner et al., 2015 ; Sunstein, 2003 ). Although mass shootings have increased in recent years, they remain extremely rare events and represent a miniscule proportion of overall gun violence. And yet, as acts of terrorism, they occur in places like schools that are otherwise thought of as a suburban “safe spaces,” unlike inner cities where violence is more mundane, and are often given sensationalist coverage in the media. A 2019 Harris Poll found that 79% of Americans endorse stress as a result of the possibility of a mass shooting, with about a third reporting that they “cannot go anywhere without worrying about being a victim” (American Psychological Association, 2019 ). While some evidence suggests that gun owners may be more concerned about mass shootings than non-gun owners (Dowd-Arrow et al., 2019 ), this is again a quantitative difference as with fear of victimization more generally. There is little doubt that parental fears about children being victims of gun violence were particularly heightened in the wake of Columbine (Altheide, 2019 ) and it is likely that subsequent school shootings at Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary, and Stoneman Douglas High have been especially impactful in the minds of those calling for increasing restrictions on gun ownership. For those privileged to be accustomed to community safety who are less worried about home invasion and have faith in the police to provide protection, fantasizing about “gun free zones” may reflect a desire to recreate safe spaces in the wake of mass shootings that invoke feelings of loss of control.

Altheide ( 2019 ) has argued that mass shootings in the US post-Columbine have been embedding within a larger cultural narrative of terrorism, with “expanded social control and policies that helped legitimate the war on terror”. Sunstein and Zeckhauser ( 2011 ) have similarly noted that following terrorist attacks, the public tends to demand responses from government, favoring precautionary measures that are “not justified by any plausible analysis of expected utility” and over-estimating potential benefits. However, such responses may not only be ineffective, but potentially damaging. For example, although collective anxieties in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks resulted in the rapid implementation of new screening procedures for boarding airplanes, it has been argued that the “theater” of response may have done well to decrease fear without any evidence of actual effectiveness in reducing danger (Graham, 2019 ) while perhaps even increasing overall mortality by avoiding air travel in favor of driving (Sunstein, 2003 ; Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ).

As with the literature on DGU, the available evidence supporting the effectiveness of specific gun laws in reducing gun violence is less than definitive (Koper et al., 2004 ; Hahn et al., 2005 ; Lee et al., 2017 ; Webster and Wintemute, 2015 ), leaving the utility of gun reform legislation open to debate and motivated reasoning. Several authors have argued that even if proposed gun control measures are unlikely to deter mass shooters, “doing something is better than nothing” (Fox and DeLateur, 2014 ) and that ineffective counter-terrorism responses are worthwhile if they reduce public fear (Sunstein and Zeckhauser, 2011 ). Crucially however, this perspective fails to consider the impact of gun control legislation on the fears of those who value guns for self-protection. For them, removing guns from law-abiding “good guys” while doing nothing to deter access to the “bad guys” who commit crimes is illogical anathema. Gun owners and gun advocates likewise reject the concept of “safe spaces” and regard the notion of “gun free zones” as a liability that invites rather than prevents acts of terrorism. In other words, gun control proposals designed to decrease fear have the opposite of their intended effect on those who view guns as symbols of personal safety, increasing rather than decreasing their fears independently of any actual effects on gun violence. Such policies are therefore non-starters, and will remain non-starters, for the sizeable proportion of Americans who regard guns as essential for self-preservation.

In 2006, Braman and Kahan noted that “the Great American Gun Debate… has convulsed the national polity for the better part of four decades without producing results satisfactory to either side” and argued that consequentialist arguments about public health risks based on cost–benefit analysis are trumped by the cultural meanings of guns to the point of being “politically inert” (Braman and Kahan, 2006 ). More than a decade later, that argument is iterated in this series on “What Guns Mean”. In this essay, it is further argued that persisting debates about the effectiveness of DGU and gun control legislation are at their heart trumped by shared concerns about personal safety, victimization, and mass shootings within a larger culture of fear, with polarized opinions about how to best mitigate those fears that are determined by the symbolic, cultural, and personal meanings of guns and gun ownership.

