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Community Justice Action Fund - Fighting to End Gun Violence in Black and Brown Communities

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Community Justice Action Fund - Fighting to End Gun Violence in Black and Brown Communities

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"Rampage School Shooters: A Typology.” Aggression and Violent Behavior" - Peter Langman 

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"Rampage School Shooters: A Typology.” Aggression and Violent Behavior" - Peter Langman 

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"...This article examines the cases of 10 rampage school shooters in an effort to find out not only how they are alike, but also how they differ. Based on available information, these youths are categorized into three types: traumatized, psychotic, and psychopathic." Langman, Peter. 2008. “Rampage School Shooters: A Typology.” Aggression and Violent Behavior. 14:79-86. ( https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Langman/publication/222237299_Rampage_school_shooters_A_typology/links/59db6f060f7e9b2f587fedcf/Rampage-school-shooters-A-typology.pdf)

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The Sociological Explanation for Why Men in America Turn to Gun Violence - Triston Bridges & Tara Leigh Tober

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The Sociological Explanation for Why Men in America Turn to Gun Violence - Triston Bridges & Tara Leigh Tober

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"Masculinity is associated with homophobia, sexism, misogyny, male supremacist ideals, and violence, and so men turn to those things in order to demonstrate their membership in the group."

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In the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting that killed a staggering 58 people and injured roughly 500 others, the Trump administration has tried to steer Americans away from political debate. "There's a time and place for political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a press briefing following the tragedy.

But while it is important to collectively mourn those lost to senseless violence, it is equally important to understand that mass shootings are not isolated events in American society. Mass shootings are still relatively rare in the US, but occur much more often here than in other countries. There are far too many to consider them random, unpreventable acts of violence committed by a deranged individual.

A great deal of commentary attempts to tie mass shootings to a single issue. Often, that seems like the easiest way to make sense of atrocities. That's why we get sound bites that lean on mental health (when shooters are white), terrorist ties and affiliations (when shooters are brown), gang violence and "urban decay" (when shooters are black), bullying (when it happens in a school), and overwork (when it happens in a workplace).

The truth cannot be boiled down to any single issue. As sociologists, we can look to the bigger picture, point out patterns, and identify common denominators. Our research suggests that gun control is, indeed, an important piece of the problem. But in order to understand the factors behind America's mass shootings, it is also critical to consider the relationship between masculinity and violence.

International gun ownership and mass shootings

International evidence now makes us incredibly confident when we say that the number of guns in a society is positively correlated with the number of mass shootings in a society, as supported by a study spanning three decades of analysis in a collection of nations around the world.

Look at the clusters of data points. Each represents a different country. The more guns there are in a given country, the more mass shootings it has. But there are two other things worth noticing. For instance, just consider the number of nations in this sample that have approximately 30 guns per 100 people: Austria (30.4), Canada (30.8), France (31.2), Germany (30.3), Iceland (30.3), Norway (31.3), and Sweden (31.6). They don't all have the same rate of mass shootings over the period of 30 years. Iceland had zero; Norway had one; and Sweden had two. But France had six, and Germany had seven. These are small numbers, but even here, the range is large enough to suggest that the number of guns is not the only factor influencing mass shootings.

It's also worth highlighting just how much of an outlier the US is when put in international perspective. Sure, we have roughly twice as many guns as the other societies with high numbers of guns owned per inhabitant. But the number of mass shootings the US has experienced makes us an extreme outlier in these data.

The masculinity problem

Scholars who study masculinity and mass shootings have consistently drawn attention to the fact that mass shootings are not only a uniquely American social problem; they are a problem with American men. We've argued before that there are two questions that require explanation related to gender and mass shootings. First, why is it that men commit virtually all mass shootings? And second, why do American men commit mass shootings more than men anywhere else in the world?
Why is it men who commit mass shootings?
Social psychologists have a theory referred as "social identity threat" that has been studied across a wide range of contexts. The idea is pretty simple. Research demonstrates that if people feel that a part of their identity that they hold dear is being called into question, they are likely to respond with an exaggerated display of qualities associated with that identity.

Applied to gender, social scientists refer to this issue as "masculinity threat." Men who have their masculinity called into question (or "threatened" to use the social psychological language) react in patterned ways. Research shows that they are more supportive of violence, less likely to accurately identify sexual coercion as such, and more likely to support statements about the inherent superiority of males, among other responses.

Research has also shown that men whose masculinity has been threatened are more likely to identify as Republican, supported sexually prejudiced statements about gay men, and more supportive of war as a solution to national disputes. They were even more likely to say that they wanted to purchase as SUV. When men's masculinity is threatened, they don't respond by backing down; they double down on masculinity and "overcompensate" to demonstrate just how manly they are.

The list of things that men turn to when they feel emasculated is quite revealing about what it means to be masculine in our society. Masculinity is associated with homophobia, sexism, misogyny, male supremacist ideals, and violence, and so men turn to those things in order to demonstrate their membership in the group.

