gun violence in united states essay

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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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Violano , P. , Bonne , S. , Duncan , T. , Pappas , P. , Christmas , A. B. , Dennis , A. , Goldberg , S. , Greene , W. , Hirsh , M. , Shillinglaw , W. , Robinson , B. and Crandall , M. ( 2018 ). Prevention of Firearm Injuries With Gun Safety Devices and Safe Storage: An Eastern Association for the Surgery of Trauma Systematic Review . The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery , 84 , 1003 – 1011 .

Webster , D. W. , Vernick , J. S. and Bulzacchelli , M. T. ( 2006 ). Effects of a Gun Dealer’s Change in Sales Practices on the Supply of Guns to Criminals . Journal of Urban Health , 83 , 778 – 787 .

Webster , D. W. , Crifasi , C. K. and Vernick , J. S. ( 2014 ). Effects of the Repeal of Missouri’s Handgun Purchaser Licensing Law on Homicides . Journal of Urban Health , 91 , 293 – 302 .

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Home > Topics > Gun Violence: The Impact on Society

Infographics

Gun Violence: The Impact on Society

Social Determinants of Health

Published on: January 16, 2024. Updated on: July 02, 2024.

$557 billion

The economic cost of gun violence across the US in 2022

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

An average of 118 people a day died from a gun-related incident in 2023. For every person who dies by firearm, more than two survive, often with significant and expensive mental and physical injuries.

In June 2024, US Surgeon General, Vivek Murthy, MD, issued a Surgeon General’s Advisory on Firearm Violence, the first publication from the Office of the Surgeon General dedicated to the health issue.

Gun violence is a public health problem: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, About Firearm Injury and Death, 2024

Gun-related deaths and injuries are still above pre-pandemic levels : Alexander Tin and Allison Elyse Gualtieri, CBS News, Gun injuries in 2023 still at higher rates than before the pandemic across most states, CDC reports, 2024

Total gun death 2019 - 2023 : Gun Violence Archive, Past Summary Ledgers, 2024

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

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

Average of people wounded by guns nationally and by state : Everytown, How does gun violence impact the communities you care about?, 2024

Note: The analysis of nonfatal firearm injuries is based on hospital discharge data from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality’s (AHRQ) Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Recent studies and cost per person post-injury:

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

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

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

There have been over 260 mass shootings this year alone, resulting in 274 deaths and over 1,131 injuries (as of July 2, 2024).

The metrics displayed in the graph do not include suspect deaths and injuries. For metrics including suspect deaths and injuries, please see the citations.

Mass shootings in 2024 : Gun Violence Archive, Gun Violence Archive 2024, 2024

• Note: The metrics displayed in the graphic do not include suspect injuries and deaths, only victim injuries and deaths.
• As of July 2: 261 total shootings, 296 deaths, and 1,150 injuries.

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

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

• 2019: 414 total shootings, 461 deaths, and 1,701 injuries
• 2020: 610 total shootings, 516 deaths, and 2,537 injuries
• 2021: 690 total shootings, 707 deaths, and 2,819 injuries
• 2022: 644 total shootings, 675 deaths, and 2,690 injuries
• 2023: 656 total shootings, 756 deaths, and 2,723 injuries

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

For the first time, guns surpassed motor vehicle accidents as cause of death : Daniel J Flannery and Ruth W Begun, “Guns surpass motor vehicles as top cause of death for U.S. children: What parents should know”, Case Western Reserve University, Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, 2022

Guns have remained the leading cause of death:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall, incidents of gunfire on school grounds have been on the rise since 2013. Across the US, Texas has the highest number of gunfire occurrences on school grounds in this timeframe, resulting in close to 70 deaths and 100 injuries.

This year alone, there have been 107 incidents of gunfire on school grounds, responsible for nearly 30 deaths (as of July 2, 2024) .

Cases of gunfire on school grounds since 2013 : Everytown, Gunfire on School Grounds in the United States, 2024

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Suicide among those with a diagnosis is rare:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Deaths per 100,000 population by country:

Source 1 : Wisevoter, Gun Deaths by Country, 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2023 Court Rulings

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

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

This infographic was reviewed by:

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

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

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What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.

More Americans died of gun-related injuries in 2021 than in any other year on record, according to the latest available statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That included record numbers of both gun murders and gun suicides. Despite the increase in such fatalities, the rate of gun deaths – a statistic that accounts for the nation’s growing population – remained below the levels of earlier decades.

Here’s a closer look at gun deaths in the United States, based on a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the CDC, the FBI and other sources. You can also read key public opinion findings about U.S. gun violence and gun policy .

This Pew Research Center analysis examines the changing number and rate of gun deaths in the United States. It is based primarily on data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The CDC’s statistics are based on information contained in official death certificates, while the FBI’s figures are based on information voluntarily submitted by thousands of police departments around the country.

For the number and rate of gun deaths over time, we relied on mortality statistics in the CDC’s WONDER database covering four distinct time periods:  1968 to 1978 ,  1979 to 1998 ,  1999 to 2020 , and 2021 . While these statistics are mostly comparable for the full 1968-2021 period, gun murders and suicides between 1968 and 1978 are classified by the CDC as involving firearms  and  explosives; those between 1979 and 2021 are classified as involving firearms only. Similarly, gun deaths involving law enforcement between 1968 and 1978 exclude those caused by “operations of war”; those between 1979 and 2021 include that category, which refers to gun deaths among military personnel or civilians  due to war or civil insurrection in the U.S . All CDC gun death estimates in this analysis are adjusted to account for age differences over time and across states.

The FBI’s statistics about the types of firearms used in gun murders in 2020 come from the bureau’s  Crime Data Explorer website . Specifically, they are drawn from the expanded homicide tables of the agency’s  2020 Crime in the United States report . The FBI’s statistics include murders and non-negligent manslaughters involving firearms.

How many people die from gun-related injuries in the U.S. each year?

In 2021, the most recent year for which complete data is available, 48,830 people died from gun-related injuries in the U.S., according to the CDC. That figure includes gun murders and gun suicides, along with three less common types of gun-related deaths tracked by the CDC: those that were accidental, those that involved law enforcement and those whose circumstances could not be determined. The total excludes deaths in which gunshot injuries played a contributing, but not principal, role. (CDC fatality statistics are based on information contained in official death certificates, which identify a single cause of death.)

What share of U.S. gun deaths are murders and what share are suicides?

Though they tend to get less public attention than gun-related murders, suicides have long accounted for the majority of U.S. gun deaths . In 2021, 54% of all gun-related deaths in the U.S. were suicides (26,328), while 43% were murders (20,958), according to the CDC. The remaining gun deaths that year were accidental (549), involved law enforcement (537) or had undetermined circumstances (458).

What share of all murders and suicides in the U.S. involve a gun?

About eight-in-ten U.S. murders in 2021 – 20,958 out of 26,031, or 81% – involved a firearm. That marked the highest percentage since at least 1968, the earliest year for which the CDC has online records. More than half of all suicides in 2021 – 26,328 out of 48,183, or 55% – also involved a gun, the highest percentage since 2001.

How has the number of U.S. gun deaths changed over time?

The record 48,830 total gun deaths in 2021 reflect a 23% increase since 2019, before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic .

Gun murders, in particular, have climbed sharply during the pandemic, increasing 45% between 2019 and 2021, while the number of gun suicides rose 10% during that span.

The overall increase in U.S. gun deaths since the beginning of the pandemic includes an especially stark rise in such fatalities among children and teens under the age of 18. Gun deaths among children and teens rose 50% in just two years , from 1,732 in 2019 to 2,590 in 2021.

How has the rate of U.S. gun deaths changed over time?

While 2021 saw the highest total number of gun deaths in the U.S., this statistic does not take into account the nation’s growing population. On a per capita basis, there were 14.6 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 2021 – the highest rate since the early 1990s, but still well below the peak of 16.3 gun deaths per 100,000 people in 1974.

The gun murder rate in the U.S. remains below its peak level despite rising sharply during the pandemic. There were 6.7 gun murders per 100,000 people in 2021, below the 7.2 recorded in 1974.

The gun suicide rate, on the other hand, is now on par with its historical peak. There were 7.5 gun suicides per 100,000 people in 2021, statistically similar to the 7.7 measured in 1977. (One caveat when considering the 1970s figures: In the CDC’s database, gun murders and gun suicides between 1968 and 1978 are classified as those caused by firearms and explosives. In subsequent years, they are classified as deaths involving firearms only.)

Which states have the highest and lowest gun death rates in the U.S.?

The rate of gun fatalities varies widely from state to state. In 2021, the states with the highest total rates of gun-related deaths – counting murders, suicides and all other categories tracked by the CDC – included Mississippi (33.9 per 100,000 people), Louisiana (29.1), New Mexico (27.8), Alabama (26.4) and Wyoming (26.1). The states with the lowest total rates included Massachusetts (3.4), Hawaii (4.8), New Jersey (5.2), New York (5.4) and Rhode Island (5.6).

The results are somewhat different when looking at gun murder and gun suicide rates separately. The places with the highest gun murder rates in 2021 included the District of Columbia (22.3 per 100,000 people), Mississippi (21.2), Louisiana (18.4), Alabama (13.9) and New Mexico (11.7). Those with the lowest gun murder rates included Massachusetts (1.5), Idaho (1.5), Hawaii (1.6), Utah (2.1) and Iowa (2.2). Rate estimates are not available for Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont or Wyoming.

The states with the highest gun suicide rates in 2021 included Wyoming (22.8 per 100,000 people), Montana (21.1), Alaska (19.9), New Mexico (13.9) and Oklahoma (13.7). The states with the lowest gun suicide rates were Massachusetts (1.7), New Jersey (1.9), New York (2.0), Hawaii (2.8) and Connecticut (2.9). Rate estimates are not available for the District of Columbia.

How does the gun death rate in the U.S. compare with other countries?

The gun death rate in the U.S. is much higher than in most other nations, particularly developed nations. But it is still far below the rates in several Latin American countries, according to a 2018 study of 195 countries and territories by researchers at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.

The U.S. gun death rate was 10.6 per 100,000 people in 2016, the most recent year in the study, which used a somewhat different methodology from the CDC. That was far higher than in countries such as Canada (2.1 per 100,000) and Australia (1.0), as well as European nations such as France (2.7), Germany (0.9) and Spain (0.6). But the rate in the U.S. was much lower than in El Salvador (39.2 per 100,000 people), Venezuela (38.7), Guatemala (32.3), Colombia (25.9) and Honduras (22.5), the study found. Overall, the U.S. ranked 20th in its gun fatality rate that year .

How many people are killed in mass shootings in the U.S. every year?

This is a difficult question to answer because there is no single, agreed-upon definition of the term “mass shooting.” Definitions can vary depending on factors including the number of victims and the circumstances of the shooting.

The FBI collects data on “active shooter incidents,” which it defines as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” Using the FBI’s definition, 103 people – excluding the shooters – died in such incidents in 2021 .

The Gun Violence Archive, an online database of gun violence incidents in the U.S., defines mass shootings as incidents in which four or more people are shot, even if no one was killed (again excluding the shooters). Using this definition, 706 people died in these incidents in 2021 .

Regardless of the definition being used, fatalities in mass shooting incidents in the U.S. account for a small fraction of all gun murders that occur nationwide each year.

How has the number of mass shootings in the U.S. changed over time?

The same definitional issue that makes it challenging to calculate mass shooting fatalities comes into play when trying to determine the frequency of U.S. mass shootings over time. The unpredictability of these incidents also complicates matters: As Rand Corp. noted in a research brief , “Chance variability in the annual number of mass shooting incidents makes it challenging to discern a clear trend, and trend estimates will be sensitive to outliers and to the time frame chosen for analysis.”

The FBI found an increase in active shooter incidents between 2000 and 2021. There were three such incidents in 2000. By 2021, that figure had increased to 61.

Which types of firearms are most commonly used in gun murders in the U.S.?

In 2020, the most recent year for which the FBI has published data, handguns were involved in 59% of the 13,620 U.S. gun murders and non-negligent manslaughters for which data is available. Rifles – the category that includes guns sometimes referred to as “assault weapons” – were involved in 3% of firearm murders. Shotguns were involved in 1%. The remainder of gun homicides and non-negligent manslaughters (36%) involved other kinds of firearms or those classified as “type not stated.”

It’s important to note that the FBI’s statistics do not capture the details on all gun murders in the U.S. each year. The FBI’s data is based on information voluntarily submitted by police departments around the country, and not all agencies participate or provide complete information each year.

Note: This is an update of a post originally published on Aug. 16, 2019.

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Key facts about Americans and guns

Cultural issues and the 2024 election, about 1 in 4 u.s. teachers say their school went into a gun-related lockdown in the last school year, striking findings from 2023, for most u.s. gun owners, protection is the main reason they own a gun, most popular.

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Introduction

• Why non-carceral community-based investments are key for preventing gun violence
• How state and local leaders are leveraging ARP funds to invest in non-carceral safety strategies
• Recommendations from the field: Maximizing ARP funds to promote holistic community safety

In June 2022, the most significant piece of gun violence prevention legislation in decades, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act , became law. Alongside several common-sense gun regulations, the law allocates $250 million for community-based violence prevention initiatives—a promising step toward promoting safety through non-carceral and community-centered approaches. 1  

This federal action is important, but it only scratches the surface of what can be done to keep communities safe from gun violence. From investing in youth employment programs to revitalizing vacant lots to improving the quality of neighborhood housing, a wealth of community-based safety interventions are proven to reduce violent crime—including gun violence—in the places most impacted by it, and tackle the conditions of inequality that allow violence to concentrate in the first place. 2 But far too often, these community-based interventions are under-funded, particularly when compared to more punitive approaches. 3

Luckily, another source of federal aid can fund community-based safety investments: the American Rescue Plan’s (ARP) $350 billion in Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds. In addition to helping states and localities recover from the pandemic, the funds also provide local leaders with an unparalleled opportunity to address the public health crisis of gun violence. Indeed, President Joe Biden recently called on state and local leaders to use portions of this funding to address gun violence, including by “expanding evidence-based community violence intervention programs, and preventing crime by making our neighborhoods stronger with more educational and economic opportunities.” 4    

This research brief documents how state and local leaders are leveraging ARP funds to invest in non-carceral community-based safety initiatives; presents perspectives and case studies from leaders on-the-ground innovating on such strategies; and offers recommendations for how state and local leaders can maximize ARP funds to promote community safety prior to 2024 (when all funds must be obligated) and 2026 (when all funds must be spent). This is an unparalleled—and time-limited—window of opportunity, and states and localities should be thinking strategically right now about how to not only invest in proven strategies to reduce gun violence, but also promote life-affirming safety investments that  support thriving communities. 

Why non-carceral community-based investments are key for preventing gun violence 

Despite news headlines to the contrary, the U.S. is not in the midst of a crime wave . But it is experiencing an unprecedented and alarming increase in murders, driven largely by gun homicides. 5 Between 2019 and 2020, murder rates nationwide rose nearly 30%, while other forms of crime went down. 6 Since then, homicides, gun assaults, and other forms of violent crime have continued to trend upward, and as of June 2022, the homicide rate was 39% higher than it was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. 7 For this reason, this brief focuses primarily on the role that community-based safety investments can play in addressing gun violence but it is important to note that these investments can also have broader impacts on public safety and community well-being.  

To understand the effectiveness of community-based safety investments, it helps to look at where most gun violence occurs. 8 Within cities and towns, gun violence is spatially concentrated—disproportionately occurring within a select set of high-poverty and disinvested neighborhoods, and within these neighborhoods, a select set of streets. 9  These are also the places where indicators of structural disadvantage (such as poverty, racial segregation, lower educational attainment, and high unemployment) cluster. 10 This pattern held during the recent nationwide increase in gun violence. 11   

The spatial concentration of violence stems from generations of policies and public and private investment decisions. Numerous studies have found a connection between state-sponsored racial segregation and gun violence, with the same places historically deemed unworthy of economic investment (through redlining) being more likely to be where gun violence concentrates today. 12 Research has also identified a link between concentrated poverty, densely crowded housing, and vacant buildings with higher rates of violent crime, including gun homicides. 13   

Given the many place-based factors that contribute to gun violence, there is growing recognition that just like improving public health in other ways, reducing gun violence requires addressing its social determinants and looking outside traditional systems (such as courts or hospitals) to tackle its root causes. 14   This approach is consistent with the preferences of survivors of violent crime, who overwhelmingly prefer investments in non-punitive crime prevention over criminal legal system responses. 15 As the John Jay College of Criminal Justice recently pointed out , this approach is also consistent with an emerging and growing body of research that elevates the effectiveness of non-carceral public safety investments that put communities at the center and builds their capacity to advance safety, health, and economic opportunity. 16  

The next section of this brief examines four categories of non-carceral community safety investments that ARP funds are being used for. Before introducing examples of investments in each category, we provide further empirical justification for specific investments within that category. But while the empirical evidence matters, the underlying moral argument does as well: Mass incarceration is not a morally acceptable solution to systemic disinvestment . 17 Local leaders should support non-carceral community safety interventions not only because they are effective, but because investing in struggling communities is the right thing to do. 

Methodology   This brief pulls from public data state and local governments reported to the U.S. Treasury Department regarding ARP spending. 18 We filtered projects by “Expense Category Group- 3-Services to Disproportionately Impacted Communities,” and further filtered by “Category-3.16-Social Determinants of Health: Community Violence Interventions.” 19 These filters, which Treasury has since recategorized as “Category 1 Public Health, 1.11 Community Violence Intervention,” document instances in which state and local leaders are purposefully aiming to reduce violence by addressing social determinants. We recognize that there are many more projects that are not coded as violence interventions that can still have an outsized impact in reducing violence, such as those designed to restore vacant lots or pilot universal basic incomes. However, we believe it is important to highlight how states and localities are explicitly thinking about violence prevention through community-centered approaches.   Within the Community Violence Intervention designation, we also filtered out funding allocated to victim services. While such projects are commendable and necessary, they are responses to violence, whereas our brief is concerned with interventions that prevent violence. Additionally, this brief focuses entirely on non-carceral safety uses of ARP funds, meaning we excluded uses that expand the reach of the criminal legal system (such as increasing the size of the police force or acquiring new public safety technology). The justification behind this approach is to highlight forward-looking and life-affirming visions of community safety, rather than carceral approaches that produce negative intergenerational consequences (such as mental health ramifications, family separation, poor educational performance, and racialized class stratification). 20 Finally, we conducted qualitative interviews with 14 government and civic leaders working at the state, county, and city level. 21 In selecting interviewees, we balanced attention to government and civil society and sought to center Black voices, particularly in localities with a large Black population.

How state and local leaders are leveraging ARP funds to invest in non-carceral safety strategies 

While the most straightforward uses of the American Rescue Plan’s State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds are to replace lost tax revenue or shore up general funds, the Treasury Department’s rules allow for a broad range of uses that “build a strong, resilient, and equitable recovery by making investments that support long-term growth and opportunity.” 22 Treasury also makes clear that community safety interventions are valid expenditure types for all communities, particularly those that have suffered an uptick in violence. 23 And as analysts at Civil Rights Corps , Alliance for Safety and Justice , the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities , and other organizations have pointed out, these flexible funds offer the largest-ever influx of federal dollars to support states and localities advance non-carceral interventions that promote a holistic vision of community safety. 24  

Below is a curated list of state and local investments in non-carceral community safety interventions, categorized along four key dimensions of community well-being. 25 While there are many more examples, our list represents a diverse set of locations with distinct approaches.  

Enhancing economic opportunity to promote safety 

A place’s economic health has a significant influence on its rates of violence; neighborhoods with higher poverty rates, unemployment, and income inequality have higher rates of violent crime. 26 On the other side of this relationship, a promising body of evidence demonstrates that by enhancing economic opportunity and reducing inequality within neighborhoods, places can significantly reduce crime. 27 For instance, evidence shows that youth workforce development and employment programs can reduce youth involvement in violent crime by as much as 45%. 28 Improving school quality has also been found to reduce violent crime arrests. 29 Finally, helping families avoid financial stress has been found to reduce crime and produce numerous other community benefits. 30   

Figure 1 illustrates how state and local governments are heeding this body of evidence and using ARP funds to advance community safety through economic mobility. For example, Illinois allocated $60 million investment toward youth employment programming, which subsidizes wages for high-risk youth and allows them to gain employability skills, participate in career development and apprenticeship programming, and receive wraparound services to address the root causes of employment barriers.  

Case study: How a small city in Virginia is using ARP funds to reduce violent crime through youth workforce development   Danville is a Black-majority (49%) city in southern Virginia with a population of approximately 42,000 . In 2016, it had the state’s highest per capita homicide rate , largely driven by gang-related violence . To tackle this, the city implemented a variety of community-centered programs to build trust in high-violence neighborhoods and prevent violence among at-risk youth. As Danville’s City Manager Ken Larking told us, “The best way to reduce crime is to prevent it and intervene before it happens.”  In 2020 (the year with the most recently reported data ), Danville saw a 50% reduction in violent crime from 2016. The city’s focus on prevention is also central to how it’s using ARP funds. Larking said that Danville is allocating funds on both “direct” violence prevention (including $236,000 on community violence initiatives) as well as “indirect” violence prevention, such as $1 million to address blight and additional grants to help residents of disinvested neighborhoods start businesses.   Of particular note is Project Imagine , a youth workforce development and violence prevention initiative that received $36,000 in ARP funding. Project Imagine provides gang-involved or at-risk youth with mentorship, apprenticeships, and employment opportunities, and enables former participants to become “ambassadors” who represent their neighborhoods in city meetings and provide input on the city’s strategic plan.  “One thing I knew coming into this city is that there was no voice from the Black community that was being heard,” Robert David, who leads Project Imagine, told us. When David was brought on in 2018, he had no staff or budget, but was able to access unused city funds from the federal Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act to begin offering paid jobs to youth. He also turned everyday community spaces into hubs to promote workforce development. “We made the barbershop a haven,” he said, noting when one of his outreach workers isn’t there, people will ask the barber, “Where’s my man with the jobs?”  The infusion of ARP funds has helped David hire permanent outreach workers to connect with more youth, which has since significantly increased enrollment in the initiative. The funds have also enabled him to acquire a permanent building for Project Imagine, which will serve as a safe drop-in space and community center for youth. 

Investing in the built environment and public health to promote safety  

The most consistent evidence on the relationship between violence prevention and place exists in the realm of the built environment. Numerous studies find that the renovation of housing, vacant buildings, land, and lots as well as efforts to add greenery and improve air quality significantly reduce violent crime. 31 These place-based strategies aim to counter decades of public and private disinvestment by revitalizing the physical environment and improving the health and safety of entire communities, rather than focusing on a sub-set of high-risk individuals (which many violence prevention programs, such violence interrupters, tend to focus on). 32 These interventions also align with a public health approach to preventing violence, which addresses the environmental factors that increase susceptibility to violence and advances protective environments that nurture safety, health, and well-being. 33 Examples range from addressing air pollution to increasing Medicaid coverage to expanding access to substance abuse and mental health treatment. 34  

Figure 2 highlights how state and local governments are using ARP funds to advance built environment improvements in communities and bolster public health system responses to community violence. For example, Chicago allocated ARP dollars to fund public realm improvements, building restorations, the preservation of safe and affordable housing, and the reactivation of city-owned land in the 15 areas with the highest rates of homicide and nonfatal shootings. 

It is important to note that while Figure 2 includes built environment and public health interventions explicitly categorized as “community violence interventions,” there are many other examples of state and local governments investing in built environment improvements that have the potential to prevent violence and are not categorized as such. These include city beautification and a revitalized community park in Milwaukee , streetlight repair in Los Angeles , and weatherization efforts to remove lead and mold in Washington, D.C . 35  

Case study: How Multnomah County, Ore. is taking a public health approach to violence prevention Multnomah County is home to Portland, Oregon’s most populous city. During the pandemic, gun violence in the city nearly tripled . In response to this sharp uptick and an over-burdened social service system, county officials allocated over $61 million of their ARP funds to violence prevention, including $4 million in public health approaches .    “We drew a one-to-one connection between the uptick and gun violence and the pandemic,” said Adam Renon, senior policy advisor to the Multnomah County chair. “The loss of social cohesion, the isolation, the breakdown of traditional society norms. So, we said, let’s use ARP funds to address that.” The county allocated $300,000 to hire “community health specialists” who provide families directly impacted by gun violence with safety plans and trauma support. An additional $1.2 million went toward creating a behavioral health response team of clinicians and peers to serve youth and families affected by gun violence. And the county expanded existing programs, including the Habilitation, Empowerment, Accountability, Therapy (H.E.A.T.) curriculum —a cognitive behavioral therapy program meant to address generational traumas for justice-involved people.    Raffaele Timarchi, policy advisor to the county chair, explained the importance of embedding public health approaches to violence prevention across multiple county departments: “[Just because] we take a public health approach to violence prevention doesn’t mean that all of our investments have to be in a public health department…We want to spread the tools of public health into these other departments, including people working at the community level.” This approach ran through Multnomah County’s ARP safety allocations, which included significant investments to strengthen communities through emergency rental assistance, community organization incubators, and a $4.8 million investment in direct assistance to help pay for residents’ pressing financial needs, including food, child care, transportation, and living expenses 

“We drew a one-to-one connection between the uptick and gun violence and the pandemic. The loss of social cohesion, the isolation, the breakdown of traditional society norms. So, we said, let’s use ARP funds to address that.” Adam Renon, Senior Policy Advisor, Multnomah County

Nurturing social cohesion to promote safety  

A significant body of evidence demonstrates that social cohesion and feelings of belonging to a neighborhood are associated with lower violent crime rates. 36 Research has also found that increasing the number of spaces for informal contact between neighbors (e.g., parks, community centers) is linked to a greater sense of safety for people in urban areas. 37 A growing body of evidence even indicates that creative placemaking can enhance community safety. 38

The evidence linking social cohesion with reduced violence forms the basis for many evidence-based community violence intervention programs, such as Cure Violence or Advance Peace , 39 which rely on community outreach to reach individuals in neighborhoods at the highest risk for violence. 40 These violence interrupting programs have contributed to significant declines in violence in high-crime neighborhoods in Richmond, Calif., Stockton, Calif., Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Baltimore, and others. 41  

Figure 3 highlights how state and local governments are using ARP funds to either invest in community violence interruption programs or in activities and programs that promote social cohesion. For example, Elkhart, Ind. is using ARP dollars to host summer events with music and food, present talks by credible messengers (e.g., people who have formerly been involved with the criminal legal system and now work in violence prevention), distribute anti-gun-violence yard signs, and provide COVID-19 information. Cincinnati is funding the Save Our Youth: Kings & Queens program, in which at-risk teens participate in a three-month program involving field trips and speakers focusing on Black history.  

Case study: How St. Louis is preventing violence by investing in safe youth spaces St. Louis is a midsized city (45.7% Black) with a population of roughly 300,000 . Even with a slight decline in 2021, St. Louis continues to have one of the highest homicide rates in the nation . In recent years, there has been growing recognition among city officials that to prevent violence, they must target its root causes—starting with offering resources to those who are most at-risk for committing and be victims of violence, including youth in disinvested neighborhoods.  “We have over 50 kids that have been shot since the beginning of this year,” said Wilford Pinkney Jr., director of the Mayor’s Office of Children, Youth, and Families. “Most of our car jackings and car thefts are all juveniles…There was no one engaging with them to determine what is happening, why they engaged in that behavior, and to try to deal with addressing it early on. We need to deal with that before we get to the point that they’re car jacking and shooting people.”    As part of its ARP allocation, St. Louis devoted $5.5 million to violence interruption initiatives. One is Safer Summer St. Louis, which funds youth- and grassroots-led organizations to plan pop-up events aimed at providing safe, community-building spaces. Jessica Meyers, director for the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission , said that motivation for the program came from youth themselves: “We heard from the youth that they feel like they do not have access to their whole neighborhood. They do not have access to safe spaces in their neighborhood. The spaces that should be safe, like parks, aren’t safe because of gun violence or drug dealing or gang activity. Or the spaces that are safe—like a recreation center or a YMCA or a business—they don’t feel welcome in them, or they feel there are barriers, whether that’s a fee or transportation.” Safer Summer St. Louis seeks to tackle this by providing funding (up to $5,000 per event) to youth in neighborhoods most impacted by gun violence to host events like block parties, bike rides, fitness events, and other activities of their choosing.  Meyers said that while the program is based on evidence about what works to prevent violence, it is really about showing St. Louis youth that the city is invested in their future. “[Safer Summer St. Louis] is about investing in youth and telling them we value them enough that we’re taking this $1 million in [ARP] funding and we’re going to put it directly to events that allow you to be young and have fun in St. Louis—in a safer St. Louis.” 

“[Safer Summer St. Louis] is about investing in youth and telling them we value them enough that we’re taking this $1 million in [ARP] funding and we’re going to put it directly to events that allow you to be young and have fun in St. Louis—in a safer St. Louis.” Jessica Meyers, Director of the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission

Strengthening civic infrastructure to promote safety  

Nearly every non-carceral community-based safety intervention requires the leadership and dedication of civic and community-based organizations to be implemented. 42 And aside from that, research indicates that the mere presence of such organizations within a neighborhood leads to reductions in violent crime. 43 The challenge, however, is that while city resources are plentiful for increasing police in high-crime neighborhoods, cities routinely fail to fund the community infrastructure (such as grassroots organizations) that stabilize communities. 44  

Figure 4 highlights how state and local governments are using ARP funds to enhance the capacity of community-based and civic organizations to prevent violence. For example, New Haven, Conn. used $785,000 of its ARP funds to create Civic Space , a centralized public forum for citizens and grassroots organizations to share input on ARP investments, learn about new community-centered violence prevention initiatives, and partner with other organizations working on similar aims. 

Case study: How Minnesota is supporting locally led grassroots organizations prevent violence Minnesota has a population of 5.7 million , with the largest concentrations in the cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Despite relatively strong gun laws, firearms are the leading cause of death for youth in the state. With Minneapolis being the site of George Floyd’s murder and the catalyst for global protests against racial injustice, the state knew it needed to act boldly in allocating ARP funds toward non-carceral public safety approaches—ultimately obligating $16.8 million for violence prevention and intervention activities as well as survivor support.   As part of this, state leaders allocated $5 million toward a new Innovation in Community Safety grant program . Kate Weeks, executive director of the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, said the program is “a new way for Minnesota to push out money that was community-focused,” where “decisions about where funds would go come directly from the community.” The grant program provides local organizations in targeted neighborhoods with up to $1 million for community safety programming, prioritizing areas with the highest rates of violent crime. According to Weeks, the recipients have been “virtually all nonprofits.”   The state made another $2.5 million available through Violence Intervention Grants , with a maximum per-grant amount of $250,000. These grants were designed to have a more equitable distribution of applicants, with a fiscal agent administering smaller funding amounts more quickly to grassroots organizations.