Coming full circle to the riddle, “Do guns kill people or do people kill people?”, a psychologically informed perspective rejects the question as a false dichotomy that can be resolved by the statement, “people kill people… with guns”. It likewise suggests a way forward by acknowledging both common fears and individual differences beyond the limited, binary caricature of the gun debate that is mired in endless arguments over disputed facts. For meaningful legislative change to occur, the debate must be steered away from its portrayal as two immutable sides caught between not doing anything on the one hand and enacting sweeping bans or repealing the 2nd Amendment on the other. In reality, public attitudes towards gun control are more nuanced than that, with support or opposition to specific gun control proposals predicted by distinct psychological and cultural factors (Wozniak, 2017 ) such that achieving consensus may prove less elusive than is generally assumed. Accordingly, gun reform proposals should focus on “low hanging fruit” where there is broad support such as requiring and enforcing universal background checks, enacting “red flag” laws balanced by guaranteeing gun ownership rights to law-abiding citizens, and implementing public safety campaigns that promote safe firearm handling and storage. Finally, the Dickey Amendment should be repealed so that research can inform public health interventions aimed at reducing gun violence and so that individuals can replace motivated reasoning with evidence-based decision-making about personal gun ownership and guns in society.

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Packing heat: on the affective incorporation of firearms.

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Firearm Violence in the United States

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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.  

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. 

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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 .

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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. 

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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.

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Victims of Gun Violence in the United States Essay (Critical Writing)

Introduction, effects of gun violence on child development, needed resources, interventions in delaware, everytown survivor network, street outreach and violence interruption programs.

The public’s awareness of gun violence has increased during the past few years. Gun control laws and preventing potential murderers, particularly those suffering from mental illnesses, from getting their hands on weapons have received much attention in the debate. However, the effects of gun crime on survivors have received much less attention. Nowadays, there are many incidents that involve gun violence and, therefore, require more attention and a necessity to enhance the protection of vulnerable groups of the public. This paper discusses the effects of gun violence on child development, given the country’s rampant shooting incidences. It also covers interventions in the state of Delaware and their ineffectiveness. Ultimately, further measures are recommended for implementation in the state of Delaware.

Nationwide, many communities are exposed to gun violence, with the most vulnerable group being children. Over 25% of children have witnessed violence in their schools, homes, or neighborhoods in the past year (Wamser-Nanney et al., 2018). Additionally, more than 5% have witnessed a shooting (Wamser-Nanney et al., 2018). As a result, chronic trauma can impair cognition, which can have a long-lasting effect on life outcomes. A large portion of this aggressiveness and violence is made worse by emotional exhaustion from exposure to violence (Hemenway & Nelson, 2020). Due to the developmental effects of their repeated exposure to trauma, people who are exposed to violence frequently struggle to recognize and manage their emotions. They frequently repress their feelings, which can manifest as anger and violence.

Individuals may acquire behavior through witnessing and imitating the acts of those around them, which might lead to these skill deficiencies. When people see harmful behaviors and accept them, they begin a cycle of violence. Eventually, they role-model these interactions for their children. Childhood mental health issues will likely increase until all forms of violence against children and adolescents are stopped (Rajan et al., 2019). Therefore, service providers must engage actively to raise public awareness of childhood mental illness.

There are many consequences of being exposed to gun violence for any person. The effects of exposure to gun violence are linked to problems with learning, emotion, health, and behavior both immediately after the event and in later years (Rajan et al., 2019). The prevention and treatment of trauma symptoms depend heavily on early intervention and social and emotional support. Each year, hundreds of children and young people are subjected to gun violence at school, at home, in their communities, or in the media (Rajan et al., 2019). Several interventions are implemented to ensure that people affected by gun violence receive much-needed care.