Mass shootings follow a consistent pattern: The men who commit them have often experienced what they perceive as masculinity threats. They're bullied by peers, gay-baited by classmates, and often perceive themselves as unable to live up to societal expectations associated with masculinity, such holding down a steady job, having sexual access to women's bodies, or being tough or strong.

This does not suggest that men are somehow inherently, unavoidably more violent than women. But it does suggest that mass shootings need to be seen, in part, as enactments of masculinity.
Why do American men commit mass shootings more than men elsewhere?
Certainly men have their masculinity threatened in other societies as well. So why is it that American boys and men are so much more likely to respond to threats with such extreme forms of mass violence?

The answer is that American culture plays a role in supporting this kind of violence. Consider the sociocultural contexts in which these kinds of violent masculinities are produced and (sometimes) valorized. Men have been the beneficiaries of an extraordinary amount of privilege over the course of human history-white, heterosexual, able-bodied, educated, class-privileged, American men in particular. Now a great deal of progress has been made toward chipping some of that privilege away or, at the very least, publicly calling it into question. Gender inequality is alive and well today, but it is also true that men-as a group-have witnessed the gradual erosion of privileges previous generations of men took for granted. Sociologist Michael Kimmel suggests that this shift has produced a uniquely American sentiment among men that he refers to as "aggrieved entitlement."

Many men still feel entitled to the forms of privilege their fathers, grandfathers, and great grandfathers cashed in on. And they are resentful of the fact that what they feel to be rightfully theirs feels like its slipping away. Neither we nor Kimmel are suggesting that feeling pissed off about these changes will always lead to mass shootings. Rather, mass shootings are simply an extremely violent example of a more general issue regarding shifts in relations between women and men and historical transformations in systems of social inequality.

What's next?

When asked to suggest a motive for the attack in Las Vegas, sheriff Joe Lombardo replied, "I can't get into the mind of a psychopath at this point." Similarly, a wide variety of statements from public officials and beyond are pointing to severe mental illness as the cause. During these moments, however, it is important to recognize that these statements contrasts sharply with statements from family and friends-those who knew him best. The general manager of one of the gun stores from which the shooter purchased weapons justified his sale of the weapons by describing the shooter as "a normal fellow, a normal guy - nothing out of the ordinary." His neighbor concurred, describing him as "a normal man." His brother said something similar.

The scary realization that research and data support is that, in the US, "normal guys" sometimes commit mass shootings. As sociologist Kieran Healy put it, mass shootings are "by now well institutionalized as a mode of violence. When one happens, everybody knows what to do." There's a script mass shootings follow; they are socially patterned actions. And they are gendered patterns of action as well, which means that men who want to find a way to assert their masculinity have a clear path to turn to.

Combine these gendered factors with a society in which guns are extremely available and highly valorized in popular culture and the media, and mass shootings will continue to be an American problem. Research suggests that solving this problem requires us thinking about it from multiple angles, recognizing that each can only offer a partial solution.

Certainly, gun control is a vital aspect of any solution to mass shootings in the US. But real change requires a cultural solution as well, one that attempts to invest in new ideals associated with masculinity not founded on dominance, violence, and ideologies of male supremacy. Mass shootings will continue to occur as long as we ignore these connections, and as long as we fail to recognize that mass shootings in American society are deeply entwined with our culture and politics.

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Sociologists explain why American men turn to gun violence

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In the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting that killed a staggering 58 people and injured roughly 500 others, the Trump administration has tried to steer Americans away from political debate. "There's a time and place for political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country," White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said in a press briefing following the tragedy.

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What Constitutes a Mass Shooting and Why You Should Care - Triston Bridges

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What Constitutes a Mass Shooting and Why You Should Care - Triston Bridges

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How many mass shootings occurred in the United States in 2015? It seems like a relatively simple question; it sounds like just a matter of counting them. Yet, it is challenging to answer for two separate reasons: one is related to how we define mass shootings and the other to reliable sources of data on mass shootings. And neither of these challenges have easy solutions.

As scholars and teachers, we need to think about the kinds of events we should and should not include when we make claims about mass shootings. Earlier this year, we posted a gendered analysis of the rise of mass shootings in the U.S. relying the Mass Shootings in America database produced by the Stanford Geospatial Center. That dataset shows an incredible increase in mass shootings in 2015. Through June of 2015, we showed that there were 43 mass shootings in the U.S. The next closest year in terms of number of mass shootings was 2014, which had 16 (see graph below). That particular dataset relies heavily on mass shootings that achieve a good deal of media attention. So, it's possible that the increase is due to an increase in reporting on mass shootings, rather than an increase in the actual number of mass shootings that occurred. Though, if and which mass shootings are receiving more media attention are certainly valid questions as well.

If you've been following the news on mass shootings, you may have noticed that the Washington Post has repeatedly reported that there have been more mass shootings than days in 2015. That claim relies on a different dataset produced by ShootingTracker.com. And both the Stanford Geospatial Center dataset and ShootingTracker.com data differ from the report on mass shootings regularly updated by Mother Jones.* For instance, below are the figures from ShootingTracker.com for the years 2013-2015.