Recommendations from the field: Maximizing ARP funds to promote holistic community safety  

The state, county, and local leaders we interviewed offered five primary recommendations on how to more equitably and effectively allocate ARP spending toward non-carceral community safety interventions. These recommendations, which align with emerging research on best practices for the equitable use of ARP funds, include:  

• Build the capacity of smaller, grassroots nonprofits to deploy funds. States and municipalities rely on nonprofit partners to execute ARP obligations; small and grassroots nonprofits (which often serve and hold greater trust with disinvested communities) are at a structural disadvantage in becoming aware of and applying for federal funds, as well as in navigating the reporting requirements tied to federal dollars. 45 As Robert David explained, prior to Danville’s efforts to invest in violence prevention, there was a disconnect between grassroots organizations and “where the funding was,” which made the city “resource-rich but collaboratively poor.” Our interviewees explained how solving this mismatch requires direct outreach to nonprofits in disinvested communities to make them aware of ARP funds, simplifying the application process or dedicating state or municipal resources to support grassroots partners through the process, and loosening reporting requirements. For example, in St. Louis, the city hired a consultant to help grassroots nonprofits apply for funds. And in Minnesota, the state allocated different funding streams through a “social compact” model to allow some smaller nonprofits to pool their applications to make a stronger case for funding.  
• Employ participatory and community-informed processes to guide investment decisions . To be true to the White House’s directive to use ARP funds equitably , disproportionately impacted communities should be engaged in determining how these federal dollars are spent. A variety of traditional mechanisms can be used to do so, including surveys, online forms, public meetings, and listening sessions. But these tools alone can often exclude citizens who are not already highly engaged or who have limited broadband access. Leaders must be intentional about diversifying the forms of community engagement and ensuring engagement is meaningful. Some strategies include targeted outreach in disadvantaged census tracts, using paid community reviewers (including youth) to review proposals and help make grantmaking decisions, conducting outreach to incarcerated and returning citizens, and launching longer-term processes such as participatory budgeting . For example, the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission hired youth to review proposals for their Safer Summer St. Louis program, and Danville leveraged previous community engagement processes to guide the allocation of ARP funds. Stakeholders across all cities emphasized the importance of engaging youth.

“When we give power to young people to use their voice, to be able to co-create, that is more powerful than [when] we are just ordaining from on high and not letting them be effective partners,” Devanshi Patel, CEO of the Center for Youth and Family Advocacy in Virginia. 

• Prioritize equity in the allocation, implementation, and evaluation of ARP funds. The Treasury Department explicitly urged states and localities to prioritize equity in their distribution of ARP funds. In terms of funding allocations, equity can mean ensuring funding flows to census tracts with disproportionate rates of violence or to organizations whose leadership and staff are demographically representative of the communities they serve (for example, by requiring grant seekers to disclose this information in applications, as Minnesota did). In terms of implementation, interviewees explained that equity means trusting community-based organizations—particularly those with deep ties to underserved places—to use their funding in nimble ways that respond to communities’ evolving needs. Equity also means recognizing that people involved in implementation might not have standard resumes or may have criminal records, but their lived experiences and community ties are valuable assets for expanding the success and impact of these interventions. As Multnomah County’s Adam Renon told us, “We need to learn from the individuals who have been incarcerated or who have committed gun violence, and ask them, ‘What would have prevented you from entering that life?’” Finally, in terms of evaluation, equity means thinking expansively about compliance requirements and reporting metrics—including incorporating qualitative data and perspectives from directly impacted communities—as burdensome requirements can strain capacity and limit the ability of smaller organizations to access funding.

“ We need to learn from the individuals who have been incarcerated or who have committed gun violence, and ask them, ‘What would have prevented you from entering that life?’” Adam Renon, Senior Policy Advisor, Multnomah County

• Use data to not just understand program effectiveness, but to respond to evolving community needs. Upticks in violence can be unpredictable and send shockwaves across entire communities—disrupting school, family, and social life even for residents who may not have been directly victimized themselves. For this reason, interviewees stressed the importance of using public safety indicators not just to gauge whether prevention initiatives are working, but also as a way to shift implementation and resource allocation to respond to communities’ needs. “We really tried to take a look at the data in front of us,” Multnomah County’s Raffaele Timarchi said. “We knew that mental health concerns were up, we knew youth were disconnected from school and social supports…The safety net had been frayed.” Timarchi explained how the intersecting challenges of rising gun homicide rates, school closures, and frontline workers’ burnout guided their cross-disciplinary approach to violence prevention. Wilford Pinkney Jr. described using St. Louis’ crisis response data to craft programs that better fit community needs: “If you’re doing crisis response right, you’re engaging people and gathering a lot of data that’s hard for people to refute in terms of what the needs are in the community. We don’t have to guess what people need. We have 6,000 interactions from people in this community saying what they need.” Interviewees stressed this imperative to use data not as a way to judge high-violence communities, but rather as a tool to more deeply understand their shifting needs.

“If you’re doing crisis response right, you’re engaging people and gathering a lot of data that’s hard for people to refute in terms of what the needs are in the community. We don’t have to guess what people need. We have 6,000 interactions from people in this community saying what they need.” Wilford Pinkney Jr., St. Louis

• Create dedicated and sustainable funding streams—including as line items in city budgets—and braid funding streams whenever possible to increase scale. ARP provides state and local leaders with a once-in-a-generation influx of funds, but it is time-limited. Multiple interviewees expressed their concern that too great a reliance on this one-time funding could lead to programmatic cliffs. They noted that creating line items in city, county, or state budgets, and/or creating permanent agencies devoted to community safety could provide stability in financing—especially since political cycles and new administrations can disrupt initiatives that lack permanency. 46 Our Brookings colleagues have also suggested braiding or blending funding streams to increase sustainability, which could involve braiding ARP dollars with  private funding , funding from  surrounding regional jurisdictions , or major new federal investments like those in the  Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act . Finally, municipalities should harness revenue from traditional economic development initiatives to sustain public priorities. For example, Danville City Manager Ken Larking outlined a vision for current development that includes the goal of never being “in a budget crisis where a neighborhood park has to be sacrificed because there isn’t enough money to do police services or whatever else.” And as an added benefit, by tying revenue to priorities that reflect established city values and priorities, governments are held accountable to steering development that benefits the entire community.  

Conclusion 

At the end of 2021, cities and counties had budgeted only 40% of their total ARP allocation (82% of the first of two funding tranches). While more money has been budgeted this year, there is still plenty of funding left to be allocated prior to the 2024 deadline and spent prior to the 2026 deadline. It is vital that state and local leaders seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to invest in community-based violence prevention efforts now, as these programs can take time to establish roots at the local level and scale up. 

By investing in critical community safety infrastructure before the next rise in gun violence, communities will be better supported and equipped to avoid such violence, while also averting the intergenerational consequences that accompany punitive responses to it. As Devanshi Patel of Virginia’s Center for Youth and Family Advocacy said, it is imperative to invest in “restorative justice and community-based programming now to help kids stay out of the legal system” because system-involvement and incarceration can create harms for people and communities that are felt for generations. 

Ultimately, the benefits of addressing the root causes of gun violence go far beyond the shots you don’t hear. In addition to the lives saved, the benefits can be seen in the children playing in parks, the youth finding employment, the sick accessing treatment, the entrepreneurs launching businesses, or neighbors hosting block parties. By investing in economic opportunity, bolstering social cohesion, upgrading the built environment, and strengthening neighborhoods’ civic ties, state and local leaders can create the conditions necessary for long-lasting individual and collective flourishing. 

Acknowledgments:

The authors express their sincere gratitude to the state and local leaders who participated in research interviews to inform this piece: Gregory Baldwin, Thomas Carr, Robert David, Patrick Hogan, Tricia Hummel, Ken Larking, Jessica Meyers, Ahna Minge, Dr. Kiah E. Nyame, Devanshi Patel, Wilford Pinkney Jr., Adam Renon, Raffaele Timarchi, and Kathryn Weeks. The authors also thank the following experts for their review of various drafts of the research brief: Alan Berube, Jennifer S. Vey, and Eli Byerly-Duke (of Brookings Metro), Sam Washington and Thea Sebastian (of Civil Rights Corps), and Leah Sakala (of Alliance for Safety and Justice).  

About the Authors

Research associate – brookings metro, anthony barr, senior research assistant – brookings metro, oluwasekemi odumosu, research intern – brookings metro.

• “Non-carceral” safety interventions are those that exist outside of the formal criminal justice system, and are implemented by actors who are not part of the criminal justice system.
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• Our list of interviewees consisted of the following: From Danville, Va.: Gregory Baldwin (Director of Restorative Practices at Center for Youth and Family Advocacy), Robert David (Youth and Gang Violence Prevention Coordinator), Ken Larking (City Manager), and Devanshi Patel (Co-Founder and CEO at Center for Youth and Family Advocacy. From St. Louis: Jessica Meyers (Director, St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission) and Wilford Pinkney Jr. (Director, Mayor’s Office of Children, Youth, and Families). From Multnomah County, Ore: Adam Renon (Senior Policy Advisor for Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury) and Raffaele Timarchi (Policy Advisor for Multnomah County Chair Deborah Kafoury). From Minnesota: Thomas Carr (Executive Budget Officer at Minnesota Management & Budget), Patrick Hogan (Director of Communications at Minnesota Management & Budget), Tricia Hummel (Assistant Director, Minnesota Office of Justice Programs), Ahna Minge (Assistant Commissioner for Budget Services and State Budget Director, Minnesota Management & Budget), and Kathryn Weeks (Executive Director, Minnesota Office of Budget Programs). From Rochester, N.Y.: Dr. Kiah E. Nyame (Coordinator, Rochester Office of Neighborhood Safety).
• Coronavirus State and Local Fiscal Recovery Funds | U.S. Department of the Treasury
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• U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (n.d.). Neighborhoods and violent crime. https://www.huduser.gov/portal/periodicals/em/summer16/highlight2.html.
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After 19 children and two teachers were slaughtered by a gunman at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, many Americans are asking, yet again, how to prevent future acts of senseless violence from occurring. What gun laws need to be changed? Why is it so difficult to pass regulations? How can Second Amendment rights be balanced with firearm safety? 

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

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

Causes, impacts of gun violence

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

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

Below is some of that research. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Disconnect: The gap between gun violence and research in numbers

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

Supporting students exposed to school shootings

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

Panel discusses how shootings affect those unscathed by bullets

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

California handgun sales spiked after two mass shootings

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

Mass shootings: Public face of a much larger epidemic

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

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

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

Supporting children through loss

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

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

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

Investigating psychiatric illnesses of mass shooters

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

The silent cost of school shootings

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

New study analyzes recent gun violence research

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

Handgun ownership associated with much higher suicide risk

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

Advice on how to cope with the threat of school shootings

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

Reducing gun violence

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

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

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

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

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

Lax state gun laws linked to more child gun deaths

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

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

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

How to solve more gun crimes without spending more money

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

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

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

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

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

Gun legislation and policy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

4 gun control steps U.S. needs now

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

Violent crime increases in right-to-carry states

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

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

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

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

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

Will Americans ever think differently about guns?

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

Gun Violence: Prediction, Prevention, and Policy

• Gun Violence and Crime

Gun violence is an urgent, complex, and multifaceted problem. It requires evidence-based, multifaceted solutions. Psychology can make important contributions to policies that prevent gun violence. Toward this end, in February 2013 the American Psychological Association commissioned this report by a panel of experts to convey research-based conclusions and recommendations (and to identify gaps in such knowledge) on how to reduce the incidence of gun violence — whether by homicide, suicide, or mass shootings — nationwide.

Following are chapter-by-chapter highlights and short summaries of conclusions and recommendations of the report’s authors. More information and supporting citations can be found within the chapters themselves.

Antecedents to Gun Violence: Developmental Issues

A complex and variable constellation of risk and protective factors makes persons more or less likely to use a firearm against themselves or others. For this reason, there is no single profile that can reliably predict who will use a gun in a violent act. Instead, gun violence is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and sociocultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence. Although many youths desist in aggressive and antisocial behavior during late adolescence, others are disproportionately at risk for becoming involved in or otherwise affected by gun violence. The most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior.  P revention efforts guided by research on developmental risk can reduce the likelihood that firearms will be introduced into community and family conflicts or criminal activity.  Prevention efforts can also reduce the relatively rare occasions when severe mental illness contributes to homicide or the more common circumstances when depression or other mental illness contributes to suicide. Reducing incidents of gun violence arising from criminal misconduct or suicide is an important goal of broader primary and secondary prevention and intervention strategies. Such strategies must also attend to redirecting developmental antecedents and larger sociocultural processes that contribute to gun violence and gun-related deaths.

Antecedents to Gun Violence: Gender and Culture

Any account of gun violence in the United States must be able to explain both why males are perpetrators of the vast majority of gun violence and why the vast majority of males never perpetrate gun violence. Preliminary evidence suggests that changing perceptions among males of social norms about behaviors and characteristics associated with masculinity may reduce the prevalence of intimate partner and sexual violence. Such interventions need to be further tested for their potential to reduce gun violence. The skills and knowledge of psychologists are needed to develop and evaluate programs and settings in schools, workplaces, prisons, neighborhoods, clinics, and other relevant contexts that aim to change gendered expectations for males that emphasize self-sufficiency, toughness, and violence, including gun violence.

What Works: Gun Violence Prediction and Prevention at the Individual Level

Although it is important to recognize that most people suffering from a mental illness are not dangerous, for those persons at risk for violence due to mental illness, suicidal thoughts, or feelings of desperation, mental health treatment can often prevent gun violence. Policies and programs that identify and provide treatment for all persons suffering from a mental illness should be a national priority. Urgent attention must be paid to the current level of access to mental health services in the United States; such access is woefully insufficient. Additionally, it should be noted that behavioral threat assessment is becoming a standard of care for preventing violence in schools, colleges, and the workplace and against government and other public officials. Threat assessment teams gather and analyze information to assess if a person poses a threat of violence or self-harm, and if so, take steps to intervene.

What Works: Gun Violence Prevention at the Community Level

Prevention of violence occurs along a continuum that begins in early childhood with programs to help parents raise emotionally healthy children and ends with efforts to identify and intervene with troubled individuals who are threatening violence. The mental health community must take the lead in advocating for community-based collaborative problem-solving models to address the prevention of gun violence. Such models should blend prevention strategies in an effort to overcome the tendency within many community service systems to operate in silos. There has been some success with community-based programs involving police training in crisis intervention and with community members trained in mental health first aid. These programs need further piloting and study so they can be expanded to additional communities as appropriate. In addition, public health messaging campaigns on safe gun storage are needed. The practice of keeping all firearms appropriately stored and locked must become the only socially acceptable norm.

What Works: Policies to Reduce Gun Violence

The use of a gun greatly increases the odds that violence will lead to a fatality: This problem calls for urgent action. Firearm prohibitions for high-risk groups — domestic violence offenders, persons convicted of violent misdemeanor crimes, and individuals with mental illness who have been adjudicated as being a threat to themselves or to others — have been shown to reduce violence. The licensing of handgun purchasers, background check requirements for all gun sales, and close oversight of retail gun sellers can reduce the diversion of guns to criminals. Reducing the incidence of gun violence will require interventions through multiple systems, including legal, public health, public safety, community, and health. Increasing the availability of data and funding will help inform and evaluate policies designed to reduce gun violence.

Dewey Cornell, PhD, and Nancy G. Guerra, EdD

Gun violence is an important national problem leading to more than 31,000 deaths and 78,000 nonfatal injuries every year. Although the rate of gun homicides in the United States has declined in recent years, U.S. rates remain substantially higher than those of almost every other nation in the world and are at least seven times higher than those of Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and many others (see Alpers & Wilson).

Guns are not a necessary or sufficient cause of violence and can be used legally for a variety of sanctioned activities. Still, they are especially lethal weapons that are used in approximately two thirds of the homicides and more than half of all suicides in the United States. Every day in the United States, approximately 30 persons die of homicides and 53 persons die of suicides committed by someone using a gun (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013a). Guns also provide individuals with the capacity to carry out multiple-fatality shootings that inflict great trauma and grief on our society, and the public rightly insists on action to make our communities safer.

Gun violence demands special attention. At the federal level, President Barack Obama announced a new “Now Is the Time” plan (White House, 2013) to address firearm violence to better protect children and communities and issued 23 related executive orders to federal agencies. The importance of continued research to address firearm violence is reflected in the 2013 report of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council (NRC) "Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence. "  This report calls for a public health approach that emphasizes the importance of accurate information on the number and distribution of guns in the United States, including risk factors and motivations for acquisition and use, the association between exposure to media violence and any subsequent perpetration of gun violence, and how new technology can facilitate prevention. The report also outlines a research agenda to facilitate programs and policies that can reduce the occurrence and impact of firearm-related violence in the United States.

Psychology can make an important contribution to policies that prevent gun violence. Rather than debate whether “people” kill people or “guns” kill people, a reasonable approach to facilitate prevention is that “people with guns kill people.” The problem is more complex than simple slogans and requires careful study and analysis of the different psychological factors, behavioral pathways, social circumstances, and cultural factors that lead to gun violence. Whether prevention efforts should focus on guns because they are such a powerful tool for violence, on other factors that might have equal or greater impact, or on some combination of factors should be a scientific question settled by evidence.

Toward this end, the American Psychological Association (APA) commissioned this report, with three goals. First, this report is intended to focus on gun violence, recognizing that knowledge about gun violence must be related to a broader understanding of violence. Second, the report reviews what is known from the best current science on antecedents to gun violence and effective prevention strategies at the individual, community, and national levels. Finally, the report identifies policy directions, gaps in the literature, and suggestions for continued research that can help address unresolved questions about effective strategies to reduce gun violence. For over a decade, research on gun violence has been stifled by legal restrictions, political pressure applied to agencies not to fund research on certain gun-related topics, and a lack of funding. The authors of this report believe the cost of gun violence to our society is too great to allow these barriers to remain in place.

The Role of Mental Health and Mental Illness

An important focus of this report is the role that mental health and mental illness play in why individuals commit firearm-related violence and how this can inform preventive efforts. This focus undoubtedly brings to mind shootings such as those in Newtown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., and Tucson, Ariz. However, it is important to realize that mass fatality incidents of this type, although highly publicized, are extremely rare, accounting for one tenth of 1 percent of all firearm-related homicides in the United States (CDC, 2013a). Moreover, serious mental illness affects a significant percentage of the U.S. population, with prevalence estimates in the general population as high as 5 percent (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2012). This is quite significant, given that the term serious mental illness is typically reserved for the most debilitating kinds of mental disorder, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the most severe forms of depression, but can include other mental disorders that result in acute functional impairment.

Although many highly publicized shootings have involved persons with serious mental illness, it must be recognized that persons with serious mental illness commit only a small proportion of firearm-related homicides; the problem of gun violence cannot be resolved simply through efforts focused on serious mental illness (Webster & Vernick, 2013a). Furthermore, the overwhelming majority of people with serious mental illness do not engage in violence toward others and should not be stereotyped as dangerous (Sirotich, 2008).

It also is important to recognize that for the small proportion of individuals whose serious mental illness does predispose them to violence, there are significant societal barriers to treatment. Psychiatric hospitalization can be helpful, but treatment can be expensive, and there may not be appropriate follow-up services in the community. Civil commitment laws, which serve to protect individuals from being unreasonably detained or forced into treatment against their will, can also prevent professionals from treating someone who does not recognize his or her need for treatment.

Other kinds of mental disorders that do not rise to the level of serious mental illness also are associated with gun violence and criminal behavior generally. For example, conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder are associated with increased risk for violence. (This link is not surprising because violent behavior is counted as one of the symptoms that helps qualify someone for the diagnosis.) Nevertheless, there are well-established, scientifically validated mental health treatment programs for individuals with these disorders, such as multisystemic therapy, that can reduce violent recidivism (Henggeler, 2011). Substance abuse is another form of mental disorder that is a risk factor for violence in the general population and also increases the risk for violence among persons with serious mental illness (Van Dorn, Volavka, & Johnson, 2012).

These observations reflect the complexity of relationships among serious mental illness, mental disorders, and violence. In contrast to homicide, suicide accounts for approximately 61 percent of all firearm fatalities in the United States (CDC, 2013a), and more than 90 percent of persons who commit suicide have some combination of depression, symptoms of other mental disorders, and/or substance abuse (Moscicki, 2001). This suggests that mental health and mental illness are especially relevant to understanding and preventing suicide, the leading type of firearm-related death.

Prediction and Prevention

The prediction of an individual’s propensity for violence is a complex and challenging task for mental health professionals, who often are called upon by courts, correctional authorities, schools, and others to assess the risk of an individual’s violence. Mental health professionals are expected to take action to protect potential victims when they judge that their patient or client poses a danger to others. However, decades of research have established that there is only a moderate ability to identify individuals likely to commit serious acts of violence. Much depends on the kind of violence and the time frame for prediction. For example, there are specialized instruments for the assessment of violence risk among sex offenders, civilly committed psychiatric patients, and domestic violence offenders. However, the time frame and focus for these predictions often are broadly concerned with long-term predictions that someone will ever be violent with anyone rather than whether a person will commit a particular act of targeted violence.

Research has moved the field beyond the assessment of “dangerousness” as a simple individual characteristic applicable in all cases to recognize that predictive efforts must consider a range of personal, social, and situational factors that can lead to different forms of violent behavior in different circumstances. Moreover, risk assessment has expanded to include concepts of risk management and interventions aimed at reducing risk.

In making predictions about the risk for mass shootings, there is no consistent psychological profile or set of warning signs that can be used reliably to identify such individuals in the general population. A more promising approach is the strategy of behavioral threat assessment , which is concerned with identifying and intervening with individuals who have communicated threats of violence or engaged in behavior that clearly indicates planning or preparation to commit a violent act. A threat assessment approach recognizes that individuals who threaten targeted violence are usually troubled, depressed, and despondent over their circumstances in life. A threat assessment leads to interventions intended to reduce the risk of violence by taking steps to address the problem that underlies the threatening behavior. Such problems can range from workplace conflicts to schoolyard bullying to serious mental illness. One of the most influential threat assessment models was developed by the U.S. Secret Service (Fein et al., 2002; Vossekuil, Fein, Reddy, Borum, & Modzelski, 2002) and has been adapted for use in schools, colleges, business settings, and the U.S. military.

The limited ability to make accurate predictions of violence has led some to question whether prevention is possible. This is a common misconception, because prevention does not require prediction of a specific individual’s behavior . For example, public health campaigns have reduced problems ranging from lung cancer to motor vehicle accidents by identifying risk factors and promoting safer behaviors even though it is not possible to predict whether a specific individual will develop lung cancer or have a motor vehicle accident (Mozaffarian, Hemenway, & Ludwig, 2013). A substantial body of scientific evidence identifies important developmental, familial, and social risk factors for violence. In addition, an array of rigorously tested psychological and educational interventions facilitate healthy social development and reduce aggressive behavior by teaching social skills and problem-solving strategies. It is important that policymakers and stakeholders recognize the value of prevention.

Prevention measures also should be distinguished from security measures and crisis response plans. Prevention must begin long before a gunman comes into a school or shopping center. Prevention efforts are often conceptualized as taking place on primary, secondary, and tertiary levels:

• Primary prevention (also called universal prevention) consists of efforts to promote healthy development in the general population. An example would be a curriculum to teach all children social skills to resist negative peer influences and resolve conflicts peacefully.
• Secondary prevention (also called selective prevention) involves assistance for individuals who are at increased risk for violence. Mentoring programs and conflict-mediation services are examples of such assistance.
• Tertiary prevention (also called indicated prevention) consists of intensive services for individuals who have engaged in some degree of aggressive behavior and could benefit from efforts to prevent a recurrence or escalation of aggression. Programs to rehabilitate juvenile offenders are examples.

Throughout this report, we discuss evidence-based prevention programs relevant to the issue of firearm-related violence.

Research can help us understand and prevent gun violence. The psychological research summarized in this report can inform public policy and prevention efforts designed to promote public safety and reduce violence. Gun violence is not a simple, discrete category of crime; it shares characteristics with other forms of violence, and it can be a product of an array of cultural, social, psychological, and situational factors. Nevertheless, there is valuable psychological knowledge that can be used to make our communities safer.

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD; Nancy G. Guerra, EdD; and Ariel A. Williamson, MA

Youth gun violence is often sensationalized and misunderstood by the general public, in part because of increasingly public acts of violence and related media coverage (Snyder & Sickmund, 2006; Williams, Tuthill, & Lio, 2008). In truth, only a small number of juvenile offenders commit the majority of violent juvenile crimes in the United States (Williams et al., 2008). Most juvenile offenders commit “nonperson” offenses, usually in terms of property and technical (parole) violations (Sickmund, Sladky, Kang, & Puzzanchera, 2011). For example, in 2010, the majority of juvenile offenses were nonperson offenses such as property offenses (27.2 percent), drug offenses (8.4 percent), public order offenses (10.7 percent), technical violations (14.4 percent), and status offenses (4.6 percent) — that is, crimes defined by minor (under age 18) status, such as alcohol consumption, truancy, and running away from home (Sickmund et al., 2011). Additionally, young adults between the ages of 18 and 34 are the most likely to commit violent crimes like homicide and to do so using a gun, compared with individuals under 18 (Cooper & Smith, 2011).

A subgroup of youth is particularly vulnerable to violence and victimization. Minority males constitute a disproportionate number of youths arrested and adjudicated, with 60 percent of all arrested youths identifying as part of a racial/ethnic minority group (Sickmund et al., 2011). Males also outnumber females in arrest rates for every area except status offenses and technical violations. Urban African American males are at substantially greater risk for involvement in gun-related homicides as perpetrators and as victims (CDC, 2013a; Spano, Pridemore, & Bolland, 2012). However, the majority of the infrequent but highly publicized shootings with multiple fatalities, such as those at Sandy Hook Elementary School or the Aurora, Colo., movie theater, have been committed by young White males.

This presents a picture of a small number of youths and young adults who are at an increased risk for involvement in gun violence. In the United States, these youths are somewhat more likely to be males of color growing up in urban areas. But it also is important to understand that most young males of all races and ethnicities — and most people in general — are not involved in serious violence and do not carry or use guns inappropriately.

How did this small subset of youths and young adults come to be involved in serious gun violence? Is there a “cradle-to-prison” pipeline, particularly for youths of color living in poverty and in disadvantaged urban areas, that triggers a cascade of events that increase the likelihood of gun violence (Children’s Defense Fund, 2009)? A developmental perspective on antecedents to youth gun violence can help us design more effective prevention programs and strategies.

This chapter describes the biological and environmental risk factors that begin early in development and continue into adolescence and young adulthood. Developmental studies that link children’s aggressive behavior to more serious involvement in the criminal justice system suggest the accumulation and interaction of many risks in multiple contexts (Dodge, Greenberg, Malone, & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group, 2008; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). There is no single biological predisposition, individual trait, or life experience that accounts for the development and continuity of violent behavior or the use of guns. Rather, violence is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and sociocultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence (Brennan, Hall, Bor, Najman, & Williams, 2003; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Risk for gun violence involves similar risk processes, although the complexity and variability of individuals means there is no meaningful profile that allows reliable prediction of who will eventually engage in gun violence. Nevertheless, developmental factors beginning in utero may increase the risk of aggressive behavior and lead to gun violence — especially when guns are readily available and part of an aggressive or delinquent peer culture.

Early-Onset Aggression

Early onset of aggressive behavior significantly increases risk for later antisocial behavior problems. The most consistent and powerful predictor of future violence is a history of violent behavior, and risk increases with earlier and more frequent incidents. Longitudinal work has shown that having a first arrest between 7 and 11 years of age is associated with patterns of long-term adult offending (Loeber, 1982). Children who are highly aggressive throughout childhood and continue to have serious conduct problems during adolescence have been identified as “life-course persistent” (LCP) youths (Moffitt, 1993). Examining longitudinal data from a large birth cohort in New Zealand, Moffitt (1993) created a taxonomy of antisocial behavior that differentiates LCP youths from an “adolescence-limited” subgroup. The latter subgroup characterizes those who engage in antisocial behaviors during adolescence and usually desist by adulthood. By contrast, LCP youths display more severe early aggression in childhood and develop a pattern of chronic violence during adolescence and into adulthood.

Both biological and environmental risks during prenatal development, infancy, and early childhood contribute to the development of early-onset aggression and the LCP developmental trajectory (Brennan et al., 2003; Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Moffitt, 2005). Pre- and postnatal risks associated with early-onset aggression include maternal substance abuse during pregnancy, high levels of prenatal stress, low birth weight, birth complications and injuries (especially those involving anoxia), malnutrition, and exposure to environmental toxins like lead paint (Brennan et al., 2003; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). According to Moffitt (1993), these early developmental risks disrupt neural development and are associated with neuropsychological deficits, particularly in executive functioning and verbal abilities.

Along with neuropsychological deficits, poor behavioral control and a difficult temperament are associated with the development of early-onset aggression (Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Moffitt, 1993). Children with difficult temperaments are typically irritable, difficult to soothe, and highly reactive. These patterns of behavior often trigger negative and ineffective reactions from parents and caregivers that can escalate into early aggressive behavior (Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Wachs, 2006). Family influences, such as familial stress and negative parent–child interactions, can interact with a child’s individual characteristics, leading to increased aggressive behavior during childhood.

Family Influences

Highly aggressive children who engage in serious acts of violence during later childhood and adolescence also are exposed to continued environmental risks throughout development (Dodge et al., 2008). The family context has been found to be quite influential in the development and continuity of antisocial behavior. Particularly for early-onset aggressive youths raised in families that are under a high degree of environmental stress, aggressive child behavior and negative parenting practices interact to amplify early-onset aggression. Examples of family risk factors include low parent–child synchrony and warmth, poor or disrupted attachment, harsh or inconsistent discipline (overly strict or permissive), poor parental monitoring, the modeling of antisocial behavior, pro-violent attitudes and criminal justice involvement, and coercive parent–child interaction patterns (Dodge & Pettit, 2003; Farrington, Jolliffe, Loeber, Stouthamer-Loeber, & Kalb, 2001; Hill, Howel, Hawkins, & Battin-Pearson, 1999; Patterson, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010).

Coercive parent–child interactions have been associated with the emergence of aggressive behavior problems in children (Patterson et al., 2010). In these interactions, children learn to use coercive behaviors such as temper tantrums to escape parental discipline. When parents acquiesce to these negative behaviors, they inadvertently reward children for coercive behaviors, reinforcing the idea that aggression or violence is adaptive and can be used instrumentally to achieve goals. These interaction patterns tend to escalate in their severity (e.g., from whining, to temper tantrums, to hitting, etc.) and frequency, leading to increased aggression and noncompliance (Patterson et al., 2010). Such behaviors also generalize across contexts to children’s interactions with others outside the home, including with teachers, other adults, and peers. Indeed, prevention research has shown that intervening with at-risk families to improve parenting skills can disrupt the pathway from early-onset aggressive behavior to delinquency in adolescence (Patterson et al., 2010).

Other family risk factors for youths with early predispositions to aggression may be especially relevant to increased risk for gun violence. For instance, research has shown that many families with children own firearms and do not keep them safely stored at home (Johnson, Miller, Vriniotis, Azrael, & Hemenway, 2006). Although keeping firearms at home is not a direct cause of youth gun violence, the rates of suicides, homicides, and unintentional firearm fatalities are higher for 5–14-year-olds who live in states or regions in which rates of gun ownership are more prevalent (Miller, Azrael, & Hemenway, 2002). Poor parental monitoring and supervision, which are more general risk factors for involvement in aggression and violent behaviors (Dodge et al., 2008), may be especially salient in risk for gun violence. For example, impulsive or aggressive children who are often unsupervised and live in a home with access to guns may be at risk.