When it comes to the resources that the victims of gun violence might require in order to progress in their recovery, it involves a holistic approach. The first resource is emotional support, which encompasses several areas. The first area involves educating the survivors of gun violence on the signs and symptoms of event-related stress (Takahashi & James, 2018). In another area, an essential part of emotional support involves treating post-traumatic stress disorder. It has been found that more frequently victims of gun violence undergo trauma-induced conditions, developing PTSD (Takahashi & James, 2018). Finally, it is vital to educate parents or guardians on how to console and support children and adolescents who have been the victims of gun violence.

The following resource that the victims will require in order to progress in their recovery involves financial support. For example, the Crime Victims’ Compensation (CVC) Program aids in covering the financial burdens that violence places on the victims and their close relatives (Takahashi & James, 2018). Victim compensation pays for crime-related expenses not covered by other agencies, including counseling, hospital attention, burial expenses, and lost earnings (Justice Center, 2018). According to the statistics, victims of gun violence spend nearly one billion dollars annually to cover their medical bills (Takahashi & James, 2018). As a result, the financial support provided to the victims can reduce the stress that is imposed on them since the costs of such traumatic experiences can be excessive.

In the state of Delaware, any individual is prohibited from possessing or using a firearm due to a family court order that protects victims from abuse or a protection order against lethal violence in place. In the former scenario, some considerations come with the intervention. Some conditions render the family protection order irrelevant (Davis et al., 2018). These conditions include the offender being caught trespassing on another person’s property or if the offender engaged in distressing or alarming conduct that may initiate emotional or fear distress in others. Such conditions limit the effectiveness of this intervention since it means that one can hold a firearm even though they are violent.

As for the programs available in Delaware that aim at supporting the victims of gun violence, these involve the Trauma Survivors Network’s initiatives. Among these is the Christiana Hospital support network, which strives to provide medical assistance and help to those who underwent traumatic experiences (Trauma Survivors Network, n.d.). Moreover, the given organization offers a hotline, which provides psychological help to those in need (Trauma Survivors Network, n.d.). The available resources follow the resources that were mentioned above. However, while the support services are strong in the area of mental assistance, the services lack financial assistance.

Among the programs that aim to help the survivors of gun violence is the Everytown Survivor Network, established by the Everytown Support Fund. The given program aims to reduce the level of firearm violence present in the country while raising awareness and supporting the victims. Volunteers, victims, or members of the Everytown Survivor Network may receive psychological comfort and a sense of belonging through the SurvivorsConnect peer assistance program and regional and national activities (Everytown Support Fund, n.d.). The Network additionally offers access to digital psychological health therapy, trauma-informed training courses, and materials for dealing with the effects of gun violence (Everytown Support Fund, n.d.). Therefore, the fund aims to incorporate both online and offline programs to reach all victims who are desperate for help. This program is beneficial to the victim population since it offers free psychological help and community support, which is essential to the survivors who might lack financial opportunities for this.

Safe Chat is another support program that was established by SafeHorizon. Volunteers from Safe Horizon are currently accessible through online conversations to provide assistance, representation, and support to anyone who has been affected by violence or any other issue (SafeHorizon, n.d.). Advocates can discuss the issue with the survivors, give advice, ask questions, and assist individuals in considering their options (SafeHorizon, n.d.). Supporters can additionally introduce victims to other Safe Horizon programs and give guidance and recommendations (SafeHorizon, n.d.). As a result, individuals who have experienced violence are able to seek financial and emotional support from experts. This might be beneficial to those who refuse to communicate with close relatives, immediate family, or friends. While this is available to communities in New York, this should additionally be accessible to those in Delaware state.

Community engagement personnel are taught to recognize conflicts in their neighborhood and assist in mediating disputes before they escalate into gun crime as part of the street awareness or violence disruptions model. The people at significant risk of violence regard these community engagement workers and view them as trustworthy members of the local community (Wamser-Nanney et al., 2018). Outreach workers alter social norms about the use of firearms to settle disputes by establishing their credibility, breaking cycles of violent attacks, and helping high-risk people access social services. Numerous cities, such as Chicago, New York, and Philadelphia, have successfully implemented violence interruption programs like the Cure Violence model (Wamser-Nanney et al., 2018). From 2010 to 2013, homicides decreased by 18 percent in New York neighborhoods (Wamser-Nanney et al., 2018). Therefore, this program can be beneficial in Delaware when it comes to crime interventions and public protection.