For a detailed day-by-day visualization of the mass shootings collected in the ShootingTracker.com dataset between 2013 and 2015, see below (click each graph to enlarge).

The reason for this discrepancy has to do with definition in addition to data collection. The dataset produced by the Stanford Geospatial Center is not necessarily exhaustive. But they also rely on different definitions to decide what qualifies as a "mass shooting" in the first place.

The Stanford Geospatial Center's Mass Shootings in America database defines mass shootings as shooting incidents that are not identifiably gang- or drug-related with 3 or more shooting victims (not necessarily fatalities) not including the shooter. The dramatic spike apparent in this dataset in 2015 is likely exaggerated due to online media and increased reporting on mass shootings in recent years. ShootingTracker.com claims to ensure a more exhaustive sample (if over a shorter period of time). These data include any incidents in which four or more people are shot and/or killed at the same general time and location. Thus, some data do not include drug and gang related shootings or cases of domestic violence, while others do. What is important to note is that neither dataset requires that a certain number of people is actually killed. And this differs in important ways from how the FBI has counted these events.

Neither ShootingTracker.com nor the Stanford Geospatial Center dataset rely on the definition of mass shootings used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Supplementary Homicide Reporting (SHR) program which tracks the number of mass shooting incidents involving at least four fatalities (not including the shooter). The table below indicates how different types of gun-related homicides are labeled by the FBI.

Often, the media report on events that involve a lot of shooting, but fail to qualify as "mass murders" or "spree killings" by the FBI's definition. Some scholarship has suggested that we stick with the objective definition supplied by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. And when we do that, whether mass shootings are on the rise or not becomes less easy to say. Some scholars suggest that they are not on the rise, while others suggest that they are. And both of these perspectives, in addition to others, influence the media.

One way of looking at this issue is asking, "Who's right?" Which of these various ways of measuring mass shootings, in other words, is the most accurate? This is, we think, the wrong question to be asking. What is more likely true is that we'll gather different kinds of information with different definitions - and that is an important realization, and one that ought to be taken more seriously. For instance, does the racial and ethnic breakdown of shooters look similar or different with different definitions? No matter which definition you use, men between the ages of 20 and 40 are almost the entire dataset. We also know less than we should about the profiles of the victims (those injured and killed). And we know even less about how those profiles might change as we adopt different definitions of the problem we're measuring.

There is some recognition of this fact as, in 2013, President Obama signed the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act into law, granting the attorney general authority to study mass killings and attempted mass killings. The result was the production of an FBI study of "active shooting incidents" between 2000 and 2013 in the U.S. The study defines active shooting incidents as:

"an individual actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a confined and populated area." Implicit in this definition is that the subject's criminal actions involve the use of firearms. ( here: 5)

The study discovered 160 incidents between 2000 and 2013. And, unlike mass murders (events shown to be relatively stable over the past 40 years), this study showed active shooter incidents to be on the rise. This study is important as it helps to illustrate that the ways we have operationalized mass shootings in the past are keeping us from understanding all that we might be able to about them. The graph below charts the numbers of incidents documented by some of the different datasets used to study mass shootings.

Fox and DeLateur suggested that it is a myth that mass shootings are on the rise using data collected by the FBI Supplementary Homicide Report. We added a trendline to that particular dataset on the graph to illustrate that even with what is likely the most narrow definition (in terms of deaths), the absolute number of mass shootings appears to be on the rise. We do not include the ShootingTracker.com data here as those rates are so much higher that it renders much of what we can see on this graph invisible. What is also less known is what kind of overlap there is between these different sources of data.

All of this is to say that when you hear someone say that mass shootings are on the rise, they are probably right. But just how right they are is a matter of data and definition. And we need to be more transparent about the limits of both.

_____________________

*Mother Jones defines mass shootings as single incidents that take place in a public setting focusing on cases in which a lone shooter acted with the apparent goal of committing indiscriminate mass murder and in which at least four people were killed (other than the shooter). Thus, the Mother Jones dataset does not include gang violence, armed robbery, drug violence or domestic violence cases. Some have suggested that not all of shootings they include are consistent with their definition (like Columbine or San Bernardino, both of which had more than one shooter).

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What Constitutes a Mass Shooting and Why You Should Care - Feminist Reflections Archive

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How many mass shootings occurred in the United States in 2015? It seems like a relatively simple question; it sounds like just a matter of counting them. Yet, it is challenging to answer for two separate reasons: one is related to how we define mass shootings and the other to reliable sources of data on mass shootings.