The family also is an important context for socialization and the development of normative beliefs or perceptions about appropriate social behavior that become increasingly stable during early development and are predictive of later behavior over time (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997). These beliefs shape an individual’s social-cognitive understanding about whether and under what circumstances threatened or actual violence is justified. Children who develop beliefs that aggression is a desirable and effective way to interact with others are more likely to use coercion and violence instrumentally to achieve goals or solve problems (Huesmann & Guerra, 1997). Antisocial attitudes and social-cognitive distortions (e.g., problems in generating nonviolent solutions, misperceiving hostile/aggressive intent by others, justifying acts of violence that would be criminal) can also increase risk for violence (Borum & Verhaagen, 2006; Dodge & Pettit, 2003).

Families can play a role in establishing and maintaining normative beliefs about violence and gun usage. For example, pro-violence attitudes and the criminality of parents and siblings during childhood have been found to predict adolescent gang membership and delinquency (Farrington et al., 2001; Hill et al., 1999). Youths from families that encourage the use of guns for solving problems also may be exposed to such attitudes in other contexts (in communities, with peers, and in the media) and may perceive firearms to be an appropriate means to solve problems and protect themselves.

School and Peer Influences

The school setting is another important context for child socialization. Children who enter school with high levels of aggressive behavior, cognitive or neurobiological deficits, and poor emotional regulation may have difficulty adjusting to the school setting and getting along with peers (Dodge et al., 2008; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Highly aggressive children who have learned to use aggression instrumentally at home will likely use such behavior with teachers, increasing the chances that they will have poor academic experiences and low school engagement (Patterson et al., 2010). Academic failure, low school interest, truancy, and school dropout are all correlated with increased risk for problem behavior and delinquency, including aggression and violence (Dodge & Pettit, 2003). This risk is strongest when poor academic achievement begins in elementary school and contributes to school underachievement and the onset of adolescent problem behaviors, such as substance use and drug trafficking, truancy, unsafe sexual activity, youth violence, and gang involvement (Dodge et al., 2008; Guerra & Bradshaw, 2008).

Involvement in these risk behaviors also is facilitated by affiliation with deviant peers, particularly during adolescence (Dodge et al., 2008). Research has shown that children who are aggressive, victimized, and academically marginalized from the school setting may suffer high levels of peer rejection that amplify preexisting aggressive behaviors (Dodge et al., 2008; Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Longitudinal work indicates that experiences of academic failure, school marginalization, and peer rejection interact to produce affiliations with similarly rejected, deviant, and/or gang-involved peers. Friendships between deviant peers provide youths with “training” in antisocial behaviors that reinforce and exacerbate preexisting aggressive tendencies (Dishion, Véronneau, & Meyers, 2010; Dodge et al., 2008). Peer deviancy training is a primary mechanism in the trajectory from overt, highly aggressive behaviors during childhood to more covert processes during adolescence, such as lying, stealing, substance use, and weapon carrying (Dishion et al., 2010; Patterson et al., 2010).

The larger school context also can interact with youths’ experiences of academic failure, peer rejection, and deviant peer affiliations to influence the continuity of antisocial behavior. Poorly funded schools located in low-income neighborhoods have fewer resources to address the behavioral, academic, mental health, and medical needs of their students. In addition, these schools tend to have stricter policies toward discipline, are less clinically informed about problem behaviors, and have stronger zero tolerance policies that result in more expulsions and suspensions (Edelman, 2007). This contextual factor is important, as youths who are attending and engaged in school are less likely to engage in delinquent or violent behavior, whereas marginalized and rejected youths, particularly in impoverished schools, are at increased risk for aggression and violence at school and in their communities. Schools that provide safe environments that protect students from bullying or criminal victimization support student engagement, reduce incidents of student conflict that could result in volatile or violent behavior, and diminish risks that students will bring weapons to school.

Although few homicides (< 2 percent) and suicides occur at school or during transportation to and from school (Roberts, Zhang, & Truman, 2012) and widely publicized mass school shootings are rare, research indicates that a small number of students do carry guns or other weapons. In 2011, 5.1 percent of high school students in Grades 9–12 reported carrying a gun in the 30 days prior to the survey, and 5.4 percent of students had carried a weapon (gun, knife, or club) on school grounds at least once in the 30 days prior to the survey (Eaton et al., 2012). Studies show that youths who carry guns are more likely to report involvement in multiple problem behaviors, to be affiliated with a gang, to overestimate how many of their peers carry guns, and to have a high need for interpersonal safety. For instance, student reports of involvement in and exposure to risk behaviors at school such as physical fighting, being threatened, using substances, or selling drugs on school grounds have been positively correlated with an increased likelihood of carrying weapons to school (Furlong, Bates, & Smith, 2001).

In another study of high school students, 5.5 percent of urban high school students reported that they carried a gun in the year prior to the study, but students estimated that 32.6 percent of peers in their neighborhoods carried guns, a substantial overestimation of the actual gun-carrying rates. Lawful, supervised gun carrying by juveniles is not the concern of this line of research; however, when unsupervised youths carry guns in high-violence neighborhoods, they may be more likely to use guns to protect themselves and resolve altercations. Gun-carrying youths in this study had higher rates of substance use, violence exposure, gang affiliation, and peer victimization (Hemenway, Vriniotis, Johnson, Miller, & Azrael, 2011). Additionally, many gun-carrying youths had lower levels of perceived interpersonal safety (Hemenway et al., 2011). Research has also revealed that deviant peer group affiliations during specific periods of adolescent development may increase the risk for gun violence. For example, research findings have shown that gang membership in early adolescence is significantly associated with increased gun carrying over time. This changes somewhat in late adolescence and young adulthood, when gun carrying is linked more to involvement in drug dealing and having peers who illegally own guns (Lizotte, Krohn, Howell, Tobin, & Howard, 2000).

Communities Matter

The community context is an additional source of risk for the development and continuity of antisocial behavior. Living in extremely disadvantaged, underresourced communities with high levels of crime and violence creates serious obstacles to healthy development. Recent estimates show that currently in the United States, 16.4 million children live in poverty and 7.4 million of those live in extreme poverty (i.e., an annual income of less than half of the federal poverty level; Children’s Defense Fund, 2012). One in four children under 5 years of age is poor during the formative years of brain development. In addition, 22 percent of children who have lived in poverty do not graduate from high school, compared with 6 percent of children who have never been poor (Children’s Defense Fund, 2012). For families and youths, living in poverty is associated with high levels of familial stress, poor child nutrition, elevated risks of injury, and limited access to adequate health care (Adler & Steward, 2010; Patterson et al., 2010). Ethnic minority youth in the United States are overrepresented in economically struggling communities. These environmental adversities can, in turn, compromise children’s health status and functioning in other environments and increase the risk for involvement in violent behaviors, contributing significantly to ethnic and cultural variations in the rates of violence (Borum & Verhaagen, 2006).

In a community context, the degree to which children have access to adequate positive resources (e.g., in terms of health, finances, nutrition, education, peers, and recreation), have prosocial and connected relationships with others, and feel safe in their environment can significantly affect their risk for involvement in violent behaviors. Aggressive children and adolescents who are living in neighborhoods with high levels of community violence, drug and firearm trafficking, gang presence, and inadequate housing may have increased exposure to violence and opportunities for involvement in deviant behavior. Compared with communities that have better resources, disenfranchised and impoverished communities may also lack social, recreational, and vocational opportunities that contribute to positive youth development. Youths with high levels of preexisting aggressive behavior and emerging involvement with deviant or gang-involved peers may be especially at risk for increased violent behavior and subsequent criminal justice involvement when exposed to impoverished and high-crime communities.

Exposure to violence in one’s community, a low sense of community safety, unsupervised access to guns, and involvement in risky community behaviors such as drug dealing all contribute to youths’ involvement in gun carrying and gun violence. Decreased community perceptions of neighborhood safety and higher levels of social (e.g., loitering, public substance use, street fighting, prostitution, etc.) and physical (e.g., graffiti, gang signs, and discarded needles, cigarettes, and beer bottles) neighborhood disorder have been associated with increased firearm carrying among youths (Molnar, Miller, Azrael, & Buka, 2004). A study of African American youths living in poverty found that those who had been exposed to violence prior to carrying a gun were 2.5 times more likely than nonexposed youths to begin carrying a gun at the next time point, even when controlling for gang involvement (Spano et al., 2012). This study also indicated that after exposure to violence, youths were more likely to start carrying guns in their communities (Spano et al., 2012).

Studies have shown that apart from characteristics like conduct problems and prior delinquency, youths who are involved in gang fighting and selling drugs are also more likely to use a gun to threaten or harm others (e.g., Butters, Sheptycki, Brochu, & Erikson, 2011). Involvement in drug dealing in one’s community appears to be particularly risky for gun carrying during later adolescence and early adulthood, possibly due to an increased need for self-protection (Lizotte et al., 2000). Taken together, these studies show that firearm possession may be due to interactions between the need for self-protection in violent communities and increased involvement in delinquent behaviors.

Sociocultural Context: Exposure to Violent Media

Child and adolescent exposure to violent media, a more distal, sociocultural influence on behavior, is also important when considering developmental risks for gun violence. Decades of experimental, cross-sectional, and longitudinal research have documented that exposure to violent media, in movies and television, is associated with increased aggressive behaviors, aggressive thoughts and feelings, increased physiological arousal, and decreased prosocial behaviors (e.g., Anderson et al., 2003; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Huesmann, 2010; Huesmann, Moise-Titus, Podolski, & Eron, 2003). In light of ongoing advances in technology, research has been expanded to include violent content in video games, music, social media, and the Internet (Anderson et al., 2010; IOM & NRC, 2013).

Findings on associations between violent media exposure and aggressive behavior outcomes have held across differences in culture, gender, age, socioeconomic status, and intellect (e.g., Anderson et al., 2010; Huesmann et al., 2003). Social-cognitive theory on violent media exposure suggests that these images are part of children’s socialization experiences, similar to violence exposure in interpersonal and community contexts (Huesmann, 2010). The viewing of violent images can serve to desensitize children to violence and normalize violent behavior, particularly when children have previously developed beliefs that aggression and violence are an acceptable means of achieving goals or resolving conflicts.

It is important to note that the link between violent media exposure and subsequent violent behaviors does not demonstrate a direct causal effect but instead shows how some children may be more susceptible to this risk factor than others. For instance, Huesmann et al. (2003) found that identification with aggressive characters on television and the perception that television violence was real were robust predictors of later aggression over time. Additionally, there is no established link between violent media exposure and firearm usage in particular. However, given the substantial proportion of media that includes interactions around firearms (e.g., in video games, movies, and television shows), the IOM and NRC (2013) recently identified a crucial need to examine specific associations between exposure to violent media and use of firearms. Exposure to violent media, especially for youths with preexisting aggressive tendencies and poor parental monitoring, may be an important contextual factor that amplifies risk for violent behavior and gun use.

Summary and Conclusions

The relatively small number of youths most likely to persist in serious acts of aggression (including increased risk of gun violence) have often experienced the following:

• Early childhood onset of persistent rule-breaking and aggression
• Socialization into criminal attitudes and behaviors by parents and caretakers who themselves are involved in criminal activities
• Exposure in childhood to multiple adverse experiences in their families and communities
• Social dislocation and reduced opportunities due to school failure or underachievement
• Persisting affiliation with deviant peers or gangs engaged in delinquent/criminal misconduct and with attitudes and beliefs that support possession and use of guns
• Broad exposure to sociocultural influences such as mass media violence and depictions of gun violence as an effective means of achieving goals or status

Most youths — even those with chronic and violent delinquent misconduct — desist in aggressive and antisocial behavior during late adolescence, and no single risk factor is sufficient to generate persisting violent behavior. Still, many are disproportionately at risk for becoming perpetrators or victims of gun violence. Homicide remains the second leading cause of death for teens and young adults between the ages of 15 and 24. In 2010, there were 2,711 infant, child, and adolescent victims of firearm deaths. In that year, 84 percent of homicide victims between the ages of 10 and 19 were killed with a firearm, and 40 percent of youths who committed suicide between the ages 15 and 19 did so with a gun (CDC, 2013a). 1

There is no one developmental trajectory that specifically leads to gun violence. However, prevention efforts guided by research on developmental risk can reduce the likelihood that firearms will be introduced into community and family conflicts or criminal activity. Prevention efforts can also reduce the relatively rare occasions when severe mental illness contributes to homicide or the more common circumstances when depression or other mental illness contributes to suicide.

Reducing incidents of gun violence arising from criminal misconduct or suicide is an important goal of broader primary and secondary prevention and intervention strategies. Such strategies must also attend to redirecting developmental antecedents and larger sociocultural processes that contribute to gun violence and gun-related deaths.

1 The 2010 data shown here are available online .

Eric Mankowski, PhD

Any account of gun violence in the United States must consider both why males are the perpetrators of the vast majority of gun violence and why the vast majority of males never perpetrate gun violence. An account that explains both phenomena focuses, in part, on how boys and men learn to demonstrate and achieve manhood through violence, as well as the differences in opportunities to demonstrate manhood among diverse groups of males. Although evidence exists for human biological and social-environmental systems interacting and contributing to aggressive and violent behavior, this review focuses on the sociocultural evidence that explains males’ higher rates of gun violence.

Reducing the propensity for some males to engage in violence will involve both social and cultural change. Hence, this section reviews existing research on the relationships between sex, gender (i.e., masculinity), and the perpetration and victimization of gun violence in the United States. The intersection of gender, race/ethnicity, and economic disadvantage is also considered in explaining the rates of gun violence across diverse communities. Finally, the relationships between masculinity, gender socialization, and gun violence are analyzed to identify gender-related risk factors for gun violence that can be targeted for prevention strategies and social policy.

Sex Differences in Gun Violence

Prevalence and Risk Men represent more than 90 percent of the perpetrators of homicide in the United States and are also the victims of the large majority (78 percent) of that violence (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008; Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2007). Homicide by gun is the leading cause of death among Black youth, the second leading cause of death among all male youth, and the second or third leading cause of death among female youth (depending on the specific age group) (e.g., Miniño, 2010; Webster, Whitehill, Vernick, & Curriero, 2012). In addition, roughly four times as many youths visit hospitals for gun-induced wounds as are killed each year (CDC, 2013a).

Even more common than homicide, suicide is another leading cause of death in the United States, and most suicides are completed with a firearm. Males complete the large majority of suicides; depending on the age group, roughly four to six times as many males as females kill themselves with firearms (CDC, 2013a). Among youth, suicide ranks especially high as a cause of death. It is the third leading cause of death of 15–24-year-olds and the sixth leading cause of death for 5–14-year-olds. However, the rate of suicide and firearm suicide gradually increases over the lifespan. In addition to gender and age differences in prevalence, sizable differences also exist among ethnic groups. Firearm suicide generally is at least twice as high among Whites than among Blacks and other racial groups from 1980 to 2010 (CDC, 2013a), and White males over the age of 65 have rates that far exceed all other major groups.

Perpetrator–Victim Relationship and Location The prevalence of gun violence strongly depends not only on the sex of the offender but also on the offender’s relationship to the victim and the location of the violence (Sorenson, 2006). Both men and women are more likely to be killed with firearms by someone they know than by a stranger. Specifically, men are most likely to be killed in a public place by an acquaintance, whereas women are most likely to be killed in the home by a current or former spouse or dating partner (i.e., “intimate partner”). Women compared with men are especially likely to be killed by a firearm used by an intimate partner.

Women are killed by current or former intimate partners four to five times more often than men (Campbell, Glass, Sharps, Laughon, & Bloom, 2007), including by firearm. These sex differences in victimization do not appear to hold in the limited data available on same-sex intimate partner homicide; it is more common for men to kill their male partners than for women to kill their female partners (Campbell et al., 2007). Notably, these sex differences in gun violence, as a function of the type of perpetrator–victim relationships, are also found in nonfatal gun violence when emergency room visits are examined (Wiebe, 2003).

A disproportionate number of gun homicides occur in urban areas. Conversely, a disproportionate number of firearm suicides occur in rural (compared with urban) areas (Branas, Nance, Elliott, Richmond, & Schwab, 2004). Although they are highly publicized, less than 2 percent of the homicides of children occur in schools (Borum, Cornell, Modzeleski, & Jimerson, 2010; CDC, 2008, 2013b). There are even fewer “random” or “mass” school shootings in which multiple victims are killed at the same time.

Gun Access and Possession A person must own or obtain a gun to be able to commit gun violence. Research shows that there are sex differences in access to and carrying a gun. Males are roughly two to four times as likely as females to have access to a gun in the home or to possess a gun (Swahn, Hamming, & Ikeda, 2002; Vaughn et al., 2012). In turn, gun carrying is a key risk factor for gun violence perpetration and victimization. For example, gun carrying is associated with dating violence victimization among adolescents, with boys more likely to be victimized than girls (Yan, Howard, Beck, Shattuck, & Hallmark-Kerr, 2010).

Conclusions based on sex differences in access to guns should be drawn with some caution, given that there also appear to be sex differences in the reporting of guns in the home. Men report more guns in the home than do women from the same household (e.g., Ludwig, Cook, & Smith, 1998; Sorenson & Cook, 2008), a sex difference that appears to stem specifically from the substantially higher level of contact with and experience in handling and using guns among boys than girls in the same household (Cook & Sorenson, 2006). Nonetheless, the presence of guns in the home remains predictive of gun violence.

Gender and Gun Violence

Robust sex and race differences in firearm violence have been established. Examined next is how the socialization of men as well as differences in living conditions and opportunities among diverse groups of boys and men help explain why these differences occur.

Making Gender Visible in the Problem of Gun Violence Gender remains largely invisible in research and media accounts of gun violence. In particular, gender is not used to explain the problem of “school shootings,” despite the fact that almost every shooting is perpetrated by a young male. Newspaper headlines and articles describe “school shooters,” “violent adolescents,” and so forth, but rarely call attention to the fact that nearly all such incidents are perpetrated by boys and young men. Studies of risk factors for school shootings may refer accurately to the perpetrators generally as “boys” but largely fail to analyze gender (e.g., Verlinden, Hersen, & Thomas, 2000).

The large sex differences in gun violence should not be overlooked simply because the vast majority of boys and men do not perpetrate gun violence or excused as “boys will be boys.” The size of sex differences in the prevalence of gun violence differs substantially within regions of the United States (Kaplan & Geling, 1998) and across countries (e.g., Ahn, Park, Ha, Choi, & Hong, 2012), which further suggests that gender differences in sociocultural environments are needed to explain sex differences in gun violence.

Masculinity, Power, and Guns Status as a “man” is achieved by the display of stereotypically masculine characteristics, without which one’s manhood is contested. Although the particular characteristics defining manhood and the markers of them can vary across subcultural contexts (Connell, 1995), masculinity has, historically, generally been defined by aggressive and risk-taking behavior, emotional restrictiveness (particularly the vulnerable emotions of fear and sadness, and excepting anger), heterosexuality, and successful competition (Brannon, 1976; Kimmel, 1994; O’Neil, 1981). Such normative characteristics of traditional masculinity are in turn directly related to numerous factors that are associated with gun violence. For example, risk taking is associated with adolescent males’ possession of and access to guns (Vittes & Sorenson, 2006).

Social expectations and norms, supported by social and organizational systems and practices, privilege boys who reject or avoid in themselves anything stereotypically feminine, act tough and aggressive, suppress emotions (other than anger), distance themselves emotionally and physically from other men, and strive competitively for power. Men of color, poor men, gay men, and men from other marginalized groups differ substantially in their access to opportunities to fulfill these manhood ideals and expectations in socially accepted ways. For example, men with less formal educational and economic opportunity, who in the United States are disproportionately Black and Latino, cannot fulfill expectations to be successful breadwinners in socially acceptable ways (e.g., paid, legal employment) as easily as White men, and gay men have less ability to demonstrate normative heterosexual masculinity where they cannot legally marry or have children.

At the same time, higher levels of some forms of violence victimization and perpetration (including suicide) are found among these disadvantaged groups. For example, gay youth are more likely than heterosexual males to commit suicide, and African American male youth are disproportionately the victims of gun violence. Such structural discrimination can be seen reflected in implicit cognitive biases against these group members. Virtual simulations of high-threat incidents, such as those used to train police officers, reliably demonstrate a “shooter bias” in which actors are more likely to shoot Black male targets than those from other race-gender groups (i.e., Black women, White men, and White women) (Plant, Goplen, & Kunstman, 2011).

Even to the extent that it is achieved, manhood status is theorized as precarious, needing to be protected and defended through aggression and violence, including gun violence, in order to avoid victimization from (mostly) male peers (Connell, 1995). Paradoxically, as in all competition, the more convincingly manhood is achieved, the more vulnerable it becomes to challenges or threats and thus requires further defending, often with increasing levels and displays of toughness and violence. The dynamic of these expectations of manhood and their enforcement is like a tight box (Kivel, 1998). Boys and men are either trapped inside this box or, in violating the expectations by stepping out of the box, risk being targeted by threats, bullying, and other forms of violence.

Adherence to stereotypic masculinity, in turn, is commonly associated with stress and conflict, poor health, poor coping and relationship quality, and violence (Courtenay 2000; Hong, 2000). Men’s gender role stress and conflict are directly associated with various forms of interpersonal aggression and violence, including the perpetration of intimate partner violence and suicide (Feder, Levant, & Dean, 2010; Moore & Stuart, 2005; O’Neil, 2008). Men with more restricted emotionality and more restricted affection with other men are more likely to be aggressive, coercive, or violent (O’Neil, 2008). These dimensions of masculinity also are related to a number of other harmful behaviors that are, in turn, associated directly with gun violence and other forms of aggression (see O’Neil, 2008, for a review). For example, the effect of alcohol consumption on intimate partner violence is greater among men than women (Moore, Elkins, McNulty, Kivisto, & Handsel, 2011), and alcohol consumption may be associated with lethal male-to-male violence at least partly because it is associated with carrying a gun (Phillips, Matusko, & Tomasovic, 2007).

In addition, accumulating research evidence indicates a relationship between gender and many of the factors that are associated with suicide (e.g., substance abuse, unemployment; Payne, Swami, & Stanistreet, 2008). Beliefs in traditional masculinity are related to suicidal thoughts, although differently across age cohorts (Hunt, Sweeting, Keoghan, & Platt, 2006). Men’s historic role as economic providers in heterosexual families typically ends with their retirement from the workforce. Suicide rates, including firearm suicide, increase dramatically at precisely this point in the life course (i.e., age 65 and older), whereas they decrease among women this age. The increase in suicide rates among White men at age 65 and older does not occur among Black men, who as a group have much higher levels of unemployment throughout their lives and consequently may not experience the same sense of loss of meaning or entitlement. Male firearm suicide also increases dramatically in adolescence and early adulthood, precisely the years during which young men’s sense of manhood is developing.

Beliefs about gender and sexual orientation also help explain sex differences in fatal hate crimes involving guns. Key themes in male gender role expectations are anti-femininity (Brannon, 1976) and homophobia (Kimmel, 1994). Boys are expected to rid themselves of stereotypically feminine characteristics (e.g., “you throw like a girl,” “big boys don’t cry”). Gun violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered persons can be understood in this context. One explanation of these hate crimes is that they are perpetrated to demonstrate heterosexual masculinity to male peer group members. These homicides, compared with violent crimes in which the victim is (or is perceived to be) heterosexual, often are especially brutal and are more commonly perpetrated by groups of men rather than individual men or women. However, such homicides appear to be perpetrated less often using firearms, which suggests motives beyond a desire to kill — for example, expressing intense hatred or transferring negative affect directly onto the victim (Gruenwald, 2012).

Male role expectations for achievement of success and power, combined with restricted emotionality, may have dangerous consequences, particularly for boys who suffer major losses and need help. A majority of the males who have completed homicides at schools had trouble coping with a recent major loss. Many had also experienced bullying or other harassment (Vossekuil et al., 2002). Such characteristics cannot and should not be used to develop risk profiles of attackers because school shootings are such rare events, and so many men who share these same characteristics never will perpetrate gun violence. However, when male gender and characteristics associated with male gender are highly common among attackers, it is responsible to ask how male gender contributes to school shootings and other forms of gun violence.

In their case studies of male-perpetrated homicide-suicides at schools, Kalish and Kimmel (2010) speculated that a sense of “aggrieved entitlement” may be common among the shooters. In this view, the young men see suicide and revenge as appropriate, even expected, responses for men to perceived or actual victimization. Related findings emerged from a similar analysis of all “random” school shootings (those with multiple, nontargeted victims) from 1982 to 2001 (Kimmel & Mahler, 2003). With a small number of exceptions, the vast majority were committed by White boys (26 of 28) in suburban or rural (not urban) areas (27 of 28). Many of these boys also had experienced homophobic bullying.

Masculinity and Beliefs About Guns Sex differences in beliefs about guns may begin at an early age as a function of parental socialization and attitudes. Fathers, particularly White fathers, are more permissive than mothers of their children, particularly sons, playing with toy guns (Cheng et al., 2003). Through the socialization of gender, boys and men may come to believe that displaying a gun will enhance their masculine power. Carrying a weapon is, in fact, instrumental in fulfilling male gender role expectations. Estimates of a person’s physical size and muscularity are greater when they display a gun (or large knife) than other similarly sized and shaped objects (e.g., drill, saw), even when the person is only described and not visible. This perception persists despite no apparent correlation between actual gun ownership and size or muscularity (Fessler, Holbrook, & Snyder, 2012). Guns symbolically represent some key elements of hegemonic masculinity — power, hardness, force, aggressiveness, coldness (Connell, 1995; Stroud, 2012).

Implications for Prevention and Policy

Sex Differences in Attitudes Toward Gun Policies Policies and laws addressing the manufacture, purchase, and storage of guns have been advocated in response to the prevalence of gun violence. Perhaps reflecting their differential access to firearms and differential perpetration and victimization rates, men and women hold different attitudes about such gun control policies. Females are generally much more favorable toward gun restriction and control policies (e.g., Vittes, Sorenson, & Gilbert, 2003).

Prevention Programs Addressing Gender The foregoing analysis of the link between gender and gun violence suggests the potential value of addressing gender in efforts to define the problem of gun violence and develop preventive responses. Preliminary evidence suggests that correcting and changing perceptions among men of social norms regarding beliefs about behaviors and characteristics that are associated with stereotypic masculinity may reduce the prevalence of intimate partner and sexual violence (Fabiano, Perkins, Berkowitz, Linkenbach, & Stark, 2003; Neighbors et al., 2010). However, the effect of such interventions in specifically reducing gun violence remains to be tested. The skills and knowledge of psychologists are needed to develop and evaluate programs and settings in schools, workplaces, prisons, neighborhoods, clinics, and other relevant contexts that aim to change gendered expectations for males that emphasize self-sufficiency, toughness, and violence, including gun violence.

Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD; Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD; Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD; and Dewey Cornell, PhD

A natural starting point for the prevention of gun violence is to identify individuals who are at risk for violence and in need of assistance. Efforts focused on at-risk individuals are considered secondary prevention because they are distinguished from primary or universal prevention efforts that address the general population. Secondary prevention strategies for gun violence can include such actions as providing prompt mental health treatment for an acutely depressed and suicidal person or conducting a threat assessment of a person who has threatened gun violence against a spouse or work supervisor.

To be effective, strategies to prevent gun violence should be tailored to different kinds of violence. One example is the distinction between acts of impulsive violence (i.e., violence carried out in the heat of the moment, such as an argument that escalates into an assault) and acts of targeted or predatory violence (i.e., acts of violence that are planned in advance of the attack and directed toward an identified target). The incidents of mass casualty gun violence that have garnered worldwide media attention, such as the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., at a movie theater Aurora, Colo., at the Fort Hood military base, and at a political rally in a shopping center in Tucson, Ariz., are all examples of targeted or predatory violence. Distinguishing between impulsive violence, targeted/predatory violence, and other types of violence is important because they are associated with different risk factors and require different prevention strategies.

Predicting and Preventing Impulsive Gun Violence

Research on impulsive violence has enabled scientists to develop moderately accurate predictive models that can identify individuals who are more likely than other persons to engage in this form of violence. These models cannot determine with certainty whether a particular person will engage in violence — just whether a person is at greater likelihood of doing so. This approach is known as a violence risk assessment or clinical assessment of dangerousness . A violence risk assessment is conducted by a licensed mental health professional who has specific training in this area. The process generally involves comparing the person in question with known base rates for those of the same age/gender who have committed impulsive violence and then determining whether the person in question has individual risk factors that would increase that person’s likelihood of engaging in impulsive violence. In addition, the process involves examining individual protective factors that would decrease the person’s overall likelihood of engaging in impulsive violence. Research that has identified risk and protective factors for impulsive violence is limited in that more research has been conducted on men than women and on incarcerated or institutionalized individuals than on those in the general population. Nevertheless, this approach can be effective for determining someone’s relative likelihood of engaging in impulsive violence.

Some risk factors for impulsive violence are static — for example, race and age — and cannot be changed. But those factors that are dynamic — for example, unmet mental health needs for conditions linked with violence to self (such as depression) or others (such as paranoia), lack of mental health care, abuse of alcohol — are more amenable to intervention and treatment that can reduce the risk for gun violence. Secondary prevention strategies to prevent impulsive gun violence can include having a trained psychologist or other mental health professional treat the person’s acute mental health needs or substance abuse needs. There must be a vigorous and coordinated response to persons whose histories include acts of violence, threatened or actual use of weapons, and substance abuse, particularly if they have access to a gun. This response should include a violence risk assessment by well-trained professionals and referral for any indicated mental health treatment, counseling and mediation services, or other forms of intervention that can reduce the risk of violence.

Youths and young adults who are experiencing an emerging psychosis should be referred for prompt assessment by mental health professionals with sufficient clinical expertise with psychotic disorders to craft a clinical intervention plan that includes risk management. In some cases, secondary prevention measures may include a court-ordered emergency psychiatric hospitalization where a person can receive a psychiatric evaluation and begin treatment. Criteria for allowing such involuntary evaluations vary by state but typically can occur only when someone is experiencing symptoms of a serious mental illness and, as a result, potentially poses a significant danger to self or others. There is an urgent need to improve the effectiveness of emergency commitment procedures because of concerns that they do not provide sufficient services and follow-up care.

Predicting and Preventing Targeted or Predatory Gun Violence

Acts of targeted or predatory violence directed at multiple victims, including crimes sometimes referred to as rampage shootings and mass shootings, 2 occur far less often in the United States than do acts of impulsive violence (although targeted violence garners far more media attention). Acts of targeted violence have not been subject to study that has developed statistical models like those used for estimating a person’s likelihood of impulsive violence. Although it seems appealing to develop checklists of warning signs to construct a profile of individuals who commit these kinds of crimes, this effort, sometimes described as psychological profiling, has not been successful. Research has not identified an effective or useful psychological profile of those who would engage in multiple casualty gun violence. Moreover, efforts to use a checklist profile to identify these individuals fail in part because the characteristics used in these profiles are too general to be of practical value; such characteristics are also shared by many nonviolent individuals.