Finally, after reviewing the programs outside of Delaware, it becomes evident that certain issues must be addressed. An already existing program in Delaware can, therefore, be altered in order to best suit the interests and requirements of the gun violence victims. For example, more financial assistance can be applied since not every state supports such policies. Moreover, more digital access to programs should be implemented.

Firearm violence has been a rampant and contentious issue in the United States. Many people have lost their lives due to this trend, while others have been negatively impacted by the same. Children in the U.S. have more often than not experienced gun violence in their neighborhoods or schools. Gun violence in schools has taken many children’s lives while negatively influencing survivors’ development. Therefore, interventions must be implemented to ensure that children are safely guarded against the negative effects of gun violence.

Davis, A. B., Gaudino, J. A., Soskolne, C. L., & Al-Delaimy, W. K. (2018). The role of epidemiology in firearm violence prevention: A policy brief . International Journal of Epidemiology , 47 (4), 1015–1019. Web.

Everytown Support Fund. (n.d.). Everytown survivor network . Web.

Hemenway, D., & Nelson, E. (2020). The scope of the problem: Gun violence in the USA . Current Trauma Reports , 6 . Web.

Justice Center. (2018). Financial support for victims of crime: A quick guide for corrections and community supervision officers . Web.

Rajan, S., Branas, C. C., Myers, D., & Agrawal, N. (2019). Youth exposure to violence involving a gun: evidence for adverse childhood experience classification . Journal of Behavioral Medicine , 42 (4), 646–657. Web.

SafeHorizon. (n.d.). Safechat . Web.

Takahashi, Y. & James, C. (2018). Victimology and victim assistance: Advocacy, intervention, and restoration . SAGE.

Trauma Survivors Network. (n.d.). Christiana hospital . Web.

Wamser-Nanney, R., Nanney, J. T., Conrad, E., & Constans, J. I. (2018). Childhood trauma exposure and gun violence risk factors among victims of gun violence . Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy , 11 (1). Web.

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Gun Violence in the United States

Gun violence is a preventable public health tragedy affecting communities all over the United States. Every day, more than 100 Americans die by gun violence, including 64 who die by firearm suicide, 39 Americans who die by firearm homicide, and 3 who are killed by other forms of gun violence. In addition, every day nearly 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries. Over half of these cases are a result of a firearm assault and an additional 37% are unintentional injuries. 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, and we must advocate for evidence-based solutions to make gun violence in the U.S. rare and abnormal.

Gun Ownership

How does gun ownership and access to firearms affect gun deaths, an in-depth look at gun violence in the united states, gun death rates by state, gun deaths by demographics, recommendations.

Gun violence is a public health epidemic in the United States. Every year nearly 40,000 Americans are killed by guns, including more than 23,000 who die by firearm suicide, 14,000 who die by firearm homicide, more than 500 who die by legal intervention, 12 nearly 500 who die by unintentional firearm injuries, and more than 300 who die by undetermined intent. 12 This equates to more than 100 gun deaths every single day. In addition, every day nearly 200 Americans visit the emergency department for nonfatal firearm injuries. 13

In 2019, the most recent year of data available, there were 39,707 gun deaths – 109 every single day. 14 Three in every five gun deaths are suicides and more than one-third are homicides, while the remainder are unintentional, of unknown intent, or law enforcement intervention.

Among high-income countries, the United States is an outlier in terms of gun violence. It has been well-documented that firearm ownership rates ? are associated with increased firearm-related death rates. The U.S. has the highest firearm ownership and highest firearm death rates of 27 high-income countries. 15 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. 16

It is a common misconception that individuals living with mental illness are responsible for gun violence. When compared to other countries, the United States has similar rates of mental illness, yet we have much higher rates of gun violence. 17, 18 To be clear, mental illness does not cause gun violence – the problem is access to firearms.