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Mass Shootings in the United States - Which Measure is Best? - Triston Bridges

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Mass Shootings in the United States - Which Measure is Best? - Triston Bridges

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Along with Tara Leigh Tober, Tristan is in the process of producing a new dataset on mass shootings in the United States that builds on data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) -a non-profit started in 2013 with the aim of providing public access to accurate information regarding gun-related violence in the U.S. What makes this dataset unique is the way they have defined what qualifies as a "mass shooting." While most research on mass shootings has relied upon a conservative definition that excludes most gun-related violence in the U.S., GVA uses a definition that is a bit more broad. Rather than classifying mass shootings (as the FBI does) by how many people are killed aside from the shooter, GVA classifies incidents by how many people are shot. Incidents related to domestic violence or gang violence are also often not included. This produces different wildly different numbers of mass shootings in different datasets and makes it less possible to examine patterns that may exist in these data if we consider mass shootings in a different way.

However, the information collected by GVA on each incident is minimal: name of shooter, location of shooting, numbers injured and killed, and basic demographic information about those involved. Tara Leigh Tober and Tristan are including a number of new variables in this dataset that will help us answer new questions about mass shootings in the United States. In addition to demographic information surrounding the shooters and victims, they are examining patterns in the types of locations in which incidents occur, motives provided by the press, as well as a qualitative analysis of the types of language used to describe shooters to the public in news media accounts of the incidents.

This project will help to identify new patterns and answer new questions surrounding mass shootings in America. Tristan and Tara Leigh Tober are particularly interested in examining the types of men who participate in different types of mass shootings, patterns in the motivations for violence, as well as patterns in media portrayals of shooters belonging to different social groups.

Since working on this project, they have also written for popular audiences as well on issues related to mass shootings (see below).

Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober. 2017. " The Sociological Explanation for Why Men in America Turn to Gun Violence." Quartz.com. October 7.

Tristan Bridges and Tara Leigh Tober. 2015. " Mass Shootings in the U.S. Are On the Rise. What Makes American Men So Dangerous?" Sociological Images. July 16. Re-posted at Pacific Standard, August 17.

Tristan Bridges, Tara Leigh Tober, and Nicole Wheeler. 2015. " What Constitutes a Mass Shooting and Why You Should Care." Feminist Reflections. December 17.

Please contact both Tristan and Tara Leigh Tober with questions concerning this research at tbridges@soc.ucsb.edu and ttober@soc.ucsb.edu.

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Along with Tara Leigh Tober, Tristan is in the process of producing a new dataset on mass shootings in the United States that builds on data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA)--a non-profit started in 2013 with the aim of providing public access to accurate information regarding gun-related violence in the U.S.

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Illegible Black Death, Legible White Pain: Denied Media, Mourning, and Mobilization in an Era of "Post-Racial" Gun Violence - David J. Leonard

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Illegible Black Death, Legible White Pain: Denied Media, Mourning, and Mobilization in an Era of "Post-Racial" Gun Violence - David J. Leonard

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"The denied innocence and criminalization of Black bodies is commonplace and helps us understand the silence from the media, from political leaders, and from gun rights activist groups."

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The Epidemiology of Firearm Violence - Garen J. Wintemute

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The Epidemiology of Firearm Violence - Garen J. Wintemute

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1. The overall fatality rate from firearm violence has not changed in more than a decade.
2. Suicide is the most common form of fatal firearm violence and is increasing.
3. Homicide risk is concentrated to a remarkable degree among Black males through much of the life span.
4. Suicide risk is highest among White males beginning in adolescence. They also account for most fatalities from firearm violence and have increasing mortality rates.

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Mortality rates for firearm homicide and suicide, 1981-2012

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Mortality rates for firearm homicide and suicide, 1981-2012

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Wintemute, Garen J. 2015. "The Epidemiology of Firearm Violence in the Twenty-First Century United States." Annual Review of Public Health. 36:5-19. (https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-031914-122535)

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A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in.

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A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in.

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"[Blattman] decided to run a big randomized controlled trial with 999 of the most dangerous men in Monrovia, recruited on the street. The results were so promising that they’ve already inspired a sister program in a very different city: Chicago."

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What if someone told you that you could dramatically reduce the crime rate without resorting to coercive policing or incarceration? In fact, what if they said you could avert a serious crime — a robbery, say, or maybe even a murder — just by shelling out $1.50?

That’s such an incredibly good deal that it sounds too good to be true. But it’s been borne out by the research of Chris Blattman, Margaret Sheridan, Julian Jamison, and Sebastian Chaskel. Their new study provides experimental evidence that offering at-risk men a few weeks of behavioral therapy plus a bit of cash reduces the future risk of crime and violence, even 10 years after the intervention.

Blattman, an economist at the University of Chicago, never intended to conduct this study. But in 2009, he was hanging out with an acquaintance in Liberia named Johnson Borh, who showed him around the capital city of Monrovia. Since Blattman studies crime and violence, Borh took him to visit the pickpockets, drug sellers, and others living on the margins of society.

Along the way, they kept running into guys who were sitting on street corners, eking out a meager living by shining shoes or selling clothes. When these men spotted Borh, they’d run to give him a hug. Blattman recalls that when he asked the men how they knew Borh, they’d say something like, “I used to be like them,” and point to the nearby pickpockets or drug sellers. “But then I went through Borh’s program.”