Because of the limitations of a profiling approach, practitioners have developed the behavioral threat assessment model as an alternative means of identifying individuals who are threatening, planning, or preparing to commit targeted violence. Behavioral threat assessment also emphasizes the need for interventions to prevent violence or harm when a threat has been identified, so it represents a more comprehensive approach to violence prevention. The behavioral threat assessment model is an empirically based approach that was developed largely by the U.S. Secret Service to evaluate threats to the president and other public figures and has since been adapted by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education (Fein et al., 2002; Vossekuil et al., 2002) and others (Cornell, Allen, & Fan, 2012) for use in schools, colleges and universities, workplaces, and the U.S. military. Threat assessment teams are typically multidisciplinary teams that are trained to identify potentially threatening persons and situations. They gather and analyze additional information, make an informed assessment of whether the person is on a pathway to violence — that is, determine whether the person poses a threat of interpersonal violence or self-harm — and if so, take steps to intervene, address any underlying problem or treatment need, and reduce the risk for violence.

Behavioral threat assessment is seen as the emerging standard of care for preventing targeted violence in schools, colleges, and workplaces, as well as against government officials and other public figures. The behavioral threat assessment approach is the model currently used by the U.S. Secret Service to prevent violence to the U.S. president and other public officials, by the U.S. Capitol Police to prevent violence to members of Congress, by the U.S. State Department to prevent violence to dignitaries visiting the United States, and by the U.S. Marshals Service to prevent violence to federal judges (see Fein & Vossekuil, 1998). The behavioral threat assessment model also is recommended in two American national standards: one for higher education institutions (which recommends that all colleges and universities operate behavioral threat assessment teams; see ASME-Innovative Technologies Institute, 2010) and one for workplaces (which recommend s similar teams to prevent workplace violence; see ASIS International and Society for Human Resource Management, 2011). In addition, a comprehensive review conducted by a U.S. Department of Defense (2010) task force following the Fort Hood shooting concluded that threat assessment teams or threat management units (i.e., teams trained in behavioral threat assessment and management procedures) are the most effective tool currently available to prevent workplace violence or insider threats like the attack at Fort Hood.

Empirical research on acts of targeted violence has shown that many of those attacks were carried out by individuals motivated by personal problems who were at a point of desperation. In their troubled state of mind, these individuals saw no viable solution to their problems and could envision no future. The behavioral threat assessment model is used not only to determine whether a person is planning a violent attack but also to identify personal or situational problems that could be addressed to alleviate desperation and restore hope. In many cases, this includes referring the person to mental health services and other sources of support. In some of these cases, psychiatric hospitalization may be needed to address despondence and suicidality. Nonpsychiatric resources also can help alleviate the individual’s problems or concerns. Resources such as conflict resolution, credit counseling, job placement assistance, academic accommodations, veterans’ services, pastoral counseling, and disability services all can help address personal problems and reduce desperation. When the underlying personal problems are alleviated, people who may have posed a threat of violence to others no longer see violence as their best or only option.

Predicting and Preventing Violence by Those With Acute Mental Illness

When treating a person with acute or severe mental illness, mental health professionals may encounter situations in which they need to determine whether their patient (or client) is at risk for violence. Typically, they would conduct a violence risk assessment if the clinician’s concern is about risk for impulsive violence, as discussed previously. Clinicians also can conduct — or work with a team to help conduct — a threat assessment if their concern involves targeted violence. The available research suggests that mental health professionals should be concerned when a person with acute mental illness makes an explicit threat to harm someone or is troubled by delusions or hallucinations that encourage violence, but even in these situations, violence is far from certain. Although neither a violence risk assessment nor a threat assessment can yield a precise prediction of someone’s likelihood of violence, it can identify high-risk situations and guide efforts to reduce risk. It is important to emphasize that prevention does not require prediction; interventions to reduce risk can be beneficial even if it is not possible to determine who would or would not have committed a violent act.

When their patients (or clients) pose a risk of violence to others, mental health professionals have a legal and ethical obligation to take appropriate action to protect potential victims of violence. This obligation is not easily carried out for several reasons. First, mental health professionals have only a modest ability to predict violence, even when assisted by research-validated instruments. Mental health professionals who are concerned that a patient is at high risk for violence may be unable to convince their patient to accept hospitalization or some other change in treatment. They can seek involuntary hospitalization or treatment, but civil commitment laws (that vary from state to state) generally require convincing evidence that a person is imminently dangerous to self or others. There is considerable debate about the need to reform civil commitment laws in a manner that both protects individual liberties and provides necessary protection for society.

There is no guarantee that voluntary or involuntary treatment of a potentially dangerous individual will be effective in reducing violence risk, especially when the risk for violence does not arise from a mental illness but instead from intense desperation resulting from highly emotionally distressing circumstances or from antisocial orientation and proclivities for criminal misconduct. When individuals with prior histories of violence are released from treatment facilities, they typically need continued treatment and monitoring for potential violence until they stabilize in community settings. Jurisdictions vary widely in the resources available to achieve stability in the community and in the legal ability to impose monitoring or clinical care on persons who decline voluntary services.

Furthermore, if unable to obtain civil commitment to a protective setting, mental health professionals must consider other protective actions permitted in their jurisdictions, which may include warning potential victims that they are in danger or alerting local law enforcement, family members, employers, or others. Whether their particular jurisdiction mandates a response to “warn or protect” potential victims or leaves this decision to the discretion of the clinician, mental health professionals are often reluctant to take such actions because they are concerned that doing so might damage the therapeutic relationship with their patient and drive patients from treatment or otherwise render effective treatment impossible.

Another post-hospitalization strategy is to prohibit persons with mental illness from acquiring a firearm. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibited persons from purchasing a firearm if they had been involuntarily committed to a psychiatric inpatient unit. The Brady Handgun Violence Act (1994), known as the Brady Law, began the process of background checks to identify individuals who might attempt to purchase a firearm despite prohibitions. There is some evidence that rates of gun violence are reduced when these procedures are adequately implemented, but research, consistent implementation, and refinement of these procedures are needed (Webster & Vernick, 2013a).

Predicting and Preventing Gun-Based Suicide

Suicide accounts for approximately 61 percent of all firearm fatalities in the United States — 19,393 of the 31,672 firearm deaths reported by the CDC for 2010 (Murphy, Xu, & Kochanek, 2013). When there is concern that a person may be suicidal, mental health professionals can conduct suicide screenings and should rely on structured assessment tools to assess that person’s risk to self. Behavioral threat assessment also may be indicated in such situations if the potentially suicidal individual may also pose a threat to others.

More than half of suicides are accomplished by firearms and most commonly with a firearm from the household (Miller, Azrael, Hepburn, Hemenway, & Lippmann, 2006). More than 90 percent of persons who commit suicide had some combination of symptoms of depression, symptoms of other mental disorders, and/or substance abuse (Moscicki, 2001). Ironically, although depression is the condition most closely associated with attempted or completed suicide, it is also less likely than schizophrenia or other disorders to prompt an involuntary civil commitment or other legal triggers that can prevent some persons with mental illness from possessing firearms. As in behavioral threat assessment, suicide risk may be reduced through identifying and providing support in solving the problems that are driving a person to consider suicide. In many cases the person may need a combination of psychological treatment and psychiatric medication.

Tragic shootings like the ones at Sandy Hook Elementary School and the movie theater in Aurora, Colo., spark intense debate as to whether specific gun control policies would significantly diminish the number of mass shooting incidents. This debate includes whether or how to restrict access to firearms, especially with regard to persons with some mental illnesses. Another line of debate concerns whether to limit access to certain types of firearms (e.g., reducing access to high-capacity magazines). Empirical evidence documents the efficacy of some firearms restrictions, but because the restrictions often are not well implemented and have serious limitations, it is difficult to conduct the kind of rigorous research needed to fairly evaluate their potential for reducing gun violence.

The often-debated Brady Law (1994) does not consistently prevent persons with mental illness from acquiring a firearm. The prohibition applies only to persons with involuntary commitments and omits both persons with voluntary admissions and those with no history of inpatient hospitalization. The law does not prevent a person with a history of involuntary commitment from obtaining a previously owned firearm or one possessed by a friend or relative. Additional problems with implementing the Brady Law include incomplete records of involuntary commitments, background checks limited to purchases from licensed gun dealers, and exceptions from background checks for firearms purchased during gun shows.

Despite these limitations and gaps, there is some scientific evidence that background checks reduce the rate of violent gun crimes by persons whose mental health records disqualify them from legally obtaining a firearm. A study of one state (Connecticut) found that the risk of violent criminal offending among persons with a history of involuntary psychiatric commitment declined significantly after the state began reporting these individuals to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (Swanson et al., 2013). This study supports the value of additional research to investigate strategies for limiting access to firearms by persons with serious mental illness.

In contrast, access to appropriate mental health treatment can work to reduce violence at the individual level. For example, one major finding of the MacArthur Risk Assessment study (Monahan et al., 2001) was that getting continued mental health treatment in the community after release from a psychiatric hospitalization reduced the number of violent acts by those who had been hospitalized. In other studies, outpatient mental health services, including mandated services, have been effective in preventing or reducing violent and harmful behavior (e.g., New York State Office of Mental Health, 2005; N.Y. Mental Hygiene Law [Kendra’s Law], 1999; O’Keefe, Potenza, & Mueser, 1997; Swanson et al., 2000).

There is abundant scientific research demonstrating the effectiveness of treatment for persons with severe mental illness such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. However, there are social, economic, and legal barriers to treatment. First, there is a persistent social stigma associated with mental illness that deters individuals from seeking treatment for themselves or for family members. Public education to increase understanding of and support for persons with serious mental illness and to encourage access to treatment is needed.

Second, mental health treatment, especially inpatient hospitalization, is expensive, and persons with mental illness often cannot access this level of care or afford it. Commercial insurers often have limitations on hospital care or do not cover intensive services that are alternatives to inpatient admission. Public sector facilities such as community mental health centers and state-operated psychiatric hospitals have experienced many years of shrinking government support; demand for their services exceeds their capacity. Many mental health providers limit their services to the most acute cases and cannot extend services after the immediate crisis has resolved.

Third, there are complex legal barriers to the provision of mental health services when an individual does not desire treatment or does not believe he or she is in need of treatment. A severe mental illness can impair an individual’s understanding of his or her condition and need for treatment, but a person with mental illness may make a rational decision to refuse treatment that he or she understandably regards as ineffective, aversive, or undesirable for some reason (e.g., psychiatric medications can produce unpleasant side effects and hospitalization can be a stressful experience).

When an individual refuses to seek treatment, it may be difficult to determine whether this decision is rational or irrational. To protect individual liberties, laws throughout the United States permit involuntary treatment only under stringent conditions, such as when an individual is determined to be imminently dangerous to self or others due to a mental illness. People who refuse treatment but are not judged to be imminently dangerous (a difficult and ambiguous standard) fall into a “gray zone” (Evans, 2013). Some individuals with serious mental illness pose a danger to self or others that is not imminent, and often it is not possible to monitor them adequately or determine precisely when they become dangerous and should be hospitalized on an involuntary basis. In other situations, the primary risk posed by the individual does not arise from mental illness but from his or her willingness to engage in criminal misconduct for personal gain.

Furthermore, when a person is committed to a psychiatric hospital on an involuntary basis, treatment is limited in scope. Once the person is no longer regarded as imminently dangerous (the criteria differ across states), he or she must be released from treatment even if not fully recovered; that person may be vulnerable to relapse into a dangerous state. In some cases of mass shootings, persons who committed the shooting were known to have a serious mental illness, but authorities could not require treatment when it was needed. In other cases, authorities were not aware of an individual’s mental illness before the attempted or actual mass shooting incident.

A related problem is that the onset or recurrence of serious mental illness can be difficult to detect. Symptoms of mental illness may emerge slowly, often in late adolescence or early adulthood, and may not be readily apparent to family members and friends. A person hearing voices or experiencing paranoid delusions may hide these symptoms and simply seem preoccupied or distressed but not seriously ill. A person who has been treated successfully for a serious mental illness may experience a relapse that is not immediately recognized. There is a great need for public education about the onset of serious mental illness, recognition of the symptoms of mental illness, and increased emphasis on the importance of seeking prompt treatment.

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2 The FBI (n.d.) defines mass murder as incidents that occur in one location (or in closely related locations during a single attack) and that result in four or more casualties. Mass murder shootings are much less common than other types of gun homicides. They are also not a new phenomenon. Historically, most mass murder shootings occurred within families or in criminal activities such as gang activity and robberies. Rampage killings is a term used to describe some mass murders that involve attacks on victims in unprotected settings (such as schools and colleges, workplaces, places of worship) and public places (such as theaters, malls, restaurants, public gatherings). However, these shootings are often planned well in advance and carried out in a methodical manner, so the term rampage is a misnomer.

Ellen Scrivner, PhD, ABPP; W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP; and Dewey Cornell, PhD

Prevention of violence occurs along a continuum that begins in early childhood with programs to help parents raise healthy children and ends with efforts to identify and intervene with troubled individuals who threaten violence. A comprehensive community approach recognizes that no single program is sufficient and there are many opportunities for effective prevention. Discussion of effective prevention from a community perspective should include identification of the community being examined. Within the larger community, many stakeholders are affected by gun violence that results in a homicide, suicide, or mass shooting.

Such stakeholders include community and public safety officials, schools, workplaces, neighborhoods, mental health and public health systems, and faith-based groups. When it comes to perpetrating gun violence, however, a common thread that exists across community groups is the recognition that someone, or possibly several people, may have heard something about an individual’s thoughts and/or plans to use a gun. Where do they go with that information? How do they report it so that innocent people are not targeted or labeled unfairly — and how can their information initiate a comprehensive and effective crisis response that prevents harm to the individual of concern and the community?

To date, there is little research to help frame a comprehensive and effective prevention strategy for gun violence at the community level. One of the most authoritative reviews of the body of gun violence research comes from the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences (see Wellford, Pepper, & Petrie, 2004). In reviewing a range of criminal justice initiatives designed to reduce gun violence, such as gun courts, enhanced sentencing, and problem-based policing, Wellford et al. concluded that problem-oriented policing, also known as place-based initiatives or target policing, holds promise, particularly when applied to “hot spots” — areas in the community that have high crime rates. They included studies on programs such as the Boston Gun Project (see Kennedy, Braga, & Piehl, 2001), more commonly known as Operation Ceasefire, in their review and concluded that although many of these programs may have reduced youth homicides, there is only modest evidence to suggest that they effectively lowered rates of crime and violence, given the confounding factors that influence those rates and are difficult to control. In other words, the variability in the roles of police, prosecutors, and the community creates complex interactions that can confound the levels of intervention and affect sustainability.

Wellford et al.’s (2004) conclusions were supported by the findings of the 2011 Firearms and Violence Research Working Group (National Institute of Justice, 2011), which also questioned whether rigorous evaluations are possible given the reliability and validity of the data. Wellford et al. advocated for continued research and development of models that include collaboration between police and community partners and for examination of different evaluation methodologies.

There are varied prevention models that address community issues. When it comes to exploring models that specifically address preventing the recent episodes of gun violence that have captured the nation’s attention, however, the inevitable conclusion is that there is a need to develop a new model that would bring community stakeholders together in a collaborative, problem-solving mode, with a goal of preventing individuals from engaging in gun violence, whether directed at others or self-inflicted. This model would go beyond a single activity and would blend several strategies as building blocks to form a workable systemic approach. It would require that community service systems break their tendencies to operate in silos and take advantage of the different skill sets already available in the community — for example:

• Police are trained in crisis intervention skills with a primary focus on responding to special populations such as those with mental illness.
• Community members are trained in skilled interventions such as Emotional CPR  and Mental Health First Aid — consumer-based initiatives that use neighbor-to-neighbor approaches that direct people in need of care to appropriate mental health treatment.
• School resource officers are trained to show a proactive presence in schools.

Each group may provide a solution to a piece of the problem, but there is nothing connecting the broad range of activities to the type of collaborative system needed to implement a comprehensive, community-based strategy to prevent gun violence. From a policy and practice perspective, no one skill set or one agency can provide the complete answer when it comes to developing a prevention methodology. However, some models developed through the community policing reform movement may be relevant because they are generally acknowledged to have been useful in reducing violence against women and domestic violence and in responding to children exposed to violence. These community policing models involve collaborative problem solving as a way to safeguard the community as opposed to relying only on arrest procedures. Moreover, they engage the community in organized joint efforts to produce public safety (Peak, 2013).

Another initiative, Project Safe Neighborhoods ( PSN ), is also relevant. PSN, a nationwide program that began in 2001 and was designed specifically to reduce gun violence, has some similarity to the community policing model. PSN involved the 94 U.S. attorneys in cities across the country in a prominent leadership role, ensured flexibility across jurisdictions, and required cross-agency buy-in, though there seems to have been less formalized involvement with mental health services. Nevertheless, it used a problem-solving approach that was aimed at getting guns off the streets, and the results of varied outcome assessments demonstrate that it was successful in reducing gun violence, particularly when the initiatives were tailored to the gun violence needs of specific communities (McGarrell et al., 2009).

A common approach used by PSN involved engaging the community to establish appropriate stakeholder partnerships, formulating strategic planning on the basis of identification and measurement of the community problem, training those involved in PSN, providing outreach through nationwide public service announcements, and ensuring accountability through various reporting mechanisms. The PSN problem-solving steps, with some adaptations, could provide a useful strategy for initiating collaborative problem solving with relevant community stakeholders in the interest of reducing gun violence and victimization through prevention.

The models discussed here illustrate how community engagement and collaboration helped break new ground in response to identified criminal justice problems, but they could be strengthened considerably by incorporating the involvement of professional psychology. The need for collaboration was again highlighted at a Critical Issues in Policing meeting (Police Executive Research Forum, 2012) as part of a discussion on connecting agency silos by building bridges across systems. Because police and mental health workers often respond to the same people, there is a need for collaboration on the best way to do this without compromising their roles. This emphasis takes the discussion beyond the student/school focus and expands it to include the use of crisis intervention teams (CIT) and community advocacy groups as additional resources for achieving the goal of preventing violence in the community.

The CIT model was another result of community policing reform that brought police and mental health services together to provide a more effective response to the needs of special populations, particularly mental health-related cases. Developed in Memphis in 1988 but now deployed in many communities across the country, the CIT model trains CIT officers to deescalate situations involving people in crises and to use jail diversion options, if available, rather than arrests. Although research on the effectiveness of CITs is generally limited to outcome studies in select cities, the model continues to gain prominence. In fact, the National Alliance on Mental Illness ( NAMI ) has established a NAMI CIT Center and is promoting the expansion of CIT nationwide. Studies by Borum (2000), Steadman, Deane, Borum, and Morrissey (2000), and Teller, Munetz, Gil, and Ritter (2006) have illustrated that high-risk encounters between individuals with mental illness and police can be substantially improved through CIT training, particularly when there are options such as drop-off centers, use of diversion techniques, and collaborations between law enforcement, mental health, and family members. Each plays a significant role in ensuring that city or county jails do not become de facto institutions for those in mental health crises.

Crisis intervention teams were also a major focus of a 2010 policy summit (International Association of Chiefs of Police [IACP], 2012). The summit, hosted by SAMHSA, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, and IACP, produced a 23-item action agenda. Although the summit focused on decriminalizing the response to persons with mental illness and was not directed specifically at dealing with people who perpetrate gun violence, some of their recommendations did apply. The central theme of the agenda encouraged law enforcement and mental health service systems to engage in mutually respectful working relationships, collaborate across partner agencies, and establish local multidisciplinary advisory groups. These partnerships would develop policy, protocols, and guidelines for informing law enforcement encounters with persons with mental illness who are in crisis, including a protocol that would enable agencies to share essential information about those individuals and whether the nature of the crisis could provoke violent behavior. They further recommended that these types of protocols be established and maintained by the multidisciplinary advisory group and that training be provided in the community to sensitize community members to signs of potential danger and how to intervene in a systematic way.

A Police Foundation (2013) roundtable on gun violence and mental health reported that some police departments have reached out to communities and offered safe storage of firearms when community members have concern about a family member’s access to firearms in the home. As a service to the community, the police would offer to keep guns secured in accessible community locations until the threat has subsided and the community member requests the return. The police would also confer with mental health practitioners regarding a designated family or community member on an as-needed basis. This strategy is consistent with a community threat assessment approach in which law enforcement authorities engage proactively with the community to reduce the risk of violence when an individual poses a risk.

Gun Violence in Schools

Gun violence in schools has been a national concern for more than two decades. Although school shootings are highly traumatic events and have brought school safety to the forefront of public attention, schools are very safe environments compared with other community settings (Borum et al., 2010). Less than 2 percent of homicides of school-aged children occur in schools. Over a 20-year period, there have been approximately 16 shooting deaths in U.S. schools each year (Fox & Burstein, 2010), compared with approximately 32,000 shooting deaths annually in the nation as a whole (Hoyert & Xu, 2012).

The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 made federal education funding contingent upon states requiring schools to expel for at least one year any student found with a firearm at school. This mandate strengthened the emerging philosophy of zero tolerance as a school disciplinary policy. According to the APA Zero Tolerance Task Force (2008), this policy was predicated on faulty assumptions that removing disobedient students would motivate them to improve their behavior, deter misbehavior by other students, and generate safer school conditions. The task force found no scientific evidence to support these assumptions and, on the contrary, concluded that the practice of school suspension had negative effects on students and a disproportionately negative impact on students of color and students with disabilities.

After the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, both the FBI (O’Toole, 2000) and the U.S. Secret Service (Vossekuil et al., 2002) conducted studies of school shootings and concluded that schools should not rely on student profiling or checklists of warning signs to identify potentially violent students. They cautioned that school shootings were statistically too rare to predict with accuracy and that the characteristics associated with student shooters lacked specificity, which means that numerous nonviolent students would be misidentified as dangerous. Both law enforcement agencies recommended that schools adopt a behavioral threat assessment approach, which, as noted earlier, involves assessment of students who threaten violence or engage in threatening behavior and then individualized interventions to resolve any problem or conflict that underlies the threat. One of the promising features of threat assessment is that it provides schools with a policy alternative to zero tolerance. Many schools across the nation have adopted threat assessment practices. Controlled studies of the "Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines" have shown that school-based threat assessment teams are able to resolve student threats safely and efficiently and to reduce school suspension rates (Cornell et al., 2012; Cornell, Gregory, & Fan, 2011; Cornell, Sheras, Gregory, & Fan, 2009).

The Role of Health and Mental Health Providers in Gun Violence Prevention

The health care system is an important point of contact for families regarding the issue of gun safety. Physicians’ counseling of individuals and families about firearm safety has in some cases proven to be an effective prevention measure and is consistent with other health counseling about safety. According to the 2012 policy statement of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP):

The AAP supports the education of physicians and other professionals interested in understanding the effects of firearms and how to reduce the morbidity and mortality associated with their use. HHS should establish a program to support gun safety training and counseling programs among physicians and other medical professionals. The program should also provide medical and community resources for families exposed to violence.

The AAP’s Bright Futures practice guide urges pediatricians to counsel parents who possess guns that storing guns safely and preventing access to guns reduce injury by as much as 70 percent and that the presence of a gun in the home increases the risk for suicide among adolescents. A randomized controlled trial indicates that health care provider counseling, when linked with the distribution of cable locks, has been demonstrated to increase safer home storage of firearms (Barkin et al., 2008). The removal of guns or the restriction of access should be reinforced for children and adolescents with mood disorders, substance abuse (including alcohol), or a history of suicide attempts (Grossman et al., 2005). Research is needed to identify the best ways to avoid unintended consequences while achieving intended outcomes.

In recent years, legal and legislative challenges have emerged that test the ability of physicians and other medical professionals to provide guidance on firearms. For example, in 2011 the state of Florida enacted the Firearm Owners’ Privacy Act, which prevented physicians from providing such counsel under threat of financial penalty and potential loss of licensure. The law has been permanently blocked from implementation by a U.S. district court. Similar policies have been introduced in six other states: Alabama, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The fundamental right of all health and mental health care providers to provide counseling to individuals and families must be protected to mitigate risk of injury to people where they live, work, and play.

It is apparent that long before the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School, many public health and public safety practitioners were seeking strategies to improve responses to violence in their communities and have experienced some success through problem-solving projects such as PSN and CIT. Yet there is still a need to rigorously evaluate and improve these efforts. In the meantime, basic safety precautions must be emphasized to parents by professionals in health, education, and mental health.

Public health messaging campaigns around safe storage of firearms are needed. The practice of keeping firearms stored and locked must be encouraged, and the habit of keeping loaded, unlocked weapons available should be recognized as dangerous and rendered socially unacceptable. To keep children and families safe, good safety habits have to become the only socially acceptable norm.

Susan B. Sorenson, PhD, and Daniel W. Webster, ScD, MPH

The use of a gun greatly increases the odds that violence will result in a fatality. In 2010, the most recent year for which data are available, an estimated 17.1 percent of the interpersonal assaults with a gunshot wound resulted in a homicide, and 80.7 percent of the suicide attempts in which a gun was used resulted in death (CDC, 2013a). By contrast, the most common methods of assault (hands, fists, and feet) and suicide attempt (ingesting pills) in 2010 resulted in death in only 0.009 percent and 2.5 percent of the incidents, respectively (CDC, 2013a). 3

As shown in Figure 1, in the past 30 years, the percentage of deaths caused by gunfire has stabilized to about 68 percent for homicides and, as drug overdoses have increased, dropped to 50 percent for suicide. There are more gun suicides than gun homicides in the United States. In 2010, 61.2 percent (19,392) of the 31,672 gun deaths in the United States were suicides (CDC, 2013a).

Figure 1. Deaths Attributed to Firearms, 1981–2010

Note: Data are from the Web-Based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System (WISQARS™), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, 2013. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html.

Much of the public concern about guns and gun violence focuses on interpersonal violence, and public policy mirrors this emphasis. Although there is no standard way to enumerate each discrete gun law, most U.S. gun laws focus on the user of the gun. Relatively few focus on the design, manufacture, distribution, advertising, or sale of firearms (Teret & Wintemute, 1993). Fewer yet address ammunition.

The focus herein is on the lifespan of guns — from design and manufacture to use — and the policies that could address the misuse of guns. It is critical to understand how policies create conditions that affect access to and use of guns. Because they constitute the largest portion of guns used in homicides (FBI, 2012a), handguns are the focus of most laws. Despite the substantial human and economic costs of gun violence in the United States and the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of gun regulations, scientifically rigorous evaluations are not available for many of these policies (Wellford et al., 2004). The dearth of such research on gun policies is due, in part, to the lack of government funding on this topic because of the political influences of the gun lobby (e.g., Kellermann & Rivara, 2013).

Design and Manufacture

The type of handguns manufactured in the United States has changed. Pistols overtook revolvers in manufacturing in the mid-1980s. In addition, the most widely sold pistol went from a .22 caliber in 1985 to a 9 mm or larger (e.g., .45 caliber pistols) by 1994 (Wintemute, 1996), with smaller, more concealable pistols favored by permit holders as well as criminals. This shift has been described as increasing the lethality of handguns, although, according to our review, no research has examined whether the change in weapon design has led to an increased risk of death. Such research may not be feasible given that the aforementioned weapons — that is, small, concealable pistols — still likely constitute a small portion of the estimated 283 million guns in civilian hands in the United States (Hepburn, Miller, Azrael, & Hemenway, 2007). The disproportionate appearance of such pistols among guns that were traced by law enforcement following their use in a crime has been attributed to the ease with which smaller guns can be concealed and their low price point (Koper, 2007; Wright, Wintemute, & Webster, 2010).

Ammunition, by contrast, is directly related to lethality. Hollow-point bullets are used by hunters because, in part, they are considered a more humane way to kill. The physics of hollow-point bullets are such that, upon impact, they will tumble inside the animal and take it down. Some bullets have been designed to be frangible, that is, to break apart upon impact and thus cause substantial internal damage. By contrast, the physics of full metal jacket bullets are such that, unless they hit a bone, they are likely to continue on a straight trajectory and pass through the animal, leaving it wounded and wandering. Hollow-point bullets are used by law enforcement to reduce over-penetration (i.e., when a bullet passes through its intended target and, thus, risks striking others).

Some design features would substantially reduce gun violence. One of the most promising ideas is that of “smart guns” that can be fired only by an authorized user. For example, young people, who are prohibited due to their age from legally purchasing a firearm, typically use a gun from their own home to commit suicide (Johnson, Barber, Azrael, Clark, & Hemenway, 2010; Wright, Wintemute, & Claire, 2008) and to carry out a school shooting (CDC, 2003). If personalized to an authorized adult in the home, the gun could not be operated by the adolescent or others in the home, thus rendering it of little use to the potential suicide victim or school shooter. During the Clinton administration, the federal government made a modest investment in the research and development of personalized firearms. There also was considerable private investment in technologies that would prevent unauthorized users from being able to fire weapons. Efforts to create these “smart guns” have resulted in multiple patent applications. Armatix GmbH, a German company, has designed and produced a personalized pistol that is being sold in several Western European nations and has been approved for importation to the United States. Although the cost of this new personalized gun is very high, it is believed that personalized guns can be produced at a cost that would be affordable by many (Teret & Merritt, 2013).

The assault weapons ban (the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act), enacted for a 10-year period beginning in 1994, provided a good opportunity to assess the effectiveness of restricting the manufacturing, sale, and possession of a certain class of weapons. “Assault weapons,” however, are difficult to conceal and are used rarely in most street crime or domestic violence. Assault weapons are commonly used in mass shootings in which ammunition capacity can determine the number of victims killed or wounded. Because multiple bullets are not an issue in suicide, one would not expect changes in such deaths either. Perhaps not surprisingly, an effect of the ban could not be detected on total gun-related homicides (Koper, 2013; Koper & Roth, 2001).

Unfortunately, prior research on the effects of the federal assault weapons ban did not focus on the law’s effects on mass shootings or the number of persons shot in such shootings. Assault weapons or guns with large-capacity ammunition feeding devices account for half of the weapons used in mass shootings such as at Sandy Hook Elementary School (see Follman & Aronson , 2013). Mass shootings with these types of weapons result in about 1.5 times as many fatalities as those committed with other types of firearms (Roth & Koper, 1997).

Distribution

The distribution of guns is largely the responsibility of a network of middlemen between gun manufacturers and gun dealers. When a gun is recovered following its use (or suspected use) in a crime, law enforcement routinely requests that the gun be traced — that is, the serial number is reported to the manufacturer, who then contacts the distributor and/or dealer who, in turn, reviews records to determine the original purchaser of a specific weapon. The number of gun traces is such that the manufacturers get many calls about their guns each day. One researcher estimated that Smith and Wesson, with about 10 percent of market share, received a call every seven to eight minutes about one of their guns (Kairys, 2008). Thus, one could reasonably expect that manufacturers would have some knowledge of which distributors sell guns that are disproportionately used in crime, and distributors would, in turn, know which retailers disproportionately sell guns used in crime.