While gun death data are the most reliable type of gun violence data currently available, it is important to recognize that gun deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of the gun violence epidemic. In addition to gun deaths, many more people are shot and survive their injuries, are shot at but not hit, or witness gun violence. Many experience gun violence in other ways, for example by living in impacted communities, losing loved ones to gun violence, or being threatened with a gun.

The CDC Plays a Vital Role in Providing Public Health Data to Researchers

Researchers need robust and reliable data to study and develop solutions to address the epidemic of gun violence in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is the federal agency responsible for protecting the health of Americans by ensuring that data is properly collected to develop solutions to our nation’s public health crises, including gun violence. The CDC’s National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS) plays an instrumental role for gun violence prevention advocates and researchers. The NVDRS uses death certificates, police reports, and hospital records to report information about the victim, the cause of death, and the circumstances surrounding their death. 19 The CDC makes this data publicly available and easily accessible through their Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS).

To learn more, visit our page on nonfatal firearm injuries.

The following data presented on this page focuses on the impact to those who were killed by gun violence.

Many Americans celebrate guns in our culture and disregard the inherent public safety issues that a gun-friendly culture creates. U.S. firearm ownership rates exceed those of other high-income countries 20 and Americans own 46% of the world’s civilian-owned firearms. 21 Thirty percent of Americans report owning a gun, 22 with estimates of the total number of privately-owned guns in the U.S. ranging from 265 million to nearly 400 million. 23, 24, 25 The majority of gun owners (66%) report owning multiple guns, 26 and it is estimated that half of all guns are in the hands of just 3% of the U.S. population. 27

Gun Ownership by State

Gun ownership varies significantly by state. For example, one study found that gun ownership varies from 61.7% in Alaska to 5.2% in Delaware. 28 Higher levels of gun ownership are correlated with higher rates of suicide, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33 homicide, 34, 35, 36, 37 unintentional firearm deaths, 38, 39 law enforcement killings, 40 and violent crime. 41

Reasons for Gun Ownership – “Protection”

More than 6 in 10 Americans believe that a gun in the home makes the family safer – a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000. 42 This increase in perceived safety is reflected in shifting reasons for gun ownership. In a 2017 Pew Research survey, two-thirds (67%) of gun owners cited protection as a major reason for gun ownership. 43 This represents a notable increase from the mid-1990s, when the majority of American gun owners cited recreation as their primary reason for gun ownership and fewer than half owned guns primarily for protection. 44

However, the evidence is clear: guns don’t make you safer. Contrary to the gun lobby’s talking points, overwhelming research shows that gun ownership and easy access to guns inherently puts individuals and their families at higher risk of death and injury. 22, 23 With a recent study estimating that there are more guns than people in the United States 45 and with a rate of gun violence continually increasing, it is imperative to know the facts about guns and gun violence.

“We must remember that stopping gun violence isn’t only about preventing high-profile mass shootings. It is about stopping gun violence in all its forms. We must acknowledge that gun violence comes in many different forms — from gun suicide to police brutality to domestic violence to unintentional shootings to daily gun violence in neighborhoods across the country.”

- Bryan Barks, Director of Strategic Communications

Every year, nearly 40,000 Americans are killed by guns, including: 46

• More than 23,000 who die by firearm suicide
• 14,000 who die by firearm homicide
• More than 500 who die by legal intervention ?
• Nearly 500 who die by unintentional firearm injuries
• More than 300 who die by undetermined intent

This equates to more than 100 gun deaths every single day.

More than 60% of all gun deaths are suicides. 58 Evidence consistently shows that access to firearms increases the risk of suicide. 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54 Access to a gun in the home increases the odds of suicide more than three-fold. 55 Firearms are so dangerous when someone is at risk for suicide because they are the most lethal suicide attempt method.