That’s how Blattman learned about the program Borh had been running for 15 years: Sustainable Transformation of Youth in Liberia. It offered men who were at high risk for violent crime eight weeks of cognitive behavioral therapy. CBT, as it’s called, is a popular, evidence-based method of dealing with issues like anxiety, but Borh adapted the therapeutic strategy to deal with issues like violence and crime.

Meeting with a counselor in groups of around 20, the men would practice specific behavioral changes, like managing anger and exerting self-control. They’d also rehearse trying on a new identity unconnected to their past behavior, by changing their clothes and haircuts and working to reintegrate themselves into mainstream society through community sports, banks, and more.

Blattman wanted to formally study just how effective this kind of program could be. He decided to run a big randomized controlled trial with 999 of the most dangerous men in Monrovia, recruited on the street. The results were so promising that they’ve already inspired a sister program in a very different city: Chicago.

In Chicago, the murder rate is troublingly high, and the police fail to solve 95 percent of all shootings. Finding a way to prevent shootings and other violent crimes is an urgent priority — not only in that city, but across the US, as the recent mass shootings in Buffalo, New York, and Uvalde, Texas, remind us. Given that direct interventions like removing guns are largely blocked by political polarization, and trying to crack down on crime after the fact carries with it risks of policy brutality, we desperately need new solutions to the problem of violence.

Therapy plus cash was a surprisingly successful combo

The 999 Liberian men were split into four groups. Some received CBT, while others got $200 in cash. Another group got the CBT plus the cash, and finally, there was a control group that got neither.

A month after the intervention, both the therapy group and the therapy-plus-cash group were showing positive results. A year after the intervention, the positive effects on those who got therapy alone had faded a bit, but those who got therapy plus cash were still showing huge impacts: crime and violence were down about 50 percent.

But Blattman didn’t dare to hope that this impact would persist. Experts he surveyed predicted that the effects would steeply diminish over the years, as they do in many interventions.

So it was a great surprise when, 10 years later, he tracked down the original men from the study and reevaluated them. Amazingly, crime and violence were still down by about 50 percent in the therapy-plus-cash group.

Blattman estimates that there were 338 fewer crimes per participant over 10 years. Given that it had cost just $530 per participant to implement the program, that works out to $1.50 per crime avoided.

In short, it worked extremely well. But why did the combination of CBT and some cash work?

Practice makes perfect

The most plausible hypothesis, according to Blattman, is that the $200 in cash enabled the men to pursue a few months of legitimate business activity — say, shoe shining — after the therapy ended. That meant a few extra months of getting to cement their new non-criminal identity and behavioral changes. “Basically, it gave them time to practice,” Blattman told me.

A couple of caveats: The study relied largely on self-reported data about what behaviors participants were and weren’t engaging in, which could raise concerns of experimenter demand (where participants tell experimenters what they want to hear). Also, of the 999 men initially recruited into the study, 103 had died by the time of the 10-year follow-up.

That might make you wonder whether the more violent men, who could have been more resistant to the effects of the program, were just missing from the reevaluation, artificially making it look as if violent crime had dropped more than it really had.

But there are caveats to the caveats. For one thing, the study authors didn’t rely only on self-reported data; they also observed how participants acted in incentivized games where, for example, they’re given a choice between getting $1 now or $5 next week (a good example of self-control and future-oriented thinking). “Our treatment effects are strong and persistent in these outcomes,” the study notes.

By interviewing friends and relatives of each participant who died, the authors also determined the cause of death. They identified only 26 violent deaths. And even when they modeled what would happen to their results if they plugged in “good” outcomes for missing control group members and “bad” outcomes for missing treatment group members, the positive treatment effect for therapy-plus-cash largely remained.

Upending the mainstream approach to crime

Inspired by the program in Liberia, Chicago has been implementing a similar but more intensive program called READI. Over the course of 18 months, men in the city’s most violent districts participate in therapy sessions in the morning, followed by job training in the afternoon. The rationale for the latter is that in a place with a well-developed labor market like Chicago, the best way to improve earnings is probably to get people into the market, whereas in Liberia, the labor market is much less efficient, so it made more sense to offer people cash.

“We’ll have more results this summer,” said Blattman of the READI program, which he is helping to advise. So far, “it doesn’t look like a slam dunk.”

Still, Chicago is eager to try these therapy-based approaches, having already had some success with them. The city is also home to a program called Becoming a Man (BAM), where high schoolers do CBT-inspired group sessions. A randomized controlled trial showed that criminal arrests fell by about half during the BAM program. Even though effects dissipated over time, the program looks to be very cost-effective.

But this isn’t just a story about the growing recognition that therapy can play a useful role in preventing crime. That trend is part of a broader movement to adopt an approach to crime that is more carrot, less stick.

“It’s all about a progressive, rational policy for social control. Social inclusion is the most productive means of social control,” David Brotherton, a sociologist at the City University of New York, explained to me in 2019.