Following in the footsteps of cities and states that had successfully sued the tobacco industry under state consumer protection and antitrust laws for costs the public incurred in caring for smokers, beginning in the late 1990s cities and states began to file claims against firearm manufacturers in an attempt to recover the costs of gun violence they incurred. In response, in 2005, Congress enacted and President George W. Bush signed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which prohibits civil liability lawsuits against “manufacturers, distributors, dealers, or importers of firearms or ammunition for damages, injunctive or other relief resulting from the misuse of their products by others” ( 15 U.S.C. §§ 7901-7903 ). Thus, the option of using litigation, a long-standing and sometimes controversial tool by which to address entrenched public health problems (e.g., Lytton, 2004), was severely restricted.

Advertising

Advertisements for guns have largely disappeared from classified ads in newspapers. By contrast, advertising in magazines, specifically gun magazines, is strong (Saylor, Vittes, & Sorenson, 2004). Such advertising is subject to the same Federal Trade Commission (FTC) regulations as other consumer products. In 1996, several organizations filed a complaint with the FTC after documenting multiple cases of what they asserted to be false and misleading claims about home protection (for specific examples, see Vernick, Teret, & Webster, 1997). As of November 1, 2013, the FTC had not ruled on the complaint. However, the firearm industry changed its practices such that by 2002, self-protection was an infrequent theme in advertisements for guns (Saylor et al., 2004). To our knowledge, current advertising has not been studied. New issues relevant to the advertising of guns include online advertisements by private sellers who are not obligated to verify that purchasers have passed a background check, online ads from prohibited purchasers seeking to buy firearms, the marketing of military-style weapons to civilians, and the marketing of firearms to underage youth (for examples and more information, see Kessler & Trumble, 2013; Mayors Against Illegal Guns, 2013; McIntire, 2013; Violence Policy Center, 2011).

Sales and Purchases

Gun sales have been increasing in the United States. The FBI reported a substantial jump in background checks (a proxy for gun sales) in the days following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings. In fact, of the 10 days with the most requests for background checks since the FBI started monitoring such information, 7 of them were within 8 days of Sandy Hook (FBI, 2013). Guns can be purchased from federally licensed firearm dealers or private, unlicensed sellers in a variety of settings, including gun shows, flea markets, and the Internet.

Responsible sales practices (for examples, see Mayors Against Illegal Guns, n.d.) rely heavily on the integrity of the seller. And usually that responsibility is well placed: Over half (57 percent) of the guns traced (i.e., submitted by law enforcement, usually in association with a crime, to determine the original purchaser of the weapon) were originally sold by only 1.2 percent of federally licensed firearm dealers (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms [ATF], 2000). However, there are problems. Sometimes a person who is prohibited from purchasing a gun engages someone else, who is not so prohibited, to purchase a gun for him or her. The person doing the buying is called a “straw purchaser.” Straw purchase attempts are not uncommon; in a random sample of 1,601 licensed dealers and pawnbrokers in 43 states, two thirds reported experiencing straw purchase attempts (Wintemute, 2013b).

Two studies tested the integrity of licensed firearm dealers by calling the dealers and asking whether they could purchase a handgun on behalf of someone else (in the studies, a boyfriend or girlfriend), a straw purchase transaction that is illegal. In the study of a sample of gun dealers listed in telephone directories of the 20 largest U.S. cities, the majority of gun dealers indicated a willingness to sell a handgun under the illegal straw purchase scenario (Sorenson & Vittes, 2003). In a similar study of licensed gun dealers in California, a state with relatively strong regulation and oversight of licensed gun dealers, one in five dealers expressed a willingness to make the illegal sale (Wintemute, 2010). Programs such as the ATF and National Sports Shooting Council’s “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy,” which provides posters and educational materials to display in gun stores as well as tips for gun dealers on how to identify and respond to straw purchase attempts, have not been evaluated.

It is important to be able to identify high-risk dealers because, in 2012, the ATF had insufficient resources to monitor federally licensed gun dealers (Horwitz, 2012); there were 134,997 unlicensed gun dealers in April 2013 (ATF, 2013). Some states have recognized the limited capacity of the ATF and the weaknesses of federal laws regulating gun dealers and enacted their own laws requiring the licensing, regulation, and oversight of gun dealers (Vernick, Webster, & Bulzacchelli, 2006) and, when enforced, these laws appear to reduce the diversion of guns to criminals shortly after a retail sale (Webster, Vernick, & Bulzacchelli, 2009). Undercover stings and lawsuits against gun dealers who facilitate illegal straw sales have also been shown to reduce the diversion of guns to criminals (Webster, Bulzacchelli, Zeoli, & Vernick, 2006; Webster & Vernick, 2013b).

To help ensure that guns are not sold to those who are prohibited from purchasing them, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System ([NICS], part of the Brady Law) was developed so that the status of a potential purchaser could be checked immediately by a federally licensed firearm dealer. Prohibited purchasers include, but are not limited to, convicted felons, persons dishonorably discharged from the military, those under a domestic violence restraining order, and, in the language of the federal law, persons who have been adjudicated as mentally defective or have been committed to any mental institution (see 18 U.S.C. § 922(g) (1)-(9) and (n)). About 0.6% of sales have been denied on the basis of these criteria since NICS was established in 1998 (FBI, 2012b).

A substantial portion of firearm sales and transfers, however, is not required to go through a federally licensed dealer or a background check requirement; this includes, in most U.S. states, private party sales including those that are advertised on the Internet and those that take place at gun shows where licensed gun dealers who could process background checks are steps away. Some evidence suggests that state policies regulating private handgun sales reduce the diversion of guns to criminals (Vittes, Vernick, & Webster, 2013; Webster et al., 2009; Webster, Vernick, McGinty, & Alcorn, 2013).

The ability to check the background of a potential purchaser nearly instantly means that in many states, someone who is not a prohibited purchaser can purchase a gun within a matter of minutes. Ten states and the District of Columbia have a waiting period (sometimes referred to as a “cooling-off” period) for handguns ranging from 3 (Florida and Iowa) to 14 (Hawaii) days (Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 2012). The efficacy of waiting periods has received little direct research attention.

With the exception of misdemeanor domestic violence assault, federal law and laws in most states prohibit firearm possession of those convicted of a crime only if the convictions are for felony offenses in adult courts. Research has shown that misdemeanants who were legally able to purchase handguns committed crimes involving violence following those purchases at a rate 2–10 times higher than that of handgun purchasers with no prior convictions (Wintemute, Drake, Beaumont, & Wright, 1998). Wintemute and colleagues (Wintemute, Wright, Drake, & Beaumont, 2001) examined the impact of a California law that expanded firearm prohibitions to include persons convicted of misdemeanor crimes of violence. In their study of legal handgun purchasers with criminal histories of misdemeanor violence before and after the law, denial of handgun purchases due to a prior misdemeanor conviction was associated with a significantly lower rate of subsequent violent offending.

Persons who are legally determined to be a danger to others or to themselves as a result of mental illness are prohibited by federal law from purchasing and possessing firearms. A significant impediment to successful implementation of this law is that the firearm disqualifications due to mental illness often are not reported to the FBI’s background check system. As mentioned earlier, in 2007 Connecticut began reporting these disqualifications to the background check system. In a ground-breaking study, Swanson and colleagues (2013) studied the effects of this policy change on individuals who would most likely be affected — that is, those who were legally prohibited from possessing firearms due solely to the danger posed by their mental illnesses. They found that the rate of violent crime offending was about half as high among those whose mental illness disqualification was reported to the background system compared with those whose mental illness disqualification was not reported.

Federal law allows an individual to buy several guns, even hundreds, at once; the only requirement is that a multiple-purchase form be completed (18 U.S.C. § 923(g)(3)(A)(2009)). Large bulk purchases have been linked to gun trafficking (Koper, 2005). Policies such as one-handgun-a-month have rarely been enacted. Evaluations of these laws document mixed findings (Webster et al., 2009, 2013;Weil & Knox, 1996).

The United States was one of the signers of the Geneva Convention, which prohibits the use of hollow-point bullets in war (the goal being to wound but not kill wartime enemies), but hollow-point bullets are available to civilians in the United States. A hunting license is not a prerequisite for the purchase of hollow-point bullets in the United States. California passed a law requiring a thumbprint for ammunition purchases; the law was ruled “unconstitutionally vague” by a Superior Court judge in 2011, but some municipalities (e.g., Los Angeles, Sacramento) have similar local ordinances in effect.

In 2004, a national survey found that 20 percent of the U.S. adult population reported they own one or more long-guns (shotguns or rifles), and 16 percent reported they own a handgun (Hepburn et al., 2007). Self-protection was the primary reason for owning a gun. Most people who have a gun have multiple guns, and half of gun owners reported owning four or more guns. In fact, 4 percent of the population is estimated to own 65 percent of the guns in the nation.

Nationally representative studies suggest that the mental health of gun owners is similar to that of individuals who do not own guns (Miller, Barber, Azrael, Hemenway, & Molnar, 2009; Sorenson & Vittes, 2008). However, gun owners are more likely to binge drink and drink and drive (Wintemute, 2011).

In perhaps the methodologically strongest study to date to examine handgun ownership and mortality, Wintemute and colleagues found a strong association between the purchase of a handgun and suicide: “In the first year after the purchase of a handgun, suicide was the leading cause of death among handgun purchasers, accounting for 24.5 percent of all deaths” (Wintemute, Parham, Beaumont, Wright, & Drake, 1999). The risk of suicide remained elevated (nearly twofold and sevenfold, respectively, for male and female handgun purchasers) at the end of the 6-year study period. Men’s handgun purchase was associated with a reduced risk of becoming a homicide victim (0.69); women’s handgun purchase, by contrast, was associated with a 55 percent increase in risk of becoming a homicide victim. A waiting period may reduce immediate risk but appears not to eliminate short- or long-term risk for suicide.

Risk can extend to others in the home. Efforts to educate children about guns (largely to stay away from them), when tested with field experiments, indicate they are generally ineffective (e.g., Hardy, 2002). Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws focus on the responsibilities of adults; adults are held criminally liable for unsafe storage of firearms around children. CAP laws have been associated with modest decreases in unintentional shootings of children and the suicides of adolescents (Webster & Starnes, 2000; Webster, Vernick, Zeoli, & Manganello, 2004).

Most gun-related laws focus on the user of the gun (e.g., increased penalties for using a gun in the commission of a crime). Some research suggests that having been threatened with a gun, as well as the perpetrator’s having access to a gun and using a gun during the fatal incident, is associated with increased risk of women becoming victims of intimate partner homicide (Campbell et al., 2003). Regarding sales, note that persons with a domestic violence misdemeanor or under a domestic violence restraining order are prohibited by federal law from purchasing and possessing a firearm and ammunition. Research to date indicates that firearm restrictions for persons subject to such laws have reduced intimate partner homicides by 6 percent to 19 percent (Vigdor & Mercy, 2006; Zeoli & Webster, 2010).

As with initial discussions about motor vehicle safety, which focused on what was then referred to as the “nut behind the wheel,” current discussions about gun users sometimes involve terms such as “good guys” and “bad guys.” Although intuitively appealing, such categories seem to assume a static label and do not take into account the fact that “good guys” can become “bad guys” and “bad guys” can become “good guys.” One way an armed “good guy” can become a “bad guy” is to use a gun in a moment of temporary despondence or rage (Bandeira, 2013; Wintemute, 2013a).

Research on near-miss suicide attempts among young adults indicates that impulsivity is of concern. About one fourth of those whose suicide attempt was so severe they most likely would have died reported first thinking about suicide five minutes before attempting it (Simon et al., 2001). Although an estimated 90 percent of those who attempt suicide go on to die of something else (i.e., they do not subsequently kill themselves; for a review, see Bostwick & Pankratz, 2000), for those who use a gun, as noted in opening paragraph of this chapter, there generally is not a second chance.

Given the complexity of the issue, a multifaceted approach will be needed to reduce firearm-related violence (see, for example, Chapman & Alpers, 2013). Not all ideas that on the surface seem to be useful actually are. For example, gun buyback programs may raise awareness of guns and gun violence in a community but have not been shown to reduce mortality (Makarios & Pratt, 2012). Such data can inform policy. President Obama’s January 2013 executive orders about gun violence include directing the CDC to research the causes and prevention of gun violence. The federal government has since announced several funding opportunities for research related to gun violence. And the recent Institute of Medicine and National Research Council (2013) report called for lifting access restrictions on gun-related administrative data (e.g., data related to dealers’ compliance with firearm sales laws, gun trace data) that could be used to identify potential intervention and prevention points and strategies. So perhaps more data will be available to inform and evaluate policies designed to reduce gun violence.

The focus of this section has largely been on mortality. The scope of the problem is far greater, however. For every person who dies of a gunshot wound, there are an estimated 2.25 people who are hospitalized or receive emergency medical treatment for a nonfatal gunshot wound (Gotsch, Annest, Mercy, & Ryan, 2001). And guns are used in the street and in the home to intimidate and coerce (e.g., Sorenson & Wiebe, 2004; Truman, 2011).

Single policies implemented by themselves have been shown to reduce certain forms of gun violence in the United States. Adequate implementation and enforcement as well as addressing multiple intervention points simultaneously may improve the efficacy of these laws even more. After motor vehicle safety efforts expanded to include the vehicle, roadways, and other intervention points (vs. a focus on individual behavior), motor vehicle deaths dropped precipitously and continue to decline (CDC, 1999, 2013a). A multifaceted approach to reducing gun violence will serve the nation well.

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Vossekuil, B., Fein, R., Reddy, M., Borum, R., & Modzelski, W. (2002). The final report and findings of the Safe School Initiative: Implications for the prevention of school attacks in the United States. Washington, DC: U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac/ssi_final_report.pdf

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APA Panel of Experts

Dewey Cornell, PhD Clinical Psychologist and Professor of Education Curry School of Education University of Virginia

Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD Commissioner Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services Philadelphia, Pa.   Nancy G. Guerra, EdD (Coordinating Editor) Professor of Psychology Associate Provost for International Programs Director, Institute for Global Studies University of Delaware   Robert Kinscherff, PhD, JD Associate Vice President for Community Engagement Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology Senior Associate National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice   Eric Mankowski, PhD Professor of Psychology Department of Psychology Portland State University

Marisa R. Randazzo, PhD Managing Partner SIGMA Threat Management Associates Alexandria, Va.   Ellen Scrivner, PhD, ABPP Executive Fellow Police Foundation Washington, D.C.   Susan B. Sorenson, PhD Professor of Social Policy / Health & Societies Senior Fellow in Public Health University of Pennsylvania

W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP Professor of Pediatrics Jefferson Medical College Thomas Jefferson University   Daniel W. Webster, ScD, MPH Professor and Director Center for Gun Policy and Research Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

We are grateful to the following individuals for their thoughtful reviews and comments on drafts of this report:   Louise A. Douce, PhD Special Assistant, Office of Student Life Adjunct Faculty, Department of Psychology The Ohio State University   Joel A. Dvoskin, PhD, ABPP Department of Psychiatry University of Arizona   Ellen G. Garrison, PhD Senior Policy Advisor American Psychological Association   Melissa Strompolis, MA Doctoral Candidate University of North Carolina at Charlotte   Mathilde Pelaprat, PsyD , provided writing and research assistance on Chapter 2.

Rhea Farberman, APR Executive Director Public and Member Communications American Psychological Association

Editorial and Design Services Deborah C. Farrell, Editor │ Elizabeth F. Woodcock, Designer

• Download the Full Report (PDF, 1.4MB)

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

• To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
• As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
• As a template for you assignment

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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IvyPanda. (2023, December 15). Victims of Gun Violence in the United States. https://ivypanda.com/essays/victims-of-gun-violence-in-the-united-states/

"Victims of Gun Violence in the United States." IvyPanda , 15 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/victims-of-gun-violence-in-the-united-states/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'Victims of Gun Violence in the United States'. 15 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "Victims of Gun Violence in the United States." December 15, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/victims-of-gun-violence-in-the-united-states/.

1. IvyPanda . "Victims of Gun Violence in the United States." December 15, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/victims-of-gun-violence-in-the-united-states/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Victims of Gun Violence in the United States." December 15, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/victims-of-gun-violence-in-the-united-states/.

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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Community Gun Violence

What is community gun violence  .

Community gun violence is a form of interpersonal gun violence (assaults) that takes place between individuals who are not related or in an intimate relationship. It typically occurs in public places — streets, parks, front porches — in communities across America, and it makes up most gun homicides that occur in the United States. 1 Most community gun violence is highly concentrated within under-resourced neighborhoods impacted by a legacy of discriminatory public policies. 2,3 Consequently, Black and Hispanic/Latino Americans are disproportionately impacted by community gun violence.  

Community gun violence is a form of interpersonal gun violence that:

Takes place in under-resourced neighborhoods.

and affects disinvested communities

Disproportionately impacts Black and Hispanic/Latino communities

specifically young Black and Hispanic/Latino men  

Usually occurs outside of the home in a public setting 

Excludes domestic and intimate partner violence

Often is sparked by a dispute between individuals or groups

and may be retaliatory because of long-standing conflicts  

Who is Impacted by Community Violence? 

Black Americans were nearly 14 times as likely to be murdered by firearm as their white counterparts in 2021. Young Black males ages 15-34 made up 2% of the U.S. population but account for 36% of all firearm homicide fatalities that year. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for Black males ages 15-34. 4

In 2021, gun violence was the second leading cause of death for Hispanic/Latino males under the age of 34, and Hispanic/Latino males ages 15-34 are 3.4 times more likely to be murdered by firearm than their White (non-Hispanic/Latino) counterparts. 5

Firearm Homicide Rates by Disproportionately Impacted Populations, 2019-2021 (rates per 100,000 people)   

Difference in Gun Homicide Rates by Gender and Race/Ethnicity, 2022

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death. Gun Deaths and Rates per 100,000. WONDER Online Database, 1999-2022.

*The total number of gun homicide deaths for female Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander were less than 10 and thus repressed by CDC.

Where does Community Gun Violence Occur?  

Community gun violence is geographically concentrated in a small number of under-resourced neighborhoods composed of predominantly Black and Hispanic/Latino residents. For example, an analysis of firearm homicide data from 2015 found that 26% of all firearm homicides in the United States occurred in census tracts that contained only 1.5% of the American population. 6    

These neighborhoods suffer from underfunded social services, few economic opportunities, and concentrated poverty. 7    

Often public attention focuses on cities with high homicide rates, with little attention given to where, within the city, violence occurs and which communities bear the brunt of it. St. Louis, a city that frequently tops the charts in terms of homicides, illustrates how gun violence is geographically concentrated. An analysis of 2015 data found that 42% of the city’s homicides occurred in just 8 out of the city’s 79 residential neighborhoods. 8 Among the homicides that year, nine people were murdered by firearms in nine separate shootings, all within one 0.4 square mile census tract. 9    

Community gun violence is not just confined to cities. In fact, many rural communities are also impacted by gun violence. Ten of the 20 counties with the highest gun homicide rates from 2019 to 2021 were rural. 10 Out of 3,142 counties, Lowndes County, Alabama, with only 10,000 residents, had the country’s highest homicide rate from 2019 to 2021. Meanwhile, Cook County (Chicago), which often captures the media’s attention around violence, had the 61st highest gun homicide rate.  To adequately address the crisis of community gun violence policymakers must understand its uneven distribution, and the populations, both in rural and urban America, that are most impacted.

"To reduce community gun violence, strategies must be informed by detailed data on the drivers and circumstances surrounding shootings and involve strategic partnerships between government agencies and community-based organizations who can effectively engage with those at highest risk and counteract the drivers of gun violence." Daniel Webster, ScD '91, MPH  Distinguished Research Scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions

Small Social Networks  

Even within the neighborhoods with the highest levels of violence, only a few individuals are involved in gun violence, and those involved are often both the perpetrator and victim. 11,12,13 Analyses in a variety of cities have found that small networks of individuals -- sometimes as little as a couple hundred in a city of millions -- are involved in most of the city’s shootings. In Oakland, for instance, just 0.1% of the population were responsible for the majority of the city’s homicides, 14 while in New Orleans, networks of 600 to 700 individuals are linked to most of the city’s murders. 15 Even within Chicago’s highest violence neighborhoods, those who have a social network in which someone was murdered are 900% more likely to die of homicide than neighboring residents. 16 The vast majority of homicides in each of these cities are by firearms.  

Community gun violence can be reduced through narrowly tailored interventions which focus on the small number of individuals caught in cycles of violence.  

What Factors Influence Community Gun Violence?

Social and economic inequalities are often at the root of community gun violence. These inequalities are caused by racist policies like redlining and exclusionary zoning laws that target communities of color and create segregated and underinvested neighborhoods. 17 The same neighborhoods struggling with community gun violence also face multiple economic challenges including the lack of access to healthy food, shortage of affordable housing, high rates of environmental lead exposure, inadequate education, few jobs, and limited opportunities. 18,19  

Within many neighborhoods with high rates of violence, the unemployment rate is over 20%. 20 The typical household within a high poverty neighborhood has a net worth of $7,000 -- 1/40th  of the typical household in a low poverty neighborhood. 21 Likewise, there is often a lack of educational opportunities, as the schools are chronically underfunded. 22  Over a quarter of adults living in high poverty neighborhoods lack a high school diploma and only 14% have attained a bachelor's degree. 23 These deep structural disadvantages combined with easy access to guns create the conditions for community gun violence. 

Conditions that increase the likelihood of community gun violence include:

→ easy access to guns by people at elevated risk for violence 24    , → income inequality 25  , → concentrated poverty 26    , → underfunded public housing 27  , → under-resourced public services 28  , → underperforming schools 29  , → lack of opportunity and perceptions of hopelessness 30  , → police brutality and lack of police legitimacy 31  , how policing practices impact community gun violence.

Policing, if applied correctly, can serve as an important role in effectively addressing community gun violence. Policing gun violence requires strategic use of police resources focused on the people, places and behaviors that contribute to violence. Research shows that properly implemented policing strategies including, hot spots policing, focused deterrence, and enhanced shooting investigations can reduce community gun violence, and strengthen trust with the community. 32  

Police should focus patrol activities to locations identified as “hot spots” for gun violence, driven by real-time data of shootings. These enforcement strategies must be conducted in a lawful, procedurally just manner to prevent harms and promote police legitimacy. Police can also allocate resources to high-risk places and address underlying problems, like poor lighting, which contribute to violence. Hot spot policing strategies are associated with reductions in violent crime and disorder. 33  

Police should partner with community-based organizations and social service agencies to create a focused deterrence, or group violence intervention model. This model aims on changing the behavior of the small groups of people involved in gun violence. Individuals are offered opportunities and resources to change their behavior. Law enforcement dedicate resources toward apprehending those that continue to engage in gun violence. This strategy works best when there is a balance between law enforcement deterrents and supports from community-based organizations. 34  

Unsolved shootings contribute to gun violence by depriving victims and their families of justice and exacerbating police-community relations. In many jurisdictions only a fraction of gun crimes are solved. Homicides and shootings of Black people, or that occur in under-resourced neighborhoods, are solved at far lower rates than homicides and shootings of white people or that occur in wealthier neighborhoods. 35,36 Police should prioritize fatal and nonfatal shooting investigations, particularly those that occur in under-resourced neighborhoods, to address low clearance rates and interrupt the cycle of gun violence. When police departments increase resources and personnel to investigate shootings (both fatal and nonfatal), they can solve more shootings. 37  

Building Police Legitimacy is Essential to Reducing Community Gun Violence  

Police legitimacy is the way community members trust in, and are willing to work with, the police. It is a vital component in reducing community gun violence. When communities view the police force as legitimate, they are more willing to work with law enforcement to identify and detain those responsible for committing acts of gun violence, and to intervene before conflicts develop into shootings. Likewise, when police legitimacy is strong, victims of violence feel safe and can rely on formal channels of justice to bring about closure, instead of resorting to retaliation. 38  

Police brutality and widespread discrimination undermine police legitimacy, and thereby fuel community gun violence. In many Black and Hispanic communities distrust in law enforcement stems from a legacy of racist policies and violence, often carried out by police. Compounded upon this history is the ongoing crisis of mass incarceration and police brutality. 39 Research consistently highlights racial disparities at virtually every step within the criminal justice system. Black males are stopped by police, arrested, denied bail, wrongfully convicted, issued longer sentences, and shot by police at much higher rates than white Americans. 40  

Unsurprisingly, when individuals experience police discrimination or brutality, they are less likely to trust or rely on law enforcement. Consequently, these community members are reticent to report criminal activity or act as witnesses in criminal investigations. Instead, some rely on informal channels of justice – like retaliatory violence – to resolve conflict. 41  

A 2016 study examined the relationships between police brutality, police legitimacy, and homicide rates in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The authors examined the highly publicized, brutal beating of an unarmed Black man, Frank Jude, by Milwaukee police officers in 2004. The authors found that in the year after the beating, calls for police services dropped dramatically in the city, particularly in underserved minoritized neighborhoods. In the year following the beating there were 22,200 fewer 911 calls. This decrease in 911 calls coincided with a spike in homicides. In the six months following this beating, homicides in Milwaukee increased by 32%. 42 The authors conclude that this one act of police brutality eroded trust in law enforcement and likely contributed to increases in gun violence. This study illustrates how police brutality is both unconscionable in its own right and may fuel community gun violence.   

Police departments should build an organizational culture to address police misconduct and discrimination through internal policy changes, including hiring, training, use of force, and accountability practices. 

Gun Homicide Rate by Race and Age, 2022

Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. Underlying Cause of Death. Gun Deaths and Rates per 100,000. WONDER Online Database, 1999-2022. 

How can Community Gun Violence be Prevented?

Reduce the flow of illegal guns into impacted communities.

Stemming the flow of illegal guns into Black and Hispanic/Latino communities is vital to reducing community gun violence. There are no federally licensed firearms dealers in many communities most impacted by gun violence, yet there is often an abundance of firearms. Gun violence prevention policies that address firearm trafficking and prevent dangerous people from accessing firearms play an important role in reducing community gun violence. These laws include firearm purchaser licensing laws with universal background checks and lost and stolen firearm reporting laws.   

Each year an estimated 380,000 firearms are stolen in the U.S yet only 240,000 are reported to law enforcement. 43,44 This suggests that an estimated 140,000 gun thefts are not reported to law enforcement each year. Laws that require gun owners to promptly report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement can help prevent firearm trafficking. These laws both increase gun seller accountability and provide police with a tool to combat firearm traffickers. States that have lost and stolen firearm reporting laws were associated with 30% lower rates of crime gun exports to other states compared to states without such laws. 45  

Firearm purchaser licensing laws, also known as permit-to-purchase, require an individual to qualify for and obtain a license before acquiring or owning a firearm. Individuals generally must fill out an in-person application at the police department, be fingerprinted, and undergo a comprehensive criminal background check. Firearm purchaser licensing laws are found to be effective at deterring individuals who commit violent crimes and gun traffickers from obtaining firearms. For example, the repeal of Missouri’s licensing law was associated with the increased diversion of guns into the illegal market. 46 Research also shows that licensing laws are an effective policy to prevent firearm homicides. Licensing laws are associated with an 11% reduction in firearm homicides in urban counties. 47    

In 2022, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives was only able to inspect approximately nine percent of the 78,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States as a result of insufficient resources and legal restrictions. 48  Federal immunity laws, including the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLACA), and additional exemptions from 34 states provide additional protections for gun manufacturers, dealers, and other industry-related members from liability and accountability in court. 49 Comprehensive gun dealer reforms, including strong gun dealer regulations and oversight, should be prioritized to hold gun dealers accountable when they break the law. Additionally, states can pass legislation to hold the gun industry accountable for reckless marketing practices. They can expand the ability of victims and/or public officials to bring lawsuits to civil court against the gun industry manufacturers for misconduct.

Deploy policing strategies that are highly focused and that increase trust within communities most impacted by gun violence

Law enforcement play an essential role in curbing community gun violence by enforcing gun laws and detaining those who commit gun crimes. Police department should deploy strategies that are highly focused on the small number of individuals involved in gun violence, the areas where gun violence concentrates and the criminal behaviors that contribute to violence. Evidence consistently shows that a range of these policing strategies can reduce levels of gun violence. 50  

For police departments to maintain sustained reductions in violence they need to be viewed as legitimate institutions in the communities most impacted by violence. Policymakers and police departments must work to improve relationships between law enforcement and the communities they serve. To do this, police departments should adopt procedurally just practices. Procedural justice requires a long-term commitment from law enforcement leaders to institute a culture in which police see the community as partners and respond to the expressed needs of the community. In order for these partnerships to take root there must be a law enforcement culture of transparency and citizen oversight. Community members should feel they have a voice in the decision-making process and decisions should be made in a fair and neutral way. 51,52 For procedurally just practices to work, police must also be effective in curbing violence.   

Community violence intervention and prevention programs  

Community violence intervention and prevention efforts work with those impacted by gun violence to reduce the cycles of community gun violence, address the underlying causes of gun violence, and promote health equity. Community violence intervention and prevention programs bring together community members, social service providers, and, in some cases, law enforcement to identify and provide support for individuals at highest risk for gun violence. They also help individuals cope with the trauma that is associated with living in neighborhoods where witnessing gun violence is routine.  

Violence Reduction Councils (VRC)

An interdisciplinary, data-driven and public health-focused approach to violence prevention and intervention.  

VRCs create a framework for community members from diverse backgrounds to collaborate and identify recommendations proven to: prevent violence, meet the unique needs of the community, and rebuild trust among local governments, law enforcement and community members

VISIT THE VRC WEBSITE READ THE TOOLKIT

Effective violence intervention and prevention programs, street outreach and violence interruption programs.

In the street outreach and violence interruption model, outreach workers are trained to identify conflicts within their community and help resolve disputes before they spiral into gun violence. These outreach workers are credible members of the community and well-respected by individuals at a high risk of violence. Outreach workers use their credibility to interrupt cycles of retaliatory violence, help connect high risk individuals to social services, and change norms around using guns to solve conflicts.  

Violence interruption programs, like the Cure Violence model , have been used successfully in multiple cities, including Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York. An evaluation of Baltimore’s Cure Violence program found that it was associated with a 22% reduction in homicides and 23% reduction in nonfatal shootings from 2007 to 2021. 53,   54  

Group Violence Intervention / Focused Deterrence

In the Group Violence Intervention / Focused Deterrence model, prosecutors and police work with community leaders to identify a small group of individuals who are chronic violent offenders and are at high risk for future violence. High risk individuals are called into a meeting and are told that if violence continues, every legal tool available will be used to ensure they face swift and certain consequences. These individuals are simultaneously connected to social services and community support to assist them in changing their behavior.  

An analysis of 24 focused deterrence programs found that these strategies led to an overall statistically significant reduction in firearm violence. The most successful of these programs have reduced violent crime in cities by an average of 30% and improved relations between law enforcement officers and the neighborhoods they serve. 55    

Trauma-informed Programs with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Trauma-informed programs that employ cognitive behavioral therapy to those at risk for violence have experienced significant decreases in firearm violence. 56 Cognitive behavioral therapy helps high risk individuals cope with trauma while simultaneously providing new tools to de-escalate conflict.  