Though research shows that few individuals substitute means for suicide if their preferred method is not available, if firearms are not available, the person at risk for suicide is much more likely to survive even if they attempt using another method. 56 Delaying a suicide attempt can also allow suicidal crises to pass and lead to fewer suicides. Ninety percent of individuals who attempt suicide do not go on to die by suicide. 57 The use of a firearm in a suicide attempt often means there is no second chance.

To learn more, visit PreventFirearmSuicide.com or visit our page on firearm suicide .

Over 35% of all gun deaths are homicides. 58 Access to firearms – such as the presence of a gun in the home – is correlated with an increased risk for homicide victimization. 58, 59 States with high rates of gun ownership consistently have higher firearm homicide rates. 60, 61, 62 Studies show that access to firearms doubles the risk of homicide. 63 Nearly 75% of all U.S. homicides are by firearm. 64 Firearm homicide is a complex issue that includes different types of gun violence – domestic violence, interpersonal community violence, and mass shootings – and requires an array of different policies, programs, and practices if we want to see meaningful change.

Gun ownership also has implications for the number of mass shootings in a state. A 2019 study found that the permissiveness of state gun laws and an increase in a state’s gun ownership were associated with higher rates of mass shootings. Specifically, every 10 unit increase in the permissiveness of a state’s gun laws is associated with a 9% higher rate of mass shootings. For every 10% increase in gun ownership, states have a 35.1% higher rate of mass shootings. 65 The authors wrote, “This means that a state like California, which has approximately two mass shootings per year, will have an extra mass shooting for every 10 unit increase in permissiveness over five years. It will also have three to five more mass shootings per five years for every 10 unit increase in gun ownership.” 66

To learn more, visit our pages on firearm homicide or mass shootings .

Unintentional Shootings

About 1% of all gun deaths are unintentional. 67 “Unintentional” is the description used for a death that was not caused purposely. In gun violence, examples include fatal injuries that occur when a weapon misfires or is mishandled by a child and results in the victim being shot (in contrast with homicide and suicide, both of which involve an intent to pull the trigger and cause harm). Easy access to firearms, particularly unsecured firearms and the presence of firearms in risky situations, increases risk of unintentional injury and death by firearm. Mitigating access with safer storage practices and through evidence-based policy prevents unintentional gun violence.

To learn more, visit our page on unintentional shootings .

Legal Intervention / Police-Involved Shootings

“Legal intervention” is the description used by the CDC for injuries inflicted by the police or other law enforcement agents, including military on duty, in the course of arresting or attempting to arrest lawbreakers, suppressing disturbances, maintaining order, and other legal actions. In gun violence, these are also known as police-involved shootings. According to the CDC, more than 500 Americans die by legal intervention every year.

However, the government’s data (including the CDC data) provide a substantial under-count of police-involved injuries and deaths. To address this gap, a number of media sources have tracked police-involved shootings in recent years, most notably the Washington Post’s Fatal Force database. This database found that 1,000 Americans are shot and killed by police every year – more than double the number of police-involved fatal shootings than are reported in FBI and CDC databases. 68 Black Americans are disproportionately impacted by police-involved shootings and are killed at more than twice the rate as White Americans. 69

Ultimately, 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 gun violence and developing evidence-based solutions to minimize police-involved shootings.

Gun Violence in America - A Public Health Crisis Decades in the Making

A report from the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence and Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, A Public Health Crisis Decades in the Making: A Review of 2019 CDC Gun Mortality Data , draws on the most recent gun death data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to illustrate the fatal toll of the gun violence epidemic in the U.S. The report outlines gun death data from 2019, including demographic details, state-by-state breakdowns, and reviews trends over the last two decades.

Gun Death Trends Over Time

39,707 Americans died by gun violence in 2019, a small decrease of 33 gun deaths from 2018. 70

• An average of 109 people died of gun violence each day in 2019, bringing the most recent five-year average (2015-2019) to 106 gun deaths per day.
• 23,941 Americans died by firearm suicide in 2019, 66 people every day.
• 14,414 Americans died by firearm homicide in 2019, more than 39 people every day.