Brotherton has long argued that mainstream US policy is counterproductively coercive and punitive. His research has shown that helping at-risk people reintegrate into mainstream society — including by offering them cash — is much more effective at reducing violence.

To give one striking example from Brotherton’s research: In 2007, the crime-riddled nation of Ecuador legalized the gangs that had been the source of much of the violence. The country allowed the gangs to remake themselves as cultural associations that could register with the government, which in turn allowed them to qualify for grants and benefit from social programming.

Can you guess what happened to the murder rate over the next few years?

That’s right. It plummeted.

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A study gave cash and therapy to men at risk of criminal behavior. 10 years later, the results are in.

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Liberia found a stunningly effective way to reduce violent crimes. Now the US is trying a similar experiment.

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Police Warriors and Police Guardians: Race, Masculinity, and the Construction of Gun Violence - Jennifer Carlson

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Police Warriors and Police Guardians: Race, Masculinity, and the Construction of Gun Violence - Jennifer Carlson

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"[P]olice chiefs attached to their guns different gendered and racial meanings as they constructed themselves as agents of policing. Regarding [urban] gun violence..police chiefs constructed themselves as Warriors pitted against black and brown gang-bangers, drug dealers, and super predators. [Regarding] rural and suburban contexts, police chiefs presented themselves as Guardians, reframing gun violence as terrorism and emphasizing their own police duties as first-responders."

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The APA convened a panel of experts to issue a report that explores how to predict and prevent gun violence.

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The APA convened a panel of experts to issue a report that explores how to predict and prevent gun violence.

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"Some models [of reducing gun violence] 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."

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The Impact of Policies Regulating the Legal Use, Storage, or Carrying of Firearms

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The Impact of Policies Regulating the Legal Use, Storage, or Carrying of Firearms

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When RAND investigators rated the strength of evidence found for the effect of each of the these policies on various outcomes, they concluded that there is not even one single effect for which the evidence was considered to be "strong." The strongest evidence they found was labeled "supportive" (see more here: https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-012420-105117)

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Considerations for Developing an Agenda for Gun Violence Prevention Research

Annual Review of Public Health

Vol. 42:23-41 (Volume publication date April 2021)
First published as a Review in Advance on December 23, 2020
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-publhealth-012420-105117

Copyright © 2021 by Annual Reviews. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See credit lines of images or other third-party material in this article for license information.

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WHERE ARE WE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE?

THE DICKEY AMENDMENT WAS A WARNING SHOT BUT DID NOT PROHIBIT RESEARCH

WHERE DO WE NEED TO GO? WHAT ARE THE MAJOR CATEGORIES OF QUESTIONS THAT RESEARCH NEEDS TO ANSWER?

WHICH VALUES AND QUALITIES DOES THE RESEARCH PROGRAM NEED TO EXHIBIT?

THE FOUR PHASES OF KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT: GENERATION, INTEGRATION, DISSEMINATION, APPLICATION: HOW DO WE DO THIS?

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Abstract

In December 2019, for the first time in more than 20 years, the US Congress appropriated, and the president signed, a bill that included $25 million for gun violence prevention research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. This research should find ways to reduce injury, death, and suffering while protecting the right of law-abiding citizens to own firearms. Four questions can structure this research agenda. First, what is the problem: How many people get shot, who are they, where does it happen, what is the relationship between the shooter and the victim, what other types of damage are incurred, and are the shootings increasing or decreasing? Second, what are the causes: What is the role of alcohol and drugs; what is the role of gangs, poverty, and systemic racism; what is the role of mental illness, robbery, and domestic violence; what is the role of private gun ownership (both positive and negative) and easy access to guns? What are the factors that protect us, such as stable families and safe environments? Third, what works: Which practices, interventions, policies, and laws work best to prevent these deaths and injuries? And fourth, how do you do it: How do you implement the findings and translate them into policies, legislation, and practices that can be scaled up?

Focus simply, with plain words, on what is important. Then, do it.

—Tom Nolan

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The goal of this research agenda should be to find ways for the United States to reduce injury, death, and suffering while protecting the right of law-abiding citizens to own firearms. This way of approaching what we need to learn will also help us know what we do not know. There is a lot we do know and a lot we do not know, especially with respect to determining which interventions, programs, and policies will both prevent gun injury and protect gun rights. The public health approach to gun violence prevention is based on science, focused on prevention, and collaborative by necessity. Collaboration between public health and public safety is very important. The question we are asking is not whether gun violence is a problem primarily for the public health or criminal justice sector, but how these two sectors can work together—and with other sectors—to maximize public safety and well-being while fully respecting citizen rights. Equity must become another important variable: We must keep focused on the impact of our interventions on racial disparities as we examine the effectiveness of these policies.