Trauma-informed programs in Chicago that provide high risk youth with cognitive behavioral therapy and mentoring cut violent crime arrests in half. 57  

Violence Reduction Councils / Homicide Review Commissions

Violence reduction Councils (also known as homicide review commissions) bring together law enforcement, public health agencies, community members, criminal justice stakeholders, and service providers to examine firearm violence within their community. Stakeholders collaboratively develop comprehensive interventions that identify high risk individuals and address the underlying factors that lead to violence.  

The homicide review commission in Milwaukee was associated with a significant and sustained 52% reduction in homicides. 58 A Department of Justice evaluation found homicide review commissions to be an effective way to reduce gun violence by building trust between criminal justice stakeholders and the community. 59  

Programs that clean and rehabilitate blighted and abandoned property

These programs prevent gun violence by reducing the locations where illegal guns are stored and often where illegal activity linked to gun violence occurs. Likewise, these programs increase the connectedness between neighbors and strengthen the informal social controls that deter violence.  

An evaluation of a blight remediation program in Philadelphia found that it was associated with a decrease in gun violence by 39% over one year and improved community health. 60  

Comprehensive Investments in Violence Intervention and Prevention Programs  

When properly funded and implemented, community violence intervention and prevention efforts reduce gun violence. Federal, state, and local governments have the ability to support violence intervention and prevention efforts by providing funding, staffing, technical assistance and capacity building.   

City level efforts to address community gun violence:  

Cities can support community violence intervention programs by making them an integral part of city government, like any other city service. Many cities have created offices of violence prevention and intervention (often also called offices of neighborhood safety) to build, fund, and coordinate community violence intervention and prevention efforts across the city.   

These agencies, often housed in a public health department or within the mayor’s office, can lead a public health-based approach to violence prevention by convening city agencies, services providers, and community-based organizations involved in violence prevention. They can do this through creating a framework like the Violence Reduction Council , in which key stakeholders in the city work together to identify the risk and protective factors within a city and develop interventions informed by data.   

Oakland, California provides an excellent example of how investing in CVI, in partnership with law enforcement, can promote reforms in policing and reduce violence. Oakland adopted a special tax that provides significant and consistent funding for CVI programs. In 2012, the city implemented Ceasefire , a program that conducts in-depth problem analysis to identify individuals and groups involved in gun violence and engage these individuals with a clear message from law enforcement and the community that the violence must stop. Significant outreach and social support were offered in addition to a deterrence message. Additionally, the city invested in violence interruption and hospital-based violence intervention programs to provide a wide-range of support to those at highest risk for violence.   

Research showed that the Oakland program was associated with a city-wide 32 percent reduction in shootings through 2017 that was concentrated in the areas and groups that were engaged by the program. 61 Importantly, the partnership between communities, CVI programs, and law enforcement also facilitated important reforms in policing. A large reduction in shootings was achieved while reducing arrests and excessive use of force by police. 62  

State-level efforts to address community gun violence:

An increasing number of states have begun to build infrastructure to support CVI through sustained funding, technical assistance, and coordination. In 2017, only five states funded CVI related efforts; by 2021, fifteen states have funded such efforts committing to a total of $690 million. 63  

State-level efforts vary widely in the types of CVI programs they support and the ways they support such programs. Some states primarily fund CVI models, like group violence intervention, which rely on law enforcement-community partnerships, while, others support non-law enforcement interventions, like violence interruption and hospital-based intervention programs.

Evaluations of state level efforts in Connecticut and Massachusetts – early states to fund CVI have found promising results. Connecticut’s state-funded group violence intervention program was associated with a 21% decrease in shootings in New Haven each month that the program was in effect. 64 Massachusetts’s state funded CVI program offers trauma informed case management and wrap-around services to young men who are involved in gun violence. Ongoing evaluations of this program, which now operates in 14 cities across the state, found that it was associated with lower rates of incarceration, reduced violent victimization among participants, and city level homicide and aggravated assault victimization rates among young men. 65 In 2018, the program was associated with 815 fewer victims of violent crime among those ages 14-24. The evaluation found that for every $1 spent on the program, $5 in crime related costs were saved. 66    

Offices of Violence Gun Prevention  

 A growing number of states are investing in state level offices of gun violence prevention. These offices build the infrastructure to bring together various state agencies to more comprehensively address the multiple forms of gun violence. Many of these offices focus on CVI efforts, coordinating and funding CVI programs across the state. To date, at least six states have created offices of gun violence prevention. 67  

Federal efforts to address community gun violence:  

Tireless advocacy from community violence intervention and prevention advocates across the country has led to sizable investments in community gun violence at the federal level and increasing capacity-building to support CVI programs. Through executive action, the Biden administration opened over 2 dozen grant programs spanning 5 departments to allow community violence intervention and prevention efforts to qualify for federal funding. As part of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the U.S. Department of Justice received $150 million for CVI development, implementation and evaluation in the FY 2023 budget. 68 As a result of these new federal efforts, CVI organizations across the country have received unprecedented federal support.

In the Fall of 2023, the Biden Administration announced the creation of a White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention charged with helping to expand upon and implement the executive actions taken by the Biden Administratio, including providing ongoing support for CVI efforts. 69  

Taken together, these local, state and federal investments to build out strong community violence intervention and prevention programs are a promising development that has the potential to reduce community gun violence in communities across the United States.   

• There is not a standardized definition of community gun violence. However, community gun violence, as defined on this page, accounts for the majority of gun homicides.  
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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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Gun Violence in the United States of America

Introduction.

Gun violence in the United States of America is a growing epidemic that has become a major public health and safety concern. Every year, thousands of people are killed or injured by firearms across the United States, making firearms the leading cause of death and injury in the country (Butkus et al., 2018). The rate of firearm homicide in the United States is six times higher than in other high-income countries, and suicide by firearm is also much more common. Gun violence can take many forms, including mass shootings, homicides, suicides, and accidental shooting (Wintemute, 2015). According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were an estimated 30,000 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2016. This figure represents a more than 10,000-person increase from 2015. Men commit the vast majority of gun violence in the United States. Male shooters are responsible for more than three-quarters of all firearm deaths in the United States, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit organization that tracks gun violence data. Furthermore, gun violence disproportionately affects African Americans and Hispanics (Botty van den Bruele & Crandall, 2021). There are various causes of gun violence, including mental health issues, access to firearms, substance abuse, and lax gun laws.

Causes of Mass Violence

Mental health issues.

Mental health issues have been linked to gun violence in the United States for many years. Studies have found that certain mental health conditions, such as depression and psychosis, are associated with an increased risk of violence. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, people with mental health conditions are more likely to react violently to stressful situations. This can lead them to commit acts of violence, such as shooting someone, even if they have never before displayed violent behavior. Following a traumatic event, such as a shooting, people with mental health conditions may experience intense feelings of sadness, anger, and fear. This can lead to an increased risk of violence (Swanson et al., 2016).

Mental health conditions can also lead to problems with impulse control, which can make it difficult for someone to control their actions when they are angry or upset. This can lead them to act out in a violent way, including using guns (Metzl, Piemonte & McKay, 2021). A research carried out by the University of Pennsylvania in 2016 found that people with mental health conditions are almost twice as likely to be involved in a mass shooting as those who do not have mental health conditions. This is because people with mental health conditions often have difficulty controlling their emotions, which can lead to them becoming violent (Metzl et al., 2021).

Access to Firearms

Access to firearms can contribute to mass gun violence in the United States in numerous ways. One of the most concerning aspects of the issue is the easy access to firearms, particularly military-style assault weapons, which are used in a high number of mass shootings. Firearms are also commonly obtained illegally, which makes them more difficult to track and regulate. For example, in the December 14, 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, 20 children and six adults were killed by Adam Lanza using a military-style assault rifle that he had illegally obtained (Werbick et al., 2021).

Besides, access to firearms also contributes to mass gun violence through the use of firearms in suicides. For example, a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that between 1999 and 2013, there were a total of 381 suicides involving firearms, including 247 with handguns and 126 with rifles. This indicates that firearm suicide is a major contributor to mass gun violence in the United States (Santaella-Tenorio et al., 2016). Mother Jones conducted a study in 2016 and discovered that states with more guns had higher rates of gun violence, including mass shootings. This suggests that the ease of access to firearms is a significant factor contributing to gun violence in the United States (Botty van den Bruele & Crandall, 2021).

Substance Abuse

Substance abuse has been linked to gun violence in the United States of America in a number of ways. For example, people who abuse alcohol or drugs are more likely to engage in impulsive and dangerous behaviors that can lead to violence. This includes things like using guns in fights or shooting at people without actually intending to kill them. A practical example of this is the case of Adam Lanza, who killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut in 2012 after he had been drinking heavily beforehand (Werbick et al., 2021).

Additionally, substance abusers are more likely to have troubled mental health histories that can lead to violent behavior. This is particularly true when it comes to drugs like methamphetamine, which can cause psychotic episodes and violence. All of this makes it very difficult for people who are struggling with substance abuse to stay safe and refrain from using guns in violent situations (Skeem & Mulvey, 2020). A good example of this is the case of Dylann Roof, who killed nine people at a Charleston, South Carolina church in 2015 after spending time on white supremacist websites. In a similar case, Elliot Rodger killed six people and wounded fourteen others in Santa Barbara, California in 2014 after posting a series of videos detailing his Plans to kill women. Based on these examples, it is clear that substance abuse and mental health problems can lead to dangerous and violent behavior (Botty van den Bruele & Crandall, 2021).

Lax Gun Laws

The gun laws in the United States of America are considered to be some of the most lax in the world. This means that there are a lot of loopholes in these laws, which allows people with ill intentions to get their hands on firearms. This has led to an increase in gun violence in the United States of America, as criminals and terrorists can easily get their hands on firearms. In fact, there has been an increase of gun violence in the United States of America even after many measures were put into place in response to the Sandy Hook shooting (Hurka & Knill, 2020).

For instance, when purchasing a gun, there is a lack of universal background checks. Despite the fact that background checks are required for all gun purchases made through federally licensed firearms dealers, there are numerous loopholes in the system that allow criminals and other prohibited individuals to purchase firearms (Butkus et al., 2018). In fact, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, about two-thirds of federal firearms purchases (67%) are not subject to background checks, which implies that individuals who should not be able to purchase a firearm, such as convicted felons, domestic violence offenders, and the mentally ill, are often able to do so without any difficulty (Botty van den Bruele & Crandall, 2021).

Another loophole in gun ownership is the “Gun Show Loophole”: The Gun Show Loophole is a policy that allows licensed firearms dealers to sell firearms at gun shows without having to conduct background checks. This loophole has been repeatedly exploited by criminals and other prohibited individuals, who can buy firearms without going through a licensed dealer. There is also the “Firearm Transfers to Minors” loophole, which allows adults to transfer firearms to minors without a background check. Parents who want to give their children a gun as a gift have taken advantage of this loophole (Wintemute, 2015).

It is clear that a combination of mental health issues, access to firearms, substance abuse, and lax gun laws have all contributed to America’s high levels of gun violence. Individuals with mental health issues, for example, are more likely to be violent and commit suicide, and those with easy access to firearms are much more likely to commit homicide. Similarly, substance abuse is known to increase the likelihood of suicide and other violent behaviors, while lax gun laws make it easy for criminals to obtain firearms. All of these factors need to be considered when trying to reduce gun violence in the United States.

Botty van den Bruele, A., & Crandall, M. (2021). Scope of Firearm Injuries in the United States. In  Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States  (pp. 3-10). Springer, Cham.

Butkus, R., Doherty, R., Bornstein, S. S., & Health and Public Policy Committee of the American College of Physicians*. (2018). Reducing firearm injuries and deaths in the United States: a position paper from the American College of Physicians.  Annals of internal medicine ,  169 (10), 704-707.

Hurka, S., & Knill, C. (2020). Does regulation matter? A cross‐national analysis of the impact of gun policies on homicide and suicide rates.  Regulation & Governance ,  14 (4), 787-803.

Metzl, J. M., Piemonte, J., & McKay, T. (2021). Mental illness, mass shootings, and the future of psychiatric research into American gun violence.  Harvard review of psychiatry ,  29 (1), 81.

Metzl, J. M., Piemonte, J., & McKay, T. (2021). Mental Illness, Mass Shootings, and the Future of Psychiatric Research into American Gun Violence.  Harvard Review of Psychiatry ,  29 (1), 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1097/hrp.0000000000000280

Santaella-Tenorio, J., Cerdá, M., Villaveces, A., & Galea, S. (2016). What Do We Know About the Association Between Firearm Legislation and Firearm-Related Injuries?  Epidemiologic Reviews ,  38 (1), 140–157. https://doi.org/10.1093/epirev/mxv012

Skeem, J., & Mulvey, E. (2020). What role does serious mental illness play in mass shootings, and how should we address it?.  Criminology & Public Policy ,  19 (1), 85-108.

Swanson, J. W., Easter, M. M., Robertson, A. G., Swartz, M. S., Alanis-Hirsch, K., Moseley, D., … & Petrila, J. (2016). Gun violence, mental illness, and laws that prohibit gun possession: evidence from two Florida counties.  Health Affairs ,  35 (6), 1067-1075.

Werbick, M., Bari, I., Paichadze, N., & Hyder, A. A. (2021). Firearm violence: a neglected “Global Health” issue.  Globalization and health ,  17 (1), 1-5.

Wintemute, G. J. (2015). The epidemiology of firearm violence in the twenty-first century United States.  Annual review of public health ,  36 , 5-19.

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Gun Control, Explained

A quick guide to the debate over gun legislation in the United States.

By The New York Times

As the number of mass shootings in America continues to rise , gun control — a term used to describe a wide range of restrictions and measures aimed at controlling the use of firearms — remains at the center of heated discussions among proponents and opponents of stricter gun laws.

To help understand the debate and its political and social implications, we addressed some key questions on the subject.

Is gun control effective?

Throughout the world, mass shootings have frequently been met with a common response: Officials impose new restrictions on gun ownership. Mass shootings become rarer. Homicides and suicides tend to decrease, too.

After a British gunman killed 16 people in 1987, the country banned semiautomatic weapons like the ones he had used. It did the same with most handguns after a school shooting in 1996. It now has one of the lowest gun-related death rates in the developed world.

In Australia, a 1996 massacre prompted mandatory gun buybacks in which, by some estimates , as many as one million firearms were then melted into slag. The rate of mass shootings plummeted .

Only the United States, whose rate and severity of mass shootings is without parallel outside conflict zones, has so consistently refused to respond to those events with tightened gun laws .

Several theories to explain the number of shootings in the United States — like its unusually violent societal, class and racial divides, or its shortcomings in providing mental health care — have been debunked by research. But one variable remains: the astronomical number of guns in the country.

America’s gun homicide rate was 33 per one million people in 2009, far exceeding the average among developed countries. In Canada and Britain, it was 5 per million and 0.7 per million, respectively, which also corresponds with differences in gun ownership. Americans sometimes see this as an expression of its deeper problems with crime, a notion ingrained, in part, by a series of films portraying urban gang violence in the early 1990s. But the United States is not actually more prone to crime than other developed countries, according to a landmark 1999 study by Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon Hawkins of the University of California, Berkeley. Rather, they found, in data that has since been repeatedly confirmed , that American crime is simply more lethal. A New Yorker is just as likely to be robbed as a Londoner, for instance, but the New Yorker is 54 times more likely to be killed in the process. They concluded that the discrepancy, like so many other anomalies of American violence, came down to guns. More gun ownership corresponds with more gun murders across virtually every axis: among developed countries , among American states , among American towns and cities and when controlling for crime rates. And gun control legislation tends to reduce gun murders, according to a recent analysis of 130 studies from 10 countries. This suggests that the guns themselves cause the violence. — Max Fisher and Josh Keller, Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Mass Shootings? Research Is Clear: Guns.

Every mass shooting is, in some sense, a fringe event, driven by one-off factors like the ideology or personal circumstances of the assailant. The risk is impossible to fully erase.

Still, the record is confirmed by reams of studies that have analyzed the effects of policies like Britain’s and Australia’s: When countries tighten gun control laws, it leads to fewer guns in private citizens’ hands, which leads to less gun violence.

What gun control measures exist at the federal level?

Much of current federal gun control legislation is a baseline, governing who can buy, sell and use certain classes of firearms, with states left free to enact additional restrictions.

Dealers must be licensed, and run background checks to ensure their buyers are not “prohibited persons,” including felons or people with a history of domestic violence — though private sellers at gun shows or online marketplaces are not required to run background checks. Federal law also highly restricts the sale of certain firearms, such as fully automatic rifles.

The most recent federal legislation , a bipartisan effort passed last year after a gunman killed 19 children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, expanded background checks for buyers under 21 and closed what is known as the boyfriend loophole. It also strengthened existing bans on gun trafficking and straw purchasing.

— Aishvarya Kavi

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What are gun buyback programs and do they work?

Gun buyback programs are short-term initiatives that provide incentives, such as money or gift cards, to convince people to surrender firearms to law enforcement, typically with no questions asked. These events are often held by governments or private groups at police stations, houses of worship and community centers. Guns that are collected are either destroyed or stored.

Most programs strive to take guns off the streets, provide a safe place for firearm disposal and stir cultural changes in a community, according to Gun by Gun , a nonprofit dedicated to preventing gun violence.

The first formal gun buyback program was held in Baltimore in 1974 after three police officers were shot and killed, according to the authors of the book “Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States.” The initiative collected more than 13,000 firearms, but failed to reduce gun violence in the city. Hundreds of other buyback programs have since unfolded across the United States.

In 1999, President Bill Clinton announced the nation’s first federal gun buyback program . The $15 million program provided grants of up to $500,000 to police departments to buy and destroy firearms. Two years later, the Senate defeated efforts to extend financing for the program after the Bush administration called for it to end.

Despite the popularity of gun buyback programs among certain anti-violence and anti-gun advocates, there is little data to suggest that they work. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research , a private nonprofit, found that buyback programs adopted in U.S. cities were ineffective in deterring gun crime, firearm-related homicides or firearm-related suicides. . Evidence showed that cities set the sale price of a firearm too low to considerably reduce the supply of weapons; most who participated in such initiatives came from low-crime areas and firearms that were typically collected were either older or not in good working order.

Dr. Brendan Campbell, a pediatric surgeon at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and an author of one chapter in “Why We Are Losing the War on Gun Violence in the United States,” said that buyback programs should collect significantly more firearms than they currently do in order to be more effective.

Dr. Campbell said they should also offer higher prices for handguns and assault rifles. “Those are the ones that are most likely to be used in crime,” and by people attempting suicide, he said. “If you just give $100 for whatever gun, that’s when you’ll end up with all these old, rusted guns that are a low risk of causing harm in the community.”

Mandatory buyback programs have been enacted elsewhere around the world. After a mass shooting in 1996, Australia put in place a nationwide buyback program , collecting somewhere between one in five and one in three privately held guns. The initiative mostly targeted semiautomatic rifles and many shotguns that, under new laws, were no longer permitted. New Zealand banned military-style semiautomatic weapons, assault rifles and some gun parts and began its own large-scale buyback program in 2019, after a terrorist attack on mosques in Christchurch. The authorities said that more than 56,000 prohibited firearms had been collected from about 32,000 people through the initiative.

Where does the U.S. public stand on the issue?

Expanded background checks for guns purchased routinely receive more than 80 or 90 percent support in polling.

Nationally, a majority of Americans have supported stricter gun laws for decades. A Gallup poll conducted in June found that 55 percent of participants were in favor of a ban on the manufacture, possession and sale of semiautomatic guns. A majority of respondents also supported other measures, including raising the legal age at which people can purchase certain firearms, and enacting a 30-day waiting period for gun sales.

But the jumps in demand for gun control that occur after mass shootings also tend to revert to the partisan mean as time passes. Gallup poll data shows that the percentage of participants who supported stricter gun laws receded to 57 percent in October from 66 percent in June, which was just weeks after mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo. A PDK poll conducted after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde found that 72 percent of Republicans supported arming teachers, in contrast with 24 percent of Democrats.

What do opponents of gun control argue?

Opponents of gun control, including most Republican members of Congress, argue that proposals to limit access to firearms infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms enshrined in the Second Amendment to the Constitution. And they contend that mass shootings are not the result of easily accessible guns, but of criminals and mentally ill people bent on waging violence.

— Annie Karni

Why is it so hard to push for legislation?

Polling suggests that Americans broadly support gun control measures, yet legislation is often stymied in Washington, and Republicans rarely seem to pay a political price for their opposition.

The calculation behind Republicans’ steadfast stonewalling of any new gun regulations — even in the face of the kind unthinkable massacres like in Uvalde, Texas — is a fairly simple one for Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Asked what the reaction would be from voters back home if he were to support any significant form of gun control, the first-term Republican had a straightforward answer: “Most would probably throw me out of office,” he said. His response helps explain why Republicans have resisted proposals such as the one for universal background checks for gun buyers, despite remarkably broad support from the public for such plans — support that can reach up to 90 percent nationwide in some cases. Republicans like Mr. Cramer understand that they would receive little political reward for joining the push for laws to limit access to guns, including assault-style weapons. But they know for certain that they would be pounded — and most likely left facing a primary opponent who could cost them their job — for voting for gun safety laws or even voicing support for them. Most Republicans in the Senate represent deeply conservative states where gun ownership is treated as a sacred privilege enshrined in the Constitution, a privilege not to be infringed upon no matter how much blood is spilled in classrooms and school hallways around the country. Though the National Rifle Association has recently been diminished by scandal and financial turmoil , Democrats say that the organization still has a strong hold on Republicans through its financial contributions and support, hardening the party’s resistance to any new gun laws. — Carl Hulse, “ Why Republicans Won’t Budge on Guns .”

Yet while the power of the gun lobby, the outsize influence of rural states in the Senate and single-voter issues offer some explanation, there is another possibility: voters.

When voters in four Democratic-leaning states got the opportunity to enact expanded gun or ammunition background checks into law, the overwhelming support suggested by national surveys was nowhere to be found. For Democrats, the story is both unsettling and familiar. Progressives have long been emboldened by national survey results that show overwhelming support for their policy priorities, only to find they don’t necessarily translate to Washington legislation and to popularity on Election Day or beyond. President Biden’s major policy initiatives are popular , for example, yet voters say he has not accomplished much and his approval ratings have sunk into the low 40s. The apparent progressive political majority in the polls might just be illusory. Public support for new gun restrictions tends to rise in the wake of mass shootings. There is already evidence that public support for stricter gun laws has surged again in the aftermath of the killings in Buffalo and Uvalde, Texas. While the public’s support for new restrictions tends to subside thereafter, these shootings or another could still produce a lasting shift in public opinion. But the poor results for background checks suggest that public opinion may not be the unequivocal ally of gun control that the polling makes it seem. — Nate Cohn, “ Voters Say They Want Gun Control. Their Votes Say Something Different. ”

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Gun Control Thesis Statement

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Published: Mar 19, 2024

Words: 1300 | Pages: 3 | 7 min read

Table of contents

I. introduction, ii. the second amendment and the right to bear arms, iii. gun violence statistics and the need for stricter regulations, iv. gun control policies and their effectiveness, v. mental health and gun violence, vi. gun control advocacy and opposition, vii. conclusion, a. overview of current gun control laws in the united states, b. analysis of the effectiveness of background checks and waiting periods, c. discussion of the impact of assault weapons bans and high-capacity magazine restrictions, a. connection between mental illness and gun violence, b. importance of mental health screenings for gun owners, c. strategies for preventing individuals with mental health issues from obtaining guns, a. overview of gun control advocacy groups, b. analysis of arguments against stricter gun control laws, c. strategies for promoting bipartisan support for gun control legislation, a. recap of key points, b. restate thesis statement, c. call to action for stricter gun control measures to improve public safety.

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Safety in Numbers is a monthly newsletter highlighting the latest research at Everytown

Part One: Gun Violence Prevention

Reducing the risk.

Learn More:

• Child & Teen Gun Safety
• Extreme Risk Laws
• Guns in Schools
• Mass Shootings
• Reconsider Active Shooter Drills
• Secure Gun Storage
• Stop Arming Teachers

Executive Summary

The prevention section of the NEA School Gun Violence Prevention and Response Guide highlights recommended strategies to reduce the risk and prevent the occurrence of gun violence incidents in education settings and communities. It includes taking actions to foster a positive and safe climate and limit access to firearms that could be used in acts of violence. For broader context and related recommendations, consult the other sections of this guide: Introduction , Part Two—Preparation , Part Three—Response , and Part Four—Recovery .

Key Takeaways

• Across all education settings, prevention efforts should be geared toward creating an environment that fosters trust-building, connection, and a sense of belonging for students. These efforts should include the use of trauma-informed and restorative practices.
• Educators can play a pivotal role in breaking the cycle of trauma and fostering a positive school climate, but their efforts must be supported with adequate funding and sufficient staffing.
• Promoting the adoption of gun violence-related bargaining language and administrative policy, including the creation or enhancement of health and safety committees, is another effective way to prevent gun violence.

Trauma-informed and restorative practices play a crucial role in maintaining strong connections between students, their peers, and educators within the school community. Across all education settings, prevention efforts are geared toward creating an environment that fosters trust-building and a sense of belonging for students. 

Combating feelings of isolation and alienation among students relates directly to preventing gun violence because the majority of Pre-K–12 and higher education shooters maintained some level of affiliation with their educational institutions. Individuals who carried out a mass shooting in a Pre-K–12 school often exhibited behaviors of concern in advance, and 75 percent of the time at least one person, often a peer, was aware of the plan. 1 National Threat Assessment Center. (2019). Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence. Retrieved February 14, 2024, from  https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf ; Violence Prevention Project. (n.d.). Key Findings. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from Violence Prevention Project:  https://www.theviolenceproject.org/key-findings/ .

Educators can play a pivotal role in breaking the cycle of trauma and fostering a positive school climate. Recognizing warning signs, having resources to address students’ mental health and emotional needs, and ensuring that racial profiling does not take place in the process are crucial to preventing gun violence in education settings. To achieve these goals, adequate funding and sufficient staffing must be available. Recognizing the warning signs is only a part of the solution; reducing access to guns is also critical.

This section also includes recommendations for the broader community. Anonymous reporting systems have demonstrated effectiveness, providing students and other community members with a trusted avenue to raise concerns related to student wellness and safety. These systems also serve as alerts for mental health professionals regarding interpersonal violence and suicide risks.

Considering that 4.6 million children under the age of 18 live in homes with guns, secure storage interventions play a critical role in overall school safety. 2 Miller, M., & Azrael, D. (2022, February 22). Firearm Storage in US Households with Children: Findings from the 2021 National Firearm Survey. JAMA Network Open, 5(2), e2148823. doi:doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.48823 Additionally, community-based intervention programs offer services to students off school grounds and while traveling to and from school.

The evidence indicates that arming educators does not enhance student safety. In fact, it compromises the safe and trusting environment necessary to thwart gun violence, introducing new liability risks and complicating law enforcement responses in the event of an active shooter incident. 3 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund (2024). Stop Arming Teachers. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/solution/arming-teachers .  In contrast, commonsense gun laws are essential for saving lives. Effective measures include:

• Require background checks on all gun sales, an approach proven to reduce gun violence;
• Pass Extreme Risk/red flag laws to provide a way for family members and law enforcement to petition a court to remove firearms from a person at risk of causing harm without a criminal proceeding;
• Pass secure firearm storage laws to prevent unauthorized access by children by requiring gun owners to lock up their firearms, which has been shown to prevent unintentional shootings and firearm suicides; 
• Raise the age to purchase semi-automatic firearms to 21 to prevent potential younger shooters from easily obtaining such firearms; 
• Prohibit guns on college campuses where legally viable to do so ; and 
• Prohibit assault weapons and high-capacity magazines , which allow shooters to fire more rounds over a short period of time and inflict more gunshot wounds during an attack.    

Promoting the adoption of gun violence-related collective bargaining language and administrative policy, including the creation or enhancement of health and safety committees, is another effective way to combat gun violence. Bargaining language and administrative policy also offer important opportunities to enhance mental health supports and professional development on topics including trauma-informed crisis intervention and restorative practices. 

Prevention Checklists for State and Local Affiliates

These checklists can be downloaded and used to help guide state and local affiliates as they develop their own gun violence prevention and response plans.

According to the American Psychological Association, “A complex and variable constellation of risk and protective factors makes persons more or less likely to use a firearm against themselves or others. For this reason, there is no single profile that can reliably predict who will use a gun in a violent act. Instead, gun violence is associated with a confluence of individual, family, school, peer, community, and sociocultural risk factors that interact over time during childhood and adolescence.” 4 American Psychological Association. (2013). Gun Violence: Prediction, Prevention, and Policy. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from  https://www.apa.org/pubs/reports/gun-violence-prevention .

Given this complexity, taking meaningful actions to keep our students, educators, and surrounding communities safe must begin from an understanding of four key facts about gun violence in education settings.

Four Key Facts About Gun Violence in Education Settings

Shooters often have a connection to the pre-k–12 school or institution of higher education.

In the Everytown for Gun Safety’s Gunfire on School Grounds database, 60 percent of school-age shooters were current or former students of the Pre-K–12 school, including all shooters involved in mass shootings and nearly all in self-harm incidents (96 percent) and unintentional discharges of a gun (91 percent). 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2022). How to Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from  https://everytownresearch.org/report/how-to-stop-shootings-and-gun-violence-in-schools/ . For example, Everytown analyzed the New York City Police Department’s review of active shooter incidents in K–12 schools over the five-decade period from 1966 to 2016, finding that in 3 out of 4 of these incidents, the shooter or shooters were school-age and were current or former students. 2 New York City Police Department. (2016). Active Shooter: Recommendations and Analysis for Risk Mitigation. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from  https://www.nyc.gov/assets/nypd/downloads/pdf/counterterrorism/active-shooter-analysis2016.pdf . Similarly, the Violence Prevention Project found 89 percent of shooters at colleges and universities had a connection to the institution. 3 Violence Prevention Project. (n.d.). Key Findings. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from Violence Prevention Project:  https://www.theviolenceproject.org/key-findings/ . These data suggest the need for comprehensive strategies that combine prevention, mental health support, and crisis response to effectively tackle school gun violence.

Guns Discharged in Pre-K–12 Schools Generally Come from the Home of a Parent or Close Relative

School-age shooters generally do not purchase the weapon or weapons used. In a study of targeted K–12 school violence from 2008 to 2017, the U.S. Secret Service noted that 3 out of 4 shooters acquired their firearm from the home of a parent or close relative. 1 National Threat Assessment Center. (2019). Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence. Retrieved February 14, 2024, from  https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf . This was the case, for example, with the Oxford High School shooting on November 30, 2021, in Michigan. 2 Albeck-Ripka, L., & Kasakove, S. (2021, December 19). What We Know About the Michigan High School Shooting. The New York Times. Retrieved February 14, 2024, from  https://www.nytimes.com/article/oxford-school-shooting-michigan.html .

There Are Nearly Always Warning Signs

Warning signs of school shootings, if appropriately identified, can offer an opportunity for intervention beforehand. However—as discussed in more detail in the sections that follow on trauma-informed intervention practices and restorative disciplinary practices—identifying and intervening based on advanced indicators is essential but must be done without perpetuating adverse racial stereotypes, targeting those that demonstrate behavioral concerns, or compromising the trust and emotional safety of a school environment.