Gun Deaths in the United States, 2010-2019

Number of deaths

Source: CDC WONDER.

Gun Death Rate Trends Over Time

The overall gun death rate increased 17% over the last decade – the gun suicide rate increased 12.5% and the gun homicide rate increased nearly 26%. 71

• While the firearm suicide rate decreased slightly from 2018 to 2019, the rate has trended upward  over the last decade.
• The firearm homicide rate increased over the last decade spiking 31% from 2014 to 2016 and remaining at at this elevated level.

Gun Death Rates in the United States, 2010-2019

Age-adjusted rate per 100,000

All rates listed are age-adjusted in order to allow for accurate comparisons between populations with differing age distributions.

Gun violence is an epidemic that reaches communities large and small, but it is more common in some places than others. Among the states in 2019, Alaska had the highest gun death rate (24.40 per 100,000 people), followed by Mississippi, Wyoming, and New Mexico (24.23, 22.33, and 22.27 per 100,000, respectively). Conversely, Massachusetts had the lowest gun death rate (3.40 per 100,000 people), followed by New York, New Jersey, and Hawaii (3.94, 4.13, and 4.42 per 100,000, respectively). 72

Age-adjusted gun death rate, 2019

• 3.40 to 8.70
• 8.71 to 14.01
• 14.02 to 19.32
• 19.33 to 24.40

For all forms of gun violence, males die at much higher rates than females. 72 In 2019:

• 87% of firearm suicide decedents were male
• 84% of firearm homicide decedents were male
• 90% of unintentional firearm decedents were male
• 96% of police-involved shooting decedents were male

Firearm Suicide Deaths by Sex, 2019

Firearm homicide deaths by sex, 2019, unintentional firearm deaths by sex, 2019, police-involved shooting firearm deaths by sex, 2015-2020.

Source: Washington Post.

By Race, Ethnicity, and Age

Overall: 73

• Firearm suicide rates are highest among White people, followed by American Indian/Alaska Native people. Firearm suicide risk is highest among people age 75 and older across the population as a whole, but that is primarily due to the very high rate of suicide among White males in that age group. Firearm suicide rates peak at younger ages (ages 20-34) for American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, and Black males and females.
• Firearm homicide rates are highest among Black people as compared to people of other racial and ethnic identities and firearm homicide risk is highest among people ages 20-34 across the entire population.
• Unintentional firearm death rates are highest among American Indian/Alaska Native and Black Americans, followed by White Americans. Nearly one-quarter of all unintentional firearm decedents are 0-19 years old.
• Police-involved shootings disproportionately affect Black Americans and Hispanic/Latino Americans. Black Americans are killed in police-involved shootings at more than twice the rate of White Americans. Hispanic/Latino Americans are killed by police-involved shootings at nearly twice the rate of White Americans. 74

Stop gun violence in all its forms through a multifaceted public health approach.

Gun violence is a complex issue requiring many approaches to its prevention. We are committed to evidence-based policies, programs, and practices and ensuring that all of these preventative measures are designed and implemented equitably. To stop gun violence in all its forms:

• Apply the public health approach for effective gun violence prevention. See Public Health Approach for more information.
• Fund and conduct gun violence research, which is fundamental for effective gun violence prevention. See Gun Violence Research for more information.
• Enact and implement policies, programs, and practices that create time and space between individuals who may be at risk of suicide and firearms. See Firearm Suicide for more information.
• Enact and implement policies, programs, and practices that reduce easy access to firearms by people at risk of interpersonal violence and invest in interventions that address the root causes of gun violence in structurally disadvantaged communities. See Firearm Homicide , Community Violence , and Nonfatal Injuries for more information.
• Expand both federal and state domestic violence firearm prohibitions to reduce abusers’ access to firearms and improve collection and reporting of domestic violence related data. See Domestic Violence for more information.
• Enact and implement policies that reduce easy access to firearms by people at elevated risk of interpersonal violence and ban assault weapons and large capacity magazines that increase lethality in mass shootings. See Mass Shootings for more information.
• Implement programs and practices that promote safer firearm storage and handling. See Unintentional Shootings for more information.
• Train healthcare professionals on lethal means safety counseling so they are prepared to ask patients about firearm access and provide effective and respectful counseling when appropriate. See Lethal Means Safety Counseling for more information.
• Enact and implement a true universal background check law that requires background checks on all gun sales and transfers, including private and online sales, and eliminate “default proceed” sales. See Universal Background Checks for more information.
• Enact and implement state extreme risk laws to prevent tragedy before it occurs and support robust implementation through federal funding. See Extreme Risk Laws for more information.
• Reinstate the federal ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines. In the absence of federal action, states should continue to enact and implement assault weapons and large capacity magazine bans. See Assault Weapons and Large Capacity Magazines for more information.
• Focus gun violence prevention policies on evidence-based risk factors — not mental illness. Use appropriate language and avoid harmful stereotypes. See Mental Illness for more information.

Educational Materials

• A Public Health Crisis Decades in the Making: A Review of 2019 CDC Gun Mortality Data
• Gun Violence in America: An Analysis of 2018 CDC Data
• Gun Violence in America: Data Brief

Fact sheets

• Overview of U.S. Gun Deaths: 2020
• United States Gun Deaths: 2019
• Guns Don’t Make You Safer    
• Staying Safe At Home    
• December 2018 op-ed in The Hill , Five gun violence prevention priorities for the incoming Congress
• June 2018 blog, On Wear Orange Day, we must focus on gun violence in all its forms
• November 2017 op-ed in The Hill ,  The path forward for Democrats starts with gun violence prevention
• Anglemyer A, Horvath T, & 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.
• Bangalore S & Messerli FH. (2013). Gun ownership and firearm-related deaths. American Journal of Medicine.
• Choron R, Spitzer S, & Sakran JV. (2019). Firearm violence in America: Is there a solution? Advances in Surgery.
• Dahlberg LL, Ikeda RM, & Kresnow MJ. (2004). Guns in the home and risk of a violent death in the home: findings from a national study. American Journal of Epidemiology.
• Grinshteyn E & Hemenway D. (2019). Violent death rates in the U.S. compared to those of the other high-income countries, 2015. Preventive Medicine.
• Kalesan B, Villarreal MD, Keyes KM, & Galea S. (2016). Gun ownership and social gun culture. Injury Prevention.
• Karp A. (2018). Estimating global civilian-held firearms numbers. Small Arms Survey.
• Knopov A, Sherman RJ, Raifman JR, Larson E, & Siegel MB. (2019). Household gun ownership and youth suicide rates at the state level, 2005–2015. American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
• Miller M, Azrael D, & Hemenway D. (2002). Rates of household firearm ownership and homicide across U.S. regions and states, 1988-1997. American Journal of Public Health.
• Miller M, Hemenway D, & Azrael D. (2007). State-level homicide victimization rates in the US in relation to survey measures of household firearm ownership, 2001-2003. Social Science & Medicine.
• Monuteaux MC, Lee LK, Hemenway D, Mannix R, & Fleegler EW. (2015). Firearm ownership and violent crime in the US: an ecologic study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine.
• Parker K, Horowitz JM, Igielnik R, Oliphant JB, & Brown A. (2017). America’s complex relationship with guns. Pew Research Center.
• Reeping PM, Cerdá M, Kalesan B, Wiebe DJ, Galea S, & Branas CC. (2019). State gun laws, gun ownership, and mass shootings in the US: cross sectional time series. British Medical Journal.
• Siegel M, Ross CS, & 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.

Additional resources

• Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis by Daniel Webster and Jon Vernick.
• Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms in America by Adam Winkler.

Last updated February 2021

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Home — Essay Samples — Social Issues — Gun Control — The Effects of Gun Violence

The Effects of Gun Violence

• Categories: Gun Control Gun Violence

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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Public health, mental health, social cohesion.

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Examining the pros and cons of gun control.

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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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