The science is organized around four questions, which are used to structure this research agenda. (a) What is the problem: How many people get shot, who are they, where does it happen, what is the relationship between the shooter and the victim, what other types of damage are incurred, and are the shootings increasing or decreasing? (b) What are the causes: What is the role of alcohol and drugs; what is the role of gangs, poverty, and systemic racism; what is the role of mental illness, robbery, and domestic violence; what is the role of private gun ownership (both positive and negative) and easy access to guns? What are the factors that protect us, such as stable families and safe environments? (c) What works: Which practices, interventions, policies, and laws work best to prevent these deaths and injuries? What kind of evidence of effectiveness do we have for policies such as background checks, bans on the sale of high-capacity magazines, child-access prevention laws, concealed-carry laws, firearm sales reporting requirements, gun-free zones, licensing and permitting requirements, lost or stolen firearm reporting requirements, minimum age requirements, prohibitions associated with mental illness, stand-your-ground laws, surrender of firearms by prohibited possessors (including extreme risk protective orders or “red-flag laws”), or waiting periods? What does the evidence show about the effectiveness of voluntary gun safety practices such as using trigger locks, firearm training, self-enrollment in NICS (precommitment against suicide), and the preventive use of firearms for personal protection and to deter crime? (d) How do you do it: How do you implement the findings and translate them into policies, legislation, and practices that can be scaled up? How can researchers better communicate their findings to the public in a way that will change beliefs and culture around guns in a safer and healthier direction, when private gun ownership in the United States is “highly prevalent, culturally entrenched, and constitutionally protected” (55, p. 4)? How can scientific findings be effectively communicated and applied when increasingly large parts of the population are science skeptics and deniers?

In December 2019, for the first time in more than 20 years, the US Congress appropriated, and the president signed, a bill that included $25 million for gun violence prevention research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This article presents a framework and a road map that may be useful for organizing this research. The research agenda should be balanced, objective, and fair. It should be organized in a way that new knowledge can be integrated with what is already known. It should have a clear and easily explained framework so that all interested parties can understand what we know, what we do not know, and what our priority research questions are. Finally, the goal of the agenda is to stimulate research that will answer the four basic questions and generate answers that can be applied and used as the basis for evidence-based programs, practices, policy, and legislation.

WHERE ARE WE AND HOW DID WE GET HERE?

Science has helped solve many big and messy public health problems, including smallpox and heart disease. And it has helped us find ways to address these problems while preserving personal freedoms. In the United States, in 2018, more than 38,000 gun deaths occurred. Over the past 20 years since the federal funding of gun violence prevention research was stopped, there have been more than 500,000 gun deaths. Nearly 6 out of 10 of these gun deaths were suicides. During those two decades, from 1998 to 2018, the numbers and rate of gun suicides increased from 11,788 (a rate of 4.21/100,000) to 24,432 (a rate of 7.01/100,000), and the number of gun homicides increased from 11,788 (a rate of 4.21/100,000) to 13,958 (a rate of 4.42/100,000) (42). Unintentional gun deaths decreased over the two decades from 866 (a rate of 0.31/100,000) to 458 (a rate of 0.14/100,000), but these account for only 1% of the total gun deaths (42). And for every gun death, an estimated 2–3 nonfatal gun injury cases—sometimes resulting in permanent disabilities—are treated in hospital emergency departments in the United States (42). Guns are used in criminal activity and in defense against criminal activity, and they are responsible for a great deal of social distress. While mass shootings and school shootings account for a small fraction of total gun deaths, these disturbing incidents have occurred more frequently in recent years and consume a large share of media and public attention. Many of these deaths could be prevented by using scientific research to identify evidence-based solutions similar to those that helped save so many lives from motor vehicle crashes, heart disease, cancer, stroke, tobacco, and smallpox. But in this area of gun violence, we are not doing what we could. We are not bringing the full power of science to bear on this problem.

In contrast, most people assume that research is necessary to find better treatments for cancer, heart disease, or stroke and to mitigate or eliminate communicable diseases. They appreciate that biomedical science has contributed to preventing illness and saving lives. To cite just one example, science enabled the eradication of smallpox, a disease that in the twentieth century alone claimed more than 300 million lives.

Most people do not understand what research has to do with gun violence. Why was there not more of a protest about the federal government halting research on gun violence prevention? If the government were to stop research on cancer, or heart disease, or stroke for even one day, there would be a huge outcry. Perhaps most important, those most heavily affected by gun violence have lacked political clout. Those most heavily threatened by gun homicide are young black men, who are murdered at a rate 8–12 times the gun homicide rate for young white men. Similarly, those at highest risk of gun suicide are persons with mental illness, a group that is highly stigmatized. Moreover, many, if not most, citizens do not understand what science can contribute to the prevention of gun violence. They believe it is a problem of criminal justice, not public health; thus, all that is needed is strong enforcement of existing gun laws.