The U.S. Secret Service study of targeted school violence from 2008 to 2017 found that 100 percent of the perpetrators showed behaviors of concern and 77 percent of the time at least one person—most often a peer—knew about their plan. 1 National Threat Assessment Center. (2019). Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence. Retrieved February 14, 2024, from  https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf . In the higher education context, about 44 percent of people who perpetrated mass shootings had communicated their intent in advance. 2 Peterson, J., & et al. (2021). Community of Intent to Do Harm Preceding Mass Public Shootings in the United States, 1966-2019. JAMA Network Open, 4(11). doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.33073.

These data suggest that fostering a trusting and emotionally safe climate where students are willing to ask adults for help and report any statements and behaviors of concern, such as gun threats on social media or weapons carrying, can be effective tools for prevention. Addressing warning signs and taking immediate action while also ensuring that racial profiling is never supported or permitted is essential.

The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting on December 14, 2012, in Connecticut, underscores the importance of intervening when possible to stop violence before it happens. The official investigation revealed that there were several instances of the shooter’s prior behavior that were concerning. For example, when the shooter was in seventh grade, a teacher reported that “his writing assignments obsessed about battles, destruction and war, far more than others his age. The level of violence in the writing was disturbing.” 3 Sedensky, S. J. (2013). Report of the State’s Attorney for the Judicial District of Danbury on the Shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and 36 Yogananda Street, Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from https://schoolshooters.info/sites/default/files/Official_Sandy_Hook_Report.pdf .

Gun Violence in U.S. Schools Disproportionately Affects Students of Color

In the shooting incidents where the Everytown Support Fund was able to identify the racial makeup of the student body, 2 out of 3 incidents occurred in majority-minority schools. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2022). How to Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from  https://everytownresearch.org/report/how-to-stop-shootings-and-gun-violence-in-schools/ . Although Black students represent approximately 15 percent of the total K–12 school population in the United States, 2 National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. (2020, September). State Nonfiscal Survey of Public Elementary and Secondary Education, 1998-99 Through 2018-19; National Elementary and Secondary Enrollment by Race/Ethnicity Project Model,1972 Through 2029, Common Core Data (CCD). Retrieved February 17, 2024, from National Center for Education Statistics: https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d20/tables/dt20_203.60.asp?current=yes . they make up 30 percent of the average population at schools that have been affected by a fatal shooting. 3 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2022). How to Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from  https://everytownresearch.org/report/how-to-stop-shootings-and-gun-violence-in-schools/ . While perpetrators of mass shootings in schools have tended to be White, and mass shootings are often portrayed in media coverage as occurring predominantly in schools with a majority of White students, gunfire on school grounds disproportionately affects students of color. 

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Childhood Trauma, Grief, and Toxic Stress

Gun violence—in a community, a home environment, or an education setting—can be a factor that produces trauma and stress for children and adults. A 2021 analysis of mass shooting data showed that a majority of mass shooters experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age and had an identifiable grievance or crisis event. 5 Shahid, S., & Duzor, M. (2021, June 1). VOA Special Report: History of Mass Shooters. Voice of America News. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from  https://projects.voanews.com/mass-shootings/ . NEA’s website provides additional information on toxic stress and trauma . Therefore, it is important to understand the potential impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and toxic stress when addressing an incident of gun violence. Educators can play a pivotal role in breaking the cycle of trauma through early detection and focused support. To achieve this goal, state legislatures must fully fund and staff schools so that educators have the time and attention to recognize early warning signs and take action to address students’ needs.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), about 64 percent of adults in the United States reported having at least one type of adverse childhood experience (ACE) before the age of 18. The CDC also noted that ACE events are typically the result of violence, abuse, neglect, and environmental factors that expose children to substance use, mental health-related issues, and parental separation. 6 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (n.d.). Fast Facts: Preventing Adverse Childhood Experiences. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention:  https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/aces/fastfact.html .

Trauma occurs when someone feels threatened by serious harm, whether it is physical, mental, or emotional. While not all ACEs lead to childhood trauma, people who suffer from one or more such adversities may experience a negative impact on their overall well-being, education, and career. Researchers have found that trauma can change the brain and the body’s makeup, which can lead to diseases like obesity, heart disease, diabetes, asthma, and mental health disorders. 7 Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. (2014). Chapter 3. Understanding the Impact of Trauma. In Trauma-Informed Care in Behavioral Health Services (Vols. Treatment Improvement Protocol, No. 57). Rockville, MD: Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Retrieved February 22, 2024, from  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/ . Neuropsychologists have found that traumatic experiences can, in fact, alter a child’s brain, activating its “fight, flight, or freeze” responses and reducing the areas where learning, especially in regard to language, occurs. When this shift happens repeatedly, it fundamentally changes the brain, particularly for children under the age of 5, to adapt and survive under the worst conditions. 8 Flannery, Mary Ellen. (2016, May 17). How Trauma Is Changing Children’s Brains. NEA Today. Retrieved February 18, 2024, from NEA Today:  https://www.nea.org/nea-today/all-news-articles/how-trauma-changing-childrens-brains .

The ongoing presence of ACEs may also contribute to toxic stress. The American Academy of Pediatrics defines “toxic stress” as prolonged or significant adversity in the absence of mitigating social-emotional buffers, such as a supportive adult. This kind of persistent activation of the stress response systems can result in a wide array of biological changes that occur at the molecular, cellular, and behavioral levels; disrupt the development of brain architecture; and increase the risk for stress-related disease and cognitive impairment well into adulthood. 9 Garner, A., & Yogman, M. (2021, August). Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress: Partnering with Families and Communities to Promote Relationship Health. Pediatrics, 148(2), e2021052582. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/148/2/e2021052582/179805/Preventing-Childhood-Toxic-Stress-Partnering-With?autologincheck=redirected .

Experiencing adversity, including trauma and toxic stress, can significantly shape an individual’s health and life outcomes. Childhood trauma can also negatively affect the mental health of and educational outcomes for higher education students. 10 Lecy, N., & Osteen, P. (2022). The Effects of Childhood Trauma on College Completion. 63, 1058-1072. doi: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09677-9 ; Assari, S., & Landarani, M. M. (2018). Violence Exposure and Mental Health of College Students in the United States. Behavioral Sciences, 8(6), 53. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/bs8060053 .

Many other factors have been proven to cause toxic stress, including poverty, racism, bullying, community violence, and generational (historical) trauma. 11 Cronholm, P., & et al. (2015, September). Adverse Childhood Experiences Expanding the Concept of Adversity. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 49(3), 354-361. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2015.02.001 ; Garner, A., & Yogman, M. (2021, August). Preventing Childhood Toxic Stress: Partnering with Families and Communities to Promote Relationship Health. Pediatrics, 148(2), e2021052582. https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/148/2/e2021052582/179805/Preventing-Childhood-Toxic-Stress-Partnering-With?autologincheck=redirected . According to researchers at the Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University, ACEs-generated trauma includes community and systemic threats from inside or outside the home environment because the brain recognizes a present threat and goes on high alert. 12 Center on the Developing Child. (2020, October 30). ACEs and Toxic Stress: Frequently Asked Questions. Retrieved from Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University:  https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/aces-and-toxic-stress-frequently-asked-questions/ .

Childhood bereavement can also have a significant impact on children’s health and well-being. “The death of someone close to a child has a profound and lifelong effect on the child and may result in a range of both and short and long-term reactions.” 13 Schonfeld, D. J., & Demaria, T. (2016). Supporting the Griefing Child and Family. Pediatrics. Retrieved June 10, 2024, from  https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2016-2147 . Schools can learn more about the impact of bereavement and becoming grief-sensitive schools to better support student learning and development. Organizations, such as The Coalition to Support Grieving Students , provide resources to assist schools in becoming grief-sensitive. 

Debunking Myths and Misconceptions About Gun Violence

The only way to stop a “bad guy” with a gun is a “good guy” with a gun.

If more guns everywhere made us safer, the United States would be the safest country in the world. Instead, we have a gun homicide rate 26 times that of other high-income countries. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023). Gun Violence in America. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from https://everytownresearch.org/report/gun-violence-in-america/ .

Myth & Fact

I don’t own a gun, so I don’t need to worry about my kids getting ahold of one.

More than 60 percent of unintentional gun deaths among children involve a gun belonging to a family member of the shooter. 1 Wilson, R. F. (2023). Unintentional Firearm Injury Deaths Among Children and Adolescents Aged 0–17 Years — National Violent Death Reporting System, United States, 2003–2021. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), 72(50), 1338-1345. In the United States, 4.6 million children under the age of 18 live in a household with at least one loaded, unsecured gun, 2 Miller, M., & Azrael, D. (2022, February 22). Firearm Storage in US Households with Children: Findings from the 2021 National Firearm Survey. JAMA Network Open, 5(2), e2148823. doi:doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.48823 but research also suggests that school shooters under the age of 18 predominantly obtain their guns from family, relatives, or friends. 3 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2022). How to Stop Shootings and Gun Violence in Schools. Retrieved February 17, 2024, from  https://everytownresearch.org/report/how-to-stop-shootings-and-gun-violence-in-schools/ . As a result, children may be able to get ahold of a gun even if no one in their household owns one.

Arming educators will keep our kids safer.

Research suggests that the presence of a gun may potentially increase the risks posed to children. Many school safety experts and law enforcement groups oppose arming teachers, as does the NEA. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024-d). Stop Arming Teachers. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/solution/arming-teachers . Law enforcement officers receive hundreds of hours of training in areas including firearm proficiency and active shooter response. Training requirements for educators are often a fraction of the training hours required by police officers.

Criminals will always find a way to get their hands on a gun.

Laws like background checks stop gun sales to people legally prohibited from buying guns. This includes people with felony convictions, domestic abuse restraining orders, and others. Since 1994, these laws have blocked more than 4 million gun sales to people who could not legally own guns. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024-h). Background Checks on All Gun Sales. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety:  https://www.everytown.org/solutions/background-checks/ ; Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2021-c). Undeniable: How Long-Standing Loopholes in the Background Check System Have Been Exacerbated by COVID-19. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from  https://everytownresearch.org/report/background-check-loopholes/ .

Prevention Strategies

Education settings at all levels must establish safe, supportive, nurturing environments where students can thrive. Strategies including trauma-informed crisis intervention programs and active engagement with students and their families are essential to gun violence prevention. In addition, community violence intervention programs that integrate mental health and emotional supports help address the systemic and underlying factors that can lead to gun violence.

Foster Safe and Supportive School Climates

When schools are adaptable to the needs of their students, educators, families, and community, they can provide students with care and compassion and create conditions that prevent shootings and other violence. For example, a community school that has high levels of violence inside or outside the school building may fund programs that create safe walking and transportation routes to and from school, often referred to as safe passage; grant alternatives to out-of-school suspensions that offer meaningful educational opportunities for students; provide family counseling; increase access to mentoring, both inside and outside of school; and incorporate restorative justice into disciplinary policies. NEA’s website includes additional information on community schools . 

Students are often the first to notice signs that a peer is in crisis, has brought a weapon to school, or has shared plans to commit a violent act; however, they are sometimes reluctant to share these observations—or their own personal struggles and needs—with adults they do not trust. Students may be reluctant to relay information that might help avert a gun violence incident because of fear of getting in trouble, being labeled a “tattletale,” or not being believed or taken seriously. A pre-established relationship of trust with at least one educator increases students’ willingness to report potential incidents or identify bullying or violence they experience or witness. 14 Volungis, A. M., & Goodman, K. (2017). School Violence Prevention: Teachers Establishing Relationships with Students Using Counseling Strategies. Sage Open, 7(1). doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244017700460 .

Many education support professionals (ESPs) live in the same community as their students and are often trusted confidants; they play a key role in the preventative and intervention actions. ESPs—including, but not limited to, custodial and maintenance, food service, clerical, security, and transportation professionals—are often the first to confront a shooter. Indeed, almost half of NEA ESP members—48 percent—spend a great deal of their time promoting school safety. The job responsibilities of another 28 percent are somewhat related to promoting such work.

To build trust, educators must have cultural competency to counteract unconscious bias and reduce the risk of biased decision-making that can impede a student’s ability to trust them. 

An all-staff activity called Know Me, Know My Name is an example of an effective way to identify students who may need support but go unseen. 15 Illinois Education Association. (n.d.). Retrieved from Know Me, Know My Name:  https://ieanea.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Know-me-know-my-name-plan-1.pdf . Low-cost and relatively simple, the activity helps educators identify children who may need adult intervention via outreach and relationship-building, encompassing the ideals of safe, stable, and nurturing relationships (SSNR). SSNRs help interrupt cycles of violence and reduce the impact of students’ exposure to abuse and neglect. The Harvard School of Education also developed relationship mapping , which is another example of this type of activity. 16 Harvard Graduate School of Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from Relationship Mapping Strategy:  https://mcc.gse.harvard.edu/resources-for-educators/relationship-mapping-strategy .

The Importance of Connections in Higher Education

Compelling evidence indicates that students at institutions of higher education who felt connected to individual staff and/or faculty experienced multiple positive outcomes, including those related to emotional well-being. Students are also less likely to experience substance and alcohol use and have better health outcomes. Connectedness is especially crucial for first-year students; perceived decreases (from high school) in social connectedness can lead to heightened feelings of loneliness and anxiety. These positive connections had little to do with an educator’s teaching style or pedagogy but with their ability to care about their students as people. 1 Morgan, E., & et al. (2014). The School Discipline Consensus Report: Strategies from the Field to Keep Students Engaged in School and Out of the Juvenile Justice System. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from  https://www.ojp.gov/library/publications/school-discipline-consensus-report-strategies-field-keep-students-engaged .

Implement Trauma-Informed and Grief-Sensitive Crisis Intervention and Restorative Disciplinary Practices

Students who commit acts of gun-related violence in schools almost always have shown warning signs that concerned other people around them. 17 National Threat Assessment Center. (2019). p. 58, Protecting America’s Schools: A U.S. Secret Service Analysis of Targeted School Violence. Retrieved February 14, 2024, from  https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf . Therefore, identifying students who may need support to prevent a crisis from becoming violent while ensuring that racial profiling and other biased actions are neither supported nor permitted is key to preventing gun violence in schools.

To respond to signs of distress in a manner that serves students and protects the community, schools can convene a multidisciplinary team that uses trauma-informed and grief-sensitive crisis intervention practices in collaboration with other community partners. A School Improvement Team, Resilience Team, Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) Team, or other such entities that may already exist could potentially serve this function. Whatever its name, such a team would receive information about a student who may be in crisis, evaluate the situation, design interventions to prevent violence, and provide appropriate in-school engagement, support, and resources. Every team that addresses crisis intervention should include ESPs; however, ESP membership must be voluntary. Every school community is different, so team structures and functions must be designed and implemented based on the unique needs of the student body and the broader school community.

Behavioral threat assessments are frequently used to identify students who are at risk of committing violence and get them the help they need. These programs generally consist of multidisciplinary teams that are specifically trained to intervene at the earliest warning signs of potential violence and divert those who would do harm to themselves or others to appropriate treatment. NEA opposes “behavioral threat assessment programs and approaches that disproportionately target Native students and students of color.” 18 NEA. (2023). Legislative Program. Reference I.E.41. Retrieved from  https://www.nea.org/about-nea/governance-policies/nea-legislative-program . The Association urges all school community members to be prepared to ensure that if they use behavioral threat assessments, they achieve their desired outcomes without adverse racial impact. If such assessments are in use, they must be properly resourced, including with release time for the counselors, nurses, or other educators who serve on a team conducting behavioral threat assessments.

NEA does not believe that the criminalization and over-policing of students is the right approach to addressing gun violence in education settings. Research shows that exclusionary discipline programs, including zero-tolerance policies, disproportionately impact students of color and contribute to the school-to-prison pipeline, including through their subjective application toward students of color. 19 Ford, S. (2021). Learning While Black: How “Zero Tolerance” Policies Disproportionately Affect Black Students. University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy, 32(1), 49-70. Retrieved February 22, 2024. Zero-tolerance policies and harsh disciplinary practices result in negative academic outcomes for students given that school suspensions are a stronger predictor of dropping out of school than grade-point average and socioeconomic status. 20 Suh, S., & Suh, J. (2007). Risk Factors and Levels of Risk for High School Dropouts. Professional School Counseling, 10(3). doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/2156759X0701000312 . Furthermore, a longitudinal study done with children ages 9 and 10 found that “enforcing these kinds of disciplinary actions can impair typical childhood development, leading to academic failure, student dropout, and emotional and psychological distress, disproportionately affecting Black children, multiracial Black children, and children from single-parent homes. 21 Fadus, M., & et al. (2021, August). Racial Disparities in Elementary School Disciplinary Actions: Findings from the ABCD Study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychology, 60(8), 998-1009. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaac.2020.11.017 .  

By contrast, NEA emphasizes the use of behavioral practices centered in restorative justice and the elimination of inequitable policies, practices, and systems that disproportionately harm Native People and People of Color—including those who are LGBTQ+, have disabilities, and/or are multilingual learners—and deprive many students of future opportunities. Trauma-informed prevention strategies should include restorative-based practices.

Investing in Restorative Practices

Restorative practices are based on values that holistically prevent and repair harm, build community and relationships, and result in a positive, supportive school climate. Schools that increased the use of restorative practices saw a decrease in schoolwide misbehavior, substance use, and student mental health challenges as well as improved school climate and student achievement. A key recommendation from the Learning Policy Institute is to invest in ongoing education and support for all educators to develop knowledge of and expand access to restorative practices among all students. 1 Darling-Hammond, S. (2023, May 24). Fostering belonging, transforming schools: The impact of restorative practices. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from Learning Policy Institute:  https://learningpolicyinstitute.org/product/impact-restorative-practices-brief .

Engage School Communities in Gun Violence Prevention Efforts

School safety requires all stakeholders—students, families, educators, educators’ unions, mental health professionals, law enforcement professionals, organizations promoting racial and social justice, and community members—to collaborate and work together. 

Here are examples of how to engage students and families in gun violence prevention:

• Create a safety reporting program. These programs should ensure all students, families, educators, and community members are aware of the reporting system so that they have a trusted avenue to raise concerns when issues of student wellness or safety arise. In a four-year study of the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System (SS-ARS) in a school district in the southeastern United States, more than half of firearm-related tips were deemed “life safety” events, requiring an immediate response from the school team and emergency services. The SS-ARS also identified tips related to interpersonal violence and suicide concerns, which both have implications for firearm violence. Research suggests that adolescent firearm injuries often stem from interpersonal violence, and firearm use significantly escalates the risk for self-inflicted injury and suicide completion. It is imperative that awareness of such reporting systems is amplified to increase use by the community, particularly students; however, it likely requires additional investment in supports and services for adolescents to help mitigate the burden on those who respond to these tips. 22 Thulin, E. J., & et al. (2024). Firearm-Related Tips in a Statewide School Anonymous Reporting System. Pediatrics, 153(2), e2023063861. doi: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2023-063861 . State initiatives—like Utah’s SafeUT crisis chat and tip line , which is used in almost all K–12 schools and some institutions of higher education in the state, by the Utah National Guard, and with first responders and their families—can also serve this function. 23 SafeUT. (n.d.). Retrieved from SafeUT:  https://safeut.org/ . In higher education contexts, there are greater restrictions on how schools can communicate with parents and families than in elementary, middle, and high schools.
• Help families start conversations with their school community. When families communicate openly, honestly, and directly with school officials, educators, and administrators, they can help prevent gun violence. Stand with Parkland developed the resource “ 5 Questions Every Family Should Ask as the School Year Begins ” to assist families in ensuring their children’s safety and better understand how prepared a school is to address safety issues. 24 Stand with Parkland. (n.d.). Retrieved from 5 Questions Every Family Should Ask as the School Year Begins:  https://standwithparkland.org/5-questions/ .  
• Use strategies that encourage effective communication on difficult topics. The NEA Health and Safety Program partnered with the Right Question Institute and the Brown School of Public Health to provide a training module to help support families, educators, and students effectively communicate around health and safety issues. The Association also produced a training module— Pathways for Effective School-Family Partnerships: A Strategy for Productive School Health and Safety Dialogue . This training is based on the Right Question Institute’s Question Formulation Technique (QFT), a structured method for generating and improving questions that can be used by individuals or groups. 

Promote Secure Storage Practices to Keep School Communities Safe

Evidence strongly suggests that secure firearm storage—storing guns unloaded, locked, and separated from the ammunition—is essential to any effective strategy to keep students, educators, schools, and communities safe. 25 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023, May 26). Preventable Tragedies: Unintentional Shootings by Children. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/report/notanaccident/ . One study showed that the majority of children are aware of where their parents store their guns. More than one-third of those children reported handling their parents’ guns, many doing so without the knowledge of their parents. 26 Baxley, F., & Miller, M. (2006). Parental Misperceptions About Children and Firearms. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 160(5), 542-547. doi:doi:10.1001/archpedi.160.5.542.

Secure storage not only decreases the likelihood of gun violence on school grounds, but it also reduces firearm suicide rates. A recent study of two decades of suicide prevention laws showed that the rate of gun suicide among young people ages 10 to 24 years old was lower in 2022 than in 1999 in states with the most protective secure gun storage laws, which hold gun owners accountable for failing to store their firearms securely. In states with no secure storage laws or only reckless access storage laws, the gun suicide rate among young people ages 10 to 24 years old increased by 36 percent from 1999 to 2022. 27 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023-h). Two Decades of Suicide Prevention Laws: Lessons from National Leaders in Gun Safety Policy. Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. Retrieved from  https://everytownresearch.org/two-decades-of-suicide-prevention-laws-lessons-from-national-leaders-in-gun-safety-policy/ .

In states where colleges and universities are required to allow firearms on campus, schools should encourage students to securely store their firearms.

The Value of Trauma-Informed Practices

Researchers have defined trauma-informed practices (TIP) as a set of approaches that address the impact of trauma by creating a safe and caring environment. TIP includes restorative practices and a focus on creating a safe school culture, building relationships, and supporting students’ self-efficacy. When effectively implemented, these practices can reduce instances of bullying and aggression, improve achievement, increase self-esteem for students, improve connections between students and educators as well as among students, and strengthen social and emotional skills. By doing so, schools can create school climates where gun violence is less likely. 1 Lodi, E., & et al. (2021, December 23). Use of Restorative Justice and Restorative Practices at School: A Systematic Literature Review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19(1), 96. doi: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010096 .

The entire school community must receive training to successfully implement a restorative practices discipline model. Ineffective training and partial implementation can contribute to frustration and skepticism about such initiatives.

NEA’s guidance on trauma-informed practices provides a list of common actions that educators can take to implement across education settings, which include the following:

• Support students from the bus stop to the classroom (and beyond!);
• Be aware of what may upset a student;
• Show compassion, not judgment;
• Give students a safe space to share and express their feelings;
• Help students develop a growth mindset;
• Use restorative practices that minimize punitive discipline outcomes;
• Build relationships;
• Meet students where they are;
• Don’t ignore possible “warning signs”;
• Take care of yourself; and
• Encourage all educators to be trained on trauma-informed practices.

Educators can encourage a culture of secure gun storage by increasing awareness of secure storage practices . One example of an effective awareness campaign is the Everytown Support Fund’s Be SMART program, which focuses on fostering conversations with other adults about secure gun storage. Although educators may be familiar with the SMART acronym for goal-setting purposes, in this context, the acronym stands for:

• S ecure guns in homes and vehicles,
• M odel responsible behavior,
• A sk about unsecured guns in homes,
• R ecognize the role of guns in suicide, and
• T ell your peers to be SMART .

The program’s purpose is to facilitate behavior change for adults and help parents and adults prevent child gun deaths and injuries. 28 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023, May 26). Preventable Tragedies: Unintentional Shootings by Children. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/report/notanaccident/ .  

Schools can partner with Be SMART and pass resolutions requiring that all student households receive Be SMART information, which is already happening in Los Angeles, San Diego, and Denver, among other locations. 29 Sawchuk, S. (2021, December 8). More Schools Are Reminding Parents to Secure Their Guns. Education Week. Retrieved from  https://www.edweek.org/leadership/more-schools-are-reminding-parents-to-secure-their-guns/2021/12 . School districts across the country have taken this vital action, impacting more than 10 million students, 30 Everytown for Gun Safety. (2023, August 25). Press Release: As Kids Head Back to School Nationwide, What to Know about Keeping Communities Safe From Gun Violence This Upcoming School Year. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety:  https://www.everytown.org/press/as-kids-head-back-to-school-nationwide-what-to-know-about-keeping-communities-safe-from-gun-violence-this-upcoming-school-year/ . and some institutions of higher education have partnered with the program. Be SMART’s Secure Storage Toolkit provides all the information and resources you need to encourage your school to pass a secure storage resolution. 

Governors, federal and state departments of health and education, legislatures, nonprofit organizations, and local officials can also work together to develop and fund programs that increase awareness of the need to store firearms securely. 31 For example, see the City Gun Violence Reduction Insight Portal (CityGRIP), available at https://citygrip.org/ .   

Increase Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Support

Firearms are the leading cause of death among youth in the United States, and firearm suicides account for more than 4 out of 10 of these deaths. The rate of firearm suicide among young people ages 10 to 24 years old increased by 30 percent from 1999 to 2022. 32 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023-h). Two Decades of Suicide Prevention Laws: Lessons from National Leaders in Gun Safety Policy. Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. Retrieved from https://everytownresearch.org/two-decades-of-suicide-prevention-laws-lessons-from-national-leaders-in-gun-safety-policy/ Experts are sounding the alarm about young people’s mental health. A recent survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that, overall, 42 percent of teens experienced a persistent feeling of sadness or hopelessness, while 57 percent of female and 29 percent of male respondents felt that way. The same survey found that, overall, 22 percent of teens seriously considered attempting suicide, while 30 percent of female respondents and 14 percent of male respondents did. 33 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). p. 63, Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Data Summary and Trends Report, 2011-2021. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from  https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf . For many reasons—including the prevalence of guns in our society—the elevated risk for youth gun suicide crisis continues to rise. Furthermore, a large proportion of perpetrators of mass shootings expressed suicidal intentions, suggesting suicide prevention through crisis intervention could be a meaningful mitigating factor for mass shooting incidents. 34 Violence Prevention Project. (2021, November 17). Suicidality of Perpetrators. Retrieved from Violence Prevention Project; Remnick, D. (2022, May 31). What Makes a Mass Shooter? The New Yorker. Retrieved from  https://www.newyorker.com/podcast/politics-and-more/what-makes-a-mass-shooter .

School-employed health professionals, who navigate the education system and the challenges of emotional and social development, serve as a critical resource for students. These professionals may be among the first to know when students are experiencing difficulties or when they are at risk of turning to violence. Unfortunately, the current national shortage of specialized school-based counselors, psychologists, sociologists, and nurses means that meeting the needs of students can be a challenge, and this challenge is often exacerbated in under-resourced communities. NEA determined in the report “ Elevating the Education Professions: Solving Educator Shortages by Making Public Education an Attractive and Competitive Career Path ” that solving educator shortages requires evidence-based, long-term strategies to address both recruitment and retention. The report noted that mental health positions were among the most understaffed in schools. 35 NEA. (2022, 10). Elevating the Education Professions: Solving Educator Shortages by Making Public Education an Attractive and Competitive Career Path. Retrieved 02 23, 2024, from  https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/29302-solving-educator-shortage-report-final-oct-11-2022.pdf .

School-based health services, including behavioral health, provide crucial support to students. School-based Medicaid services, for example, play an essential role in the health of children and adolescents, including those related to behavioral health. With more than 41 million kids covered by Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the school setting offers a unique opportunity to meet children where they are. 36 U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2023, May 18). Biden-Harris Administration Takes Action to Help Schools Deliver Critical Health Care Services to Millions of Students. Retrieved February 19, 2024, from U.S. Department of Health and Human Services:  https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/18/biden-harris-administration-takes-action-help-schools-deliver-critical-health-care-services-millions-students.html#:~:text=Medicaid%20and%20CHIP%20cover%20more%20than%20half%20of,weekly%20in%20school%20during%20mo . Schools, early childhood settings, and local education agencies help support children and their families, providing children and youth with access to important healthcare services on-site. For information on how to utilize the historic investment into school-based services by the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, see NEA’s Your Guide to the BSCA . NEA’s website also includes guidance on bargaining and advocacy tactics to support educators’ mental health .

School-based health centers (SBHCs) can also help make quality primary care more accessible for children and adolescents. 37 Kjolhede, C., & et al. (2021, October 1). School-Based Health Centers and Pediatric Practice. Pediatrics, 148(4), e2021053758. doi: https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.2021-053758 . “School-based health care advances health equity for children and adolescents who experience barriers to accessing care because of systemic inequities, their family income, or where they live,” according to the School-Based Health Alliance. “School-based health centers, the most comprehensive type of school-based health care, do this by providing primary, behavioral, oral, and vision care where youth spend most of their time—at school.” 38 School-Based Health Alliance. (2024). What Is School-Based Health Care? Retrieved from  https://www.sbh4all.org/what-we-do/ . These organizations can collaborate with schools to support student well-being by contributing clinical expertise to supplement existing services at the school. 39 National Council for Mental Wellbeing. (2023). Partnering with Schools to Improve Youth Mental Health: A Resource for Community Mental Health and Substance Use Care Organizations. Retrieved from  https://sbh4all.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/ParterningwithSchoolstoImproveYouthMentalHealth_2023-final.pdf .

The trauma that comes from the threat of gun violence is deeply affecting the mental health and well-being of not only students but also educators. The needs of educators are too often overlooked when resources are being offered in schools to address trauma from gun violence. There must be an increase in support and mental health resources for educators to sustain the workforce as they continue to face the threat of gun violence in schools. 

Through NEA Member Benefits, NEA members receive access to the NEA Mental Health Program , powered by AbleTo, which provides 24/7 access to “evidence-backed tools for stress, anxiety, depression, or whatever you’re going through.”

The federal government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) Disaster Distress Helpline offers free, 24/7 crisis counseling for people experiencing emotional distress related to any natural or human-caused disaster, including shootings. Dial or text 1-800-985-5990 to connect with counselors in more than 100 languages via third-party interpretation services. 

Programs that help educators recognize the warning signs of mental health issues include Emotional CPR and Mental Health First Aid .

Help is also available for individuals who are struggling or in crisis by calling or texting 988 or chatting at 988lifeline.org . State initiatives, like SafeUT described earlier in this section, on anonymous reporting for school safety can also provide mental health support for Pre-K–12 and higher education students. 

Integrate Community Violence Intervention Programs Into Schools

Community violence occurring in and around schools significantly affects students and educators. An assessment of the CDC Youth Risk Behavior Survey 40 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2021). Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Data Summary and Trends Report, 2011-2021. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from  https://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/data/yrbs/pdf/YRBS_Data-Summary-Trends_Report2023_508.pdf . showed that witnessing community violence was linked to elevated odds of gun carrying, substance use, and suicide risk among Black, Hispanic, and White students, regardless of gender. 41 Harper, C., & et al. (2023, April 28). Witnessing Community Violence, Gun Carrying, and Associations with Substance Use and Suicide Risk Among High School Students — Youth Risk Behavior Survey, United States, 2021. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) Supplements, 72(1), 22-28. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.su7201a3 .  