The United States is unique in that compared with other high-income countries, it has the highest rate of gun ownership in the world and very high rates of both gun homicide and gun suicide (19). And while evidence from the United States and other countries has shown that high rates of gun ownership are associated with high levels of gun violence, there is insufficient evidence to prove a causal association (48). The absence of definitive evidence has fostered strong opinions. In a country where many issues are increasingly polarized, the issue of gun violence has become hyperpolarized. How did we get here? Research on gun violence was viewed for many years as a problem for criminal justice. Scientists at the CDC had seen how research initiated by the federal government to address an epidemic of young people being killed in car crashes led to the introduction of front and side impact protection, seat belts, and air bags. This research led to safer cars, roads, and drivers and saved more than 600,000 lives from 1960 to 2012 (43). With this example clearly in mind, these CDC scientists initiated a research program to find ways to prevent firearm injuries. Their approach was based on science, focused on prevention, and utilized collaboration. One of the most important areas for collaboration was with the criminal justice sector, including law enforcement, the courts, and criminal justice policy.

But just as automobile manufacturers initially fought seat belts and airbags by arguing that “safety doesn't sell,” firearm manufacturers argued that requirements to reduce firearm deaths by regulating how guns were manufactured, sold, stored, and used—and funding research that could justify such regulations—would hamper gun sales and undermine gun owners’ ability to protect themselves.

THE DICKEY AMENDMENT WAS A WARNING SHOT BUT DID NOT PROHIBIT RESEARCH

Jay Dickey, a congressman from rural Arkansas, threatened the nascent research program at the CDC in 1996 by trying to abolish the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. A compromise inserted in the CDC appropriations bill, called the Dickey Amendment after its sponsor, banned the agency from advocating or promoting gun control and eliminated from the Center's budget the $2.6 million it had been spending to support gun violence prevention research. The Dickey Amendment was supposed to be a compromise between those who wanted to stop the research and abolish the injury center and those who thought more research was needed (45). Although it did not specifically prohibit research, the Dickey Amendment had a chilling effect on gun violence research. It removed federal funds from researchers who were already committed to this field and discouraged young researchers from entering the field. Within the CDC, it cast a shadow on those doing gun research.

In a few years, the Dickey Amendment and the elimination of the gun violence prevention research budget essentially brought this research at the CDC to a halt (46). After 1999, the CDC's funding for gun violence prevention research fell by more than 90% (49). Several years later, in 2003, when the US Task Force on Community Preventive Services (CPSTF; https://www.thecommunityguide.org/task-force/about-community-preventive-services-task-force)—a federally financed group of independent experts—conducted a systematic review of published studies on the effects of firearm laws on firearm injuries, it concluded that there was insufficient evidence to say whether any of the many laws considered were effective (20). These laws included bans on specific guns or ammunition, restrictions on gun acquisition, waiting periods, registration and licensing for firearm owners, “shall issue” concealed weapons carry laws, child-access prevention laws, zero tolerance of firearms in schools, and combinations of firearm laws.

While federal funding of gun violence prevention research slowed to a trickle, a small group of foundations—most notably the Joyce Foundation (1, 2) and the California Wellness Foundation—had been funding this research even before the Dickey Amendment, and they continued to fund gun violence research. Much later, they were joined by additional funders who supported research at academic and nonprofit organizations (63). The California state government funded a gun violence research center at the University of California, Davis, where at least one researcher had been funding part of his team's research from his own private savings. Most recently, the National Collaborative on Gun Violence Research, a private philanthropy started by Arnold Ventures and since joined by other funders, has committed more than $17 million in funds for research and supports researchers from a broad array of disciplines, including economists, legal scholars, criminologists, public health, medicine, anthropology, and public policy. These efforts have yielded significant contributions and advanced our understanding in many important ways. The inclusion of a particular topic in this agenda framework should not be interpreted as suggesting that we know nothing about these issues. Rather, topics are included because additional research will expand our understanding and confirm or modify earlier results.

This research agenda is designed to communicate the potential power of science to address gun violence. It uses a framework that clarifies the pertinent questions, shows how new research findings support or change what we already know, and describes how these findings can be applied (Figure 1). This framework, developed by CDC injury control research scientists in the 1980s and subsequently adopted widely as the public health approach, addresses four basic questions: (a) What is the problem? (b) What are the causes? (c) What works to prevent these different types of shootings? And (d) how do we translate proven, effective interventions into policy, implement programs, and evaluate the results?

While all four parts of the public health approach are important, the question we as a nation are least prepared to answer is, “What works?” In 2018 and again in 2020 (28), the RAND Corporation (39, 48) analyzed and classified the evidence of the effects of 18 types of gun laws on 8 separate outcomes that are frequently considered when new policies are debated, including homicide and violent crime, suicide, mass shootings, unintentional shootings, police shootings, defensive gun use, hunting and recreation, and effects on the gun industry (37). The results of this review are summarized below as a series of matrices showing the evidence found for the effect of each of the 18 laws on the 8 outcomes (144 possible effects) (Figure 2). The investigators rated the strength of the evidence for each effect. Of note, there is not even one single box for which the evidence was considered to be strong. The strongest evidence was what they termed “supportive” and there