In neighborhoods that experience community violence, schools can support Community Violence Intervention (CVI) strategies to mitigate its impact on youth. 42 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024). Community-Led Public Safety Strategies. Retrieved 3 12, 2024, from  https://everytownresearch.org/report/community-led-public-safety-strategies/ . Examples of these programs include the following:

• Safe passage programs provide safe routes to and from schools to reduce student exposure to gun violence. To achieve this goal, educators, law enforcement groups, and communities collaboratively implement protocols and procedures to ensure student safety. 43 Everytown For Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024, May 24). The Impact of Gun Violence on Children and Teens. Retrieved May 24, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/report/the-impact-of-gun-violence-on-children-and-teens/ . A longitudinal study analyzing data from 2005–2016 found that following the program’s implementation, incidents of crime along these routes dropped an average of 28 percent for simple assault and battery; there was a 32 percent reduction in aggravated assault and battery. Furthermore, overall weekday criminal incidents on school grounds decreased by an average of 39 percent per year where safe passage programs were implemented. 44 Sanfelice, V. (2019, August). Are safe routes effective? Assessing the effects of Chicago’s Safe Passage program on local crimes. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 164, 357-373. Retrieved from  https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0167268119302033?via%3Dihub .
• School-based violence prevention programs provide students and educators with information about violence, change how youth think and feel about violence, and enhance interpersonal and emotional skills. Chicago’s Becoming a Man (BAM) program —one example of a school-based violence prevention program—has reduced juvenile justice system readmission by 80 percent. 45 Heller et al., S. B. (2016, August). Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some Field Experiments to Reduce Crime and Dropout in Chicago. Retrieved from National Bureau of Economic Research:  https://www.nber.org/papers/w21178 .
• Youth engagement and employment programs support students outside of schools. 46 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023, May 12). Summer Youth Employment Programs for Violence Prevention: A Guide to Implementation and Costing. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety and Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/report/summer-youth-employment-programs/ . These programs often center on healing or personal development. For example, The TraRon Center helps youth gun violence survivors in Washington, D.C., heal through after-school art therapy. Programs focusing on youth employment also show success. For example, a researcher found that participation in Boston’s Summer Youth Engagement Program led to a decrease in participants’ violent crime arraignments by 35 percent in the 17 months after program completion. 47 Modestino, A. S. (2019, Summer). How Do Summer Youth Employment Programs Improve Criminal Justice Outcomes, and for Whom? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 38(3), 600-628. doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22138 .  
• Crime prevention through environmental design involves deliberate efforts to change the built environment of neighborhoods, buildings, and grounds to reduce crime and increase community safety. 48 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2021). Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. Retrieved from  https://everytownsupportfund.org/report/crime-prevention-through-environmental-design/ ; CityGRIP. (n.d.). Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. Retrieved January 9, 2024, from CityGRIP: Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design. https://citygrip.org/  . Programs encompass a wide variety of approaches and efforts to rehabilitate areas and discourage violence through visible signs that a community is cared for and watched over. Because gun violence is so costly and these simple fixes are not, communities save hundreds of dollars for every dollar that is invested. 49 Branas, Charles C., et al.. (2016, December). Urban Blight Remediation as a Cost-Beneficial Solution to Firearm Violence. American Journal of Public Health, 106(12), 2158-2164. doi: https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2016.303434 .  

Together, these programs offer services to students going to and from school and students on and off school and building grounds.

Do Not Arm Teachers or Other Educators

Arming teachers and other educators does not make schools safer; to the contrary, it escalates the risk of shootings and introduces new liability risks. 50 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024-d). Stop Arming Teachers. Retrieved March 14, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/solution/arming-teachers . As noted earlier in this guide, many educators, parents, and school safety experts, including several law enforcement groups, are opposed to arming teachers. 

Research strongly indicates that children will access guns when guns are present, including on school grounds. There have been numerous incidents of misplaced guns in schools that were left in bathrooms, 51 Metrick, B. (2016, September 13). Ex-teacher charged for leaving gun in school bathroom, police say. USA Today. Retrieved from  https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2016/09/13/ex-teacher-charged-leaving-gun-school-bathroom-police-say/90314614/ in locker rooms, 52 Associated Press. (2018, April 3). No charges after Isabella Co. sheriff accidentally leaves gun at school. Detroit Free Press . Retrieved from https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/2018/04/03/isabella-county-sheriff-gun-school/481486002/ and at sporting events. 53 Laine, C. (2019, January 24). Woman finds gun in bleachers at basketball tournament. WNEM . https://web.archive.org/web/20190710221102/https://www.wnem.com/news/woman-finds-gun-in-bleachers-at-basketball-tournament/article_193ee078-1ff4-11e9-841f-8f08f82a75ca.html .

For more on school resource officers and policing in school, see this guide’s section on school policing. Everytown’s Students Demand Action website includes additional information on strategies to oppose arming teachers .

Advocacy-Based Prevention Strategies

Advocate for measures that limit access to guns.

Gun safety policies save lives. The Everytown Support Fund’s Gun Law Rankings , which compare the gun violence prevention policies of all 50 states, show a strong correlation between a state’s gun laws and its rate of gun deaths. States with strong gun safety regulations, such as the policies outlined below, have lower rates of gun violence. States with weaker gun laws, such as no-permit carry and Shoot First laws (also known as Stand Your Ground laws), have higher rates of gun violence. 54 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024, January 4). Gun Safety Policies Save Lives. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund:  https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/ . The following gun violence prevention policies save lives and reduce the toll of gun violence on communities:

Requiring background checks on all gun sales

Background checks are proven to reduce gun violence. Twenty-two states and the District of Columbia already require a background check on all handgun sales. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024, January 4). Which states require background checks and/or permits to purchase handguns? Retrieved January 9, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/background-check-and-or-purchase-permit/ . An Everytown Support Fund investigation showed that as many as 1-in-9 people looking to buy a firearm on this country’s largest online gun marketplace cannot legally purchase firearms—including those under the age of 18. 2 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2021, February 1). Unchecked: An Investigation of the Online Firearm Marketplace. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/report/unchecked-an-investigation-of-the-online-firearm-marketplace/ . As part of a comprehensive plan to prevent gun violence in education settings, states and the federal government must pass laws that require background checks on all gun sales so that adolescents and people prohibited from possessing firearms cannot easily purchase them from unlicensed sellers.

Enacting Extreme Risk/Red Flag Laws

Prior to the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14, 2018, nearly 30 people knew about the shooter’s previous violent behavior, and law enforcement groups had been called to incidents involving the shooter on dozens of occasions. 1 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission. (2019). p. 264, Initial Report Submitted to the Governor, Speaker of the House of Representatives and Senate President. Retrieved from https://www.fdle.state.fl.us/MSDHS/CommissionReport.pdf . This is just one of many examples where a school shooter displayed warning signs of potential violence. States must enact Extreme Risk laws to create a legal process by which law enforcement, family members, and possibly educators can petition a court to temporarily prevent an individual from accessing firearms when there is evidence that they are at serious risk of harming themselves or others. These Extreme Risk protection orders, sometimes also called red flag orders or gun violence restraining orders, provide a way for concerned bystanders to intervene without a criminal proceeding against a potentially dangerous individual. Extreme Risk protection orders include robust due process protections. The court issues final orders after a hearing.

Enacting Secure Firearm Storage

Studies show that secure firearm storage laws save lives, particularly by preventing unintentional shootings and firearm suicides. For example, one study found that households that locked both firearms and ammunition had a 78 percent lower risk of self-inflicted firearm injuries and an 85 percent lower risk of unintentional firearm injuries among children and teenagers, compared to those households that left firearms and/or ammunition unlocked. 1 Grossman, D., & et al. (2005). Gun Storage Practices and Risk of Youth Suicide and Unintentional Firearm Injuries. JAMA, 293(6), 707-714. doi: https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.293.6.707 . To protect kids in and out of schools, states must enact and enforce secure firearm storage laws. More than half of states and the District of Columbia currently have some form of secure storage law. 2 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024, January 4). Which states have child-access and/or secure storage laws? Retrieved January 9, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/secure-storage-or-child-access-prevention-required/ . In addition, several cities, including New York City and San Francisco, have passed secure storage laws. 

Raising the Age to Purchase Semi-Automatic Firearms

Under federal law, a person must be 21 years old to purchase a handgun from a licensed gun dealer. 1 18 U.S.C.§ 922(b)(1). However, a person only needs to be 18 years old to purchase that same handgun through an unlicensed sale (such as unlicensed sellers offering guns for sale online or at gun shows) or purchase a rifle or shotgun from a licensed dealer. 2 18 U.S.C.§ 922(b)(1); 18 U.S.C. § 922(x)(2). Research shows that 18- to 20-year-olds commit gun homicides at triple the rate of adults 21 and over. 3 Everytown Research analysis using FBI Supplementary Homicide Report (SHR) and U.S. Census American Community Survey data 2016–2020. Despite evidence that most perpetrators of school shootings are school-age and have a connection to the school, many states have failed to step in to close these gaps that easily allow firearm access for 18- to 20-year olds. 4 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024, January 4). Has the state raised the minimum age for purchasing firearms? Retrieved January 9, 2024, from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/minimum-age-to-purchase/ ; Only six states and DC require a person to be 21 to possess a handgun: DC, DE (beginning in July 2025), IL, MA, MD, NJ, and NY. Only IL and DC require a person to be 21 to possess a rifle or shotgun, and eight states require a person to be 21 to purchase a rifle or shotgun: CA, CO, DE, DC, FL, HI, IL, VT, and WA. At a minimum, states and the federal government must raise the minimum age to 21 years old to purchase or possess handguns and semi-automatic rifles and shotguns to prevent younger shooters from easily obtaining firearms.

Keeping Guns Off College Campuses

The vast majority of colleges and universities prohibit guns from being carried on campus , either by state law or school policy. Institutions of higher education have unique risk factors, such as high rates of student mental health challenges and increased use of alcohol and drugs, which make the presence of guns potentially deadly. By contrast, some states require colleges and universities to permit guns to be carried on campus under some circumstances. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2024, January 4). Which states don’t force colleges and universities to allow concealed guns on campus? Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/rankings/law/no-guns-mandate-on-college-campuses/ .  

Supporting the enactment by federal, state, local, territorial, and tribal governments of statutes, rules, and regulations that would prohibit people other than law enforcement agents from possessing firearms on the property of institutions of higher education, the American Bar Association (ABA) noted evidence suggesting that “permissive concealed gun carrying generally will increase crime and place students at risk.” Despite state laws allowing firearms in institutions of higher education, those institutions may still have independent authority to prohibit guns. 2 American Bar Association. (2023). Report on Resolution 603. Retrieved February 19, 2024, from  https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/directories/policy/midyear-2023/603-midyear-2023.pdf ; The American Bar Association (ABA)—citing recent authority holding that new bans on guns on campus should be permitted—highlighted that “a unanimous Montana Supreme Court ruled that state legislators infringed on authority granted to higher education officials by the state constitution by passing a law that permitted open and concealed firearm carrying on university and college campuses. The court declared that ‘maintaining a safe and secure education environment’ fell within the Board of Regents’ purview (and implicitly, that the Board could determine it was necessary to maintain that environment by prohibiting firearms on campus), and recognized that ‘Montana is not immune from the catastrophic loss that follows the use of firearms on school campuses.’” The ABA also called for “states that do not make it unlawful for any person, other than law enforcement, to possess firearms on property owned, operated, or controlled by any public institute of higher education, authorize such institutions of higher education to restrict or regulate the concealed or open carry of firearms on their campuses.”

Prohibiting Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazines

Assault weapons are generally high-powered semi-automatic rifles specifically designed to allow shooters to wound and kill many people quickly. When combined with high-capacity magazines —commonly defined as magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition—a shooter is able to fire more rounds over a short period without pausing to reload. The more rounds a shooter can fire consecutively, the more gunshot wounds they can inflict during an attack. From 2015 to 2022, incidents where individuals used an assault weapon to kill four or more people resulted in 23 times as many people wounded on average compared to those who did not use an assault weapon. 1 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023, May 24). Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazines. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/report/assault-weapons-and-high-capacity-magazines/ . Numerous mass shooters in schools, including those responsible for two of the deadliest shootings since 2016, have used assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. 2 Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund. (2023, May 24). Assault Weapons and High-Capacity Magazines. Retrieved from Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund: https://everytownresearch.org/report/assault-weapons-and-high-capacity-magazines/ . NEA and Everytown recommend that states prohibit the possession and sale of assault weapons and magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

For more on strategies to advocate for measures that limit access to guns, see NEA’s Legislative Program and Everytown’s Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action .

Promote Strong Bargaining Language and Administrative Policies

NEA provides guidance on how to secure language regarding aspects of working conditions surrounding gun violence in administrative policies, employee handbooks, and collective bargaining agreements. This bargaining support includes language on:

• Prohibition against arming educators;
• Violence/abuse and threats against educators;
• Support after an assault;
• Broad health and safety provisions for overall safe work environments; and
• Joint health and safety committees.

Promoting Strong Union-Backed Language on School Safety

The San Diego Education Association bargained language on school safety plans that ensures the association is involved in the process of keeping schools safe. The language includes “rules and procedures to be followed by site personnel for their protection, including a method of emergency communication and rules and regulations governing the entering and leaving of school sites.” The language requires that school safety plans explicitly address weapons. 1 Board of Education of the San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Education Association. (2022). Collective Bargaining Agreement between the Board of Education, San Diego Unified School District and the San Diego Education Association. Section 11.6.2. Retrieved from  https://www.sandiegounified.org/common/pages/DownloadFileByUrl.aspx?key=mIE9NGWW%2b2qmICXsIXIbpHKGrnZf0UAyqh1mqCx7ErAKKj9%2bqmreFSNN4sI84nlgB%2bjcNeICiXuRO6MqgCQkFbLzvlekl8W3c4Po2uQJ7yfkaO7J2tI3DJsoBK%2bz9sx7dCRo9RB8KOEMuabW%2bND0mptkTnI4CKbKnq5Djz9WLHC3S .

In another example, Racine Educators United (REU), in Wisconsin, has aggressively organized around safety concerns in the district, leading, in part, to the creation of the School Safety Committee, an advisory group including five representatives selected by REU and five chosen by the Racine Unified School District (RUSD). Together, REU and RUSD will select parent, student, and community representatives to serve on the committee. The district superintendent also appoints a building services representative. The committee was a settlement of REU grievances and an REU lawsuit against the district.

According to the agreement between REU and RUSD , the School Safety Committee’s review of district policies and procedures will be informed by trauma-sensitive and restorative justice practices and will cover topics including weapons policies, responding to weapons, and gun violence and active shooter response. 2 Racine Unified School District and Racine Educators United. (2024). Settlement Agreement. Retrieved from  https://weac.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/FINAL-CLEAN-Workplace-Safety-Grievances-Settlement-Agreement_.pdf .

Build Strong Partnerships

Addressing gun violence in education settings requires strong, meaningful relationships with partners to deepen association understanding, build relationships, strengthen the processes and policies of Pre-K–12 schools and institutions of higher education, and ensure that approaches developed to keep students, educators, and communities safe are culturally and racially appropriate.

From state to state and within states, potential partners may vary. An important place to start is with other unions representing workers in the Pre-K–12 schools and institutions of higher education where association members work, gun violence-focused organizations, racial and social justice organizations, after-school programs, mental and physical health providers and organizations, associations representing principals or other administrators, and local colleges and universities with programs that identify or address violence in communities or, more specifically, in education settings. 

The following list includes several national-level organizations—with links to their websites—that may have state or local counterparts. Identifying local groups working on similar topics may also serve the same purpose.

Click to expand this list of national-level organizations

• AAPI Victory Alliance
• AASA—The School Superintendents Association
• Alliance to Reclaim our Schools
• American Academy of Pediatrics
• American Psychological Association
• American School Counselor Association
• Color of Change
• Community Justice Action Fund
• Hope and Heal Fund
• League of United Latin American Citizens
• March for Our Lives
• National Association of Elementary School Principals
• National Association of School Nurses
• National Association of School Psychologists
• National Association of Secondary School Principals
• National Association of Social Workers
• National PTA
• National School Boards Association
• Parents Together
• Sandy Hook Promise
• The Trevor Project

Engage State Occupational Safety and Health Agencies

State and local associations in any of the 29 states that have created state occupational safety and health agencies can look to the state agency for advocacy and organizing opportunities related to gun violence in Pre-K-12 public schools and public institutions of higher education. 55 The federal government’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) serves to ensure safe and healthy working conditions for the private sector. Federal OSHA does not have jurisdiction over state and local public sector workers. Where established, state agencies are required by federal law to be at least as effective as OSHA in protecting workers and in preventing work-related injuries, illnesses, and deaths.  

In states with a safety and health agency covering public employees but without a workplace violence standard, the association or an individual member can file a complaint if workplace conditions are unsafe. Workplace violence standards allow for the association and members to be involved in the development and review of worksite violence plans. The state of New York has established a workplace violence prevention standard applicable to public schools, 56 New York State. (2024). Retrieved from Workplace Violence Prevention Information:  https://dol.ny.gov/workplace-safety . and California is developing one. 

Promote Professional Development, Capacity-Building, and Staffing

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and U.S. Department of Education have awarded $1.5 billion in short-term grants for school safety, improved access to mental health services, and support for young people to address trauma and grief from gun violence. The U.S. Department of Justice has awarded an additional $60 million in short-term grants. The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) commits to expanding the pipeline by designating $500 million for training to increase the pool of skilled professionals providing mental health services in schools. 

In early 2024, Vice President Harris announced an additional $285 million in funding for schools to hire and train mental health counselors. 57 Psychiatrist.com. (2024, January 15). “Vice President Harris Announces New Funding for Mental Health Professionals in Schools. Psychiatrist.com. Retrieved from  https://www.psychiatrist.com/news/vice-president-harris-announces-new-funding-for-mental-health-professionals-in-schools/ . Grants are not meant to be the long-term solution, but they can assist school districts with infrastructure needs and the ability to hire and train counselors, psychologists, social workers, and other mental health professionals. To identify funding opportunities for mental health support in education settings, see NEA’s webpage on school-based mental health services grants . In addition, explore whether state-mandated professional development for educators includes trainings on suicide prevention, trauma-informed crisis intervention, de-escalation techniques, restorative practices, and trauma-informed strategies.

Get Involved in Local Government

Educators play an essential role in the communities in which they work. The experience they’ve gained while working with students gives them a unique perspective when it comes to making public education policy, negotiating collective bargaining agreements, and setting budget priorities for their communities. 

Gun Violence Prevention Resources

National education association resources.

• National Education Association : The National Education Association is the nation’s largest union, representing more than 3 million elementary and secondary teachers, higher education faculty, education support professionals, specialized instructional support personnel, school administrators, retired educators, and students preparing to become educators.
• NEA Health and Safety Program : NEA School Health and Safety provides information and solutions related to student and educator mental health, violence prevention and response, infection control, and environmental and occupational safety and health, among other topics.
• Bargaining and Advocacy Tactics to End Gun Violence : NEA provides advocates in bargaining and non-bargaining statute states with sample language to secure in board policies, employee handbooks, and collective bargaining agreements regarding aspects of working conditions surrounding gun violence.
• Gun Violence Prevention Measures Using the Hierarchy of Controls : To help address this worsening public health crisis, employers and educators can implement the hierarchy of controls —a proven approach to minimize or eliminate exposure to workplace hazards—to sensibly prevent gun violence in education contexts.
• NEA School Crisis Guide : Produced in 2018, the guide provides detailed content on how to effectively prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover from school crises.
• Responding to Gun Violence : This portion of the NEA Health and Safety Program website provides content on taking action, helping students cope, resources for school leaders, fostering mental health, and preventing hate and bias, as well as resources for school leaders.  
• We Can Change This: Educators Take on Gun Violence : Educators across the country are working to end the era of school shootings that has defined students’ lives.
• NEA Legislative Program : The National Education Association’s Legislative Program encapsulates NEA’s priorities for advocating in Congress for federal laws that support public K-12 schools and postsecondary institutions, student learning, and educators

Mental Health Supports:

• Bargaining and Advocacy Tactics to Support Educators’ Mental Health : This resource compiles strategies to improve mental health support for educators using collective bargaining or advocacy.
• The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act : The Bipartisan Safer Communities Act unlocks more than $1 billion additional funding for mental health and other services.
• NEA Member Benefits Mental Health Program : Through NEA Member Benefits, in partnership with AbleTo, NEA members receive no-cost access to evidence-backed tools for stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health needs.
• School-Based Mental Health Services Grants : NEA provides a summary of federal grant programs that support efforts to increase school-based mental health services and programs.

Safe and Supportive Schools:

• Addressing the Epidemic of Trauma in Schools : This report builds a framework to advance trauma awareness and trauma-informed approaches, including some currently being implemented by NEA state affiliates. It includes key recommendations for ways in which NEA may address the trauma crisis through policy, programs, and practices. It also includes a list of selected resources developed or suggested as references by affiliates to address student and educator trauma.
• Cultural Competence Training : Through NEA’s Cultural Competence Training Program, NEA members learn how to become culturally competent educators.
• How Restorative Practices Work for Students and Educators : This NEA Today article explores what happens in public schools where educators care more about creating a community built upon kindness, not consequences.
• How to Be an Advocate for Students Who Are Bullied : These recommendations support educators in helping students who are bullied.
• How to Identify Bullying : This article provides tips for addressing bullying.
• NEA Micro-Credential Courses on Restorative Practices : Each of the five micro-credentials in this stack can stand alone or be completed sequentially: Exploring Restorative Practices; Building a Positive Classroom Community with Affective Language; Restorative Circles—Building Relationships in the Classroom; Restorative Conferencing; and Implementing Restorative Practices.
• NEA Micro-Credential Course on Trauma-Informed Pedagogy : This course addresses child trauma, how trauma affects the brain, trauma-informed pedagogy, leveled intervention strategies, behavioral support plans, replacement behaviors, and teaching students to self-advocate.
• Restorative Practices: Fostering Healthy Relationships and Promoting Positive Discipline in Schools—A Guide for Educators : This guide helps educators better understand what restorative practices are and how they can foster safe learning environments through community building and constructive conflict resolution.
• Supporting the Advocacy, Communication, and Implementation of Life Skills in Public Schools: A Toolkit : Social-emotional learning (SEL)—also known as positive youth development or life skills—is widely supported by families, students, and educators and provides valuable skills and lessons that contribute to students’ success throughout their lives.
• Tools and Tips for Trauma-Informed Practices : Educators in every school community can use these practices to create safe and supportive learning environments for their students.
• Trauma-Informed Schools : Supporting students who suffer from childhood trauma requires whole-school involvement and transformation. The NEA and its affiliates are actively engaged in finding ways for schools and educators to address the issue of trauma and its implications for learning, behavior, and school safety.

Community Engagement and Dialogue:

• Community Schools : Community schools are public schools that provide services and support that fit each neighborhood’s needs, created and run by the people who know our children best.
• Strategies for Effective Health and Safety Dialogue : This NEA training module will help support families, educators, and students effectively communicate around health and safety issues.

Everytown Resources

• Everytown for Gun Safety : Everytown for Gun Safety is the largest gun violence prevention organization in America. The organization is a movement of more than 10 million supporters working to end gun violence.
• Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund : The Everytown Support Fund is the education, research, and litigation arm of Everytown for Gun Safety. It seeks to improve our understanding of the causes of gun violence and help to reduce it by conducting ground-breaking original research, developing evidence-based policies, communicating this knowledge to the American public, and advancing gun safety and gun violence prevention in communities and the courts.
• Be SMART : The Be SMART program focuses on fostering conversations with other adults about secure gun storage. In this context, the acronym stands for S ecure guns in homes and vehicles, M odel responsible behavior, A sk about unsecured guns in homes, R ecognize the role of guns in suicide, and T ell your peers to be SMART. The program’s purpose is to facilitate behavior change for adults and help parents and adults prevent child gun deaths and injuries.
• City Dashboard: Gun Homicide : The FBI is the leading source of city gun violence data across the country, covering more than 94 percent of the U.S. population in 2022. Everytown’s City Gun Homicide dashboard allows users to explore gun homicide trends across more than 500 cities with populations of 65,000+ that reported data to the FBI from 2018 to 2022.
• CityGRIP—Safe Passage : Safe passage programs provide safe routes to and from schools to reduce student exposure to gun violence. To achieve this goal, educators, law enforcement groups, and communities collaboratively implement protocols and procedures to ensure student safety.
• Community-Led Public Safety Strategies : For decades, community-based organizations have successfully reduced violence by implementing alternative public safety measures that are locally driven and informed by data. Often referred to as violence intervention programs, these strategies have expanded greatly over the years and include street outreach, group violence intervention, crime prevention through environmental design, hospital-based violence intervention programs, safe passage programs, and cognitive behavioral therapy.
• EveryStat : EveryStat is a one-stop source for gun violence in your state and county, including breakdowns by intent, race and ethnicity, gender, economic cost, and more.
• Everytown Gun Law Rankings :  Everytown compares gun policy across the country and scores every state on the strength of its gun law and compares it with its rate of gun violence.
• Everytown Law Fund : Everytown Law Fund provides support for impact litigation to advance the right of every person to be free from gun violence and to speak, work, learn, pray, assemble, protest, and vote without fear or intimidation.
• Everytown Survivor Network : The Everytown Survivor Network is a nationwide community of survivors working together to end gun violence. The network amplifies the power of survivor voices, offers trauma-informed programs, provides information on direct services, and supports survivors in their advocacy.
• Extreme Risk/Red Flag Laws : Extreme Risk laws, sometimes referred to as “red flag” laws, allow loved ones or law enforcement to intervene by petitioning a court for an order to temporarily prevent someone in crisis from accessing guns.
• Gunfire on School Grounds : The database details the myriad ways in which gun violence manifests in U.S. schools.
• Mayors Against Illegal Guns : Mayors Against Illegal Guns is a coalition of mayors fighting to end gun violence by working to fight for gun safety laws and enact gun violence prevention strategies.
• Moms Demand Action : Moms Demand Action, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety, is the nation’s largest grassroots volunteer network that is working to end gun violence. The organization campaigns for new and stronger solutions to lax gun laws and loopholes that jeopardize the safety of families, educates policymakers and parents about the importance of secure firearm storage, and works to create a culture of gun safety through partnerships with businesses, community organizations, and influencers. There is a Moms Demand Action chapter in every state and more than 700 local groups throughout the country.
• One Thing You Can Do : This database includes information about extreme risk orders by state. An extreme risk order is a way to intervene when there is reason to believe a loved one is at serious risk of harming themselves or others.
• Students Demand Action : Students Demand Action is the largest grassroots, youth-led gun violence prevention group in the country, with more than 800 groups and active volunteers in every state and the District of Columbia. The movement, created by and for teens and young adults, aims to channel the energy and passion of high school and college-age students into the fight against gun violence.

Other Resources

Safe and supportive school climates.

• Bullying Prevention : From the National Association of School Psychologists, this site provides resources to prevent bullying.
• Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design : From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED) focuses on principles to create safer schools by developing environments that promote positive behavior and reduce opportunities for violence to occur.
• Guiding Principles for Creating Safe, Inclusive, Supportive, and Fair School Climates : From the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development, this document recommends evidence-based practices that schools and school districts can take to implement fair student discipline approaches, which keep students safely in learning environments and help to address disproportionality in discipline and exclusion.
• National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments : From the National Center on Safe and Supportive Schools, this site offers information and technical assistance to states, districts, schools, institutions of higher education, and communities focused on improving school climate and conditions for learning.
• The National Technical Assistance Center on Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports : The center provides information, tools, and technical assistance for implementing Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS), a tiered framework for supporting students’ behavioral, academic, social, emotional, and mental health. These resources include guides, lesson plans, assessment surveys, and examples of how to integrate trauma-informed practices into PBIS.
• Resources for Educators : From Sandy Hook Promise, this site provides resources on multiple topics.
• Schoolsafety.gov : This interagency website created by the federal government provides a broad range of information, resources, and guidance to create safe and supportive learning environments for students and educators.

Mental Health Supports

• 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline : The 988 Lifeline provides 24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones, and best practices for professionals in the United States.
• Emotional CPR : Emotional CPR (eCPR) is an educational program designed to teach people to assist others through an emotional crisis by implementing three simple steps: C = Connecting; P = emPowering; and R = Revitalizing.
• Mental Health First Aid : Mental Health First Aid is an evidence-based, early intervention course that teaches participants about mental health and substance use challenges.
• The Mental Health Technology Transfer Center Network : Funded by SAMHSA, the center develops resources, disseminates information, and provides training and technical assistance to mental health work, including a free online course for educators on mental health literacy .
• Project Aware : Through SAMHSA, Project Aware (Advancing Wellness and Resiliency in Education) promotes a sustainable infrastructure for school-based mental health programs and services. AWARE grantees build collaborative partnerships with the state education agency, local education agency, tribal education agency, the state mental health agency, community-based providers of behavioral health care services, school personnel, community organizations, families, and school-age youth.
• Screen4Success : Screen4Success is a screening tool to identify areas where someone may benefit from more support on personal health, wellness, and well-being. It also provides local and national resources to help address those concerns. You can use the tool for self-screening, or you can send it to someone you are concerned about. You can also help that person fill out the screener—this provides opportunities for discussion in the moment—or they can complete it on their own if that’s not possible.
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline : SAMHSA’s National Helpline, 1-800-662-HELP (4357) (also known as the Treatment Referral Routing Service), or TTY: 1-800-487-4889 is a confidential, free, 24-hour-a-day, 365-day-a-year information service, available in English and Spanish, for individuals and family members facing mental and/or substance use disorders. This service provides referrals to local treatment facilities, support groups, and community-based organizations. The site also includes additional resources.

Navigate to Other Sections of the Guide

Introduction, part two: gun violence preparation, part three: gun violence response, part four: gun violence recovery.

Everytown Research & Policy is a program of Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an independent, non-partisan organization dedicated to understanding and reducing gun violence. Everytown Research & Policy works to do so by conducting methodologically rigorous research, supporting evidence-based policies, and communicating this knowledge to the American public.

In partnership with

The National Education Association (NEA) is more than 3 million people—educators, students, activists, workers, parents, neighbors, and friends—who believe in the opportunity for all students and the power of public education to transform lives and create a more just and inclusive society. NEA has affiliate organizations in every state and more than 14,000 communities across the United States. NEA’s vision for safe, just, and equitable schools consists of thriving spaces that are safe and welcoming for all students; are discriminatory toward none; integrate the social, emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual needs of the whole student; and equitably and fully fund the community school model with wraparound services and resources. The resources in this guide can help make this vision a reality.

Navigating the VOCA Funding Process

Crime victim compensation: financial assistance after a crime.

Did you know?

Every day, more than 120 people in the United States are killed with guns, twice as many are shot and wounded, and countless others are impacted by acts of gun violence.

Everytown Research analysis of CDC, WONDER, Underlying Cause of Death , 2018–2022; Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) nonfatal firearm injury data, 2020; and SurveyUSA Market Research Study #26602 , 2022.

Last updated: 5.7.2024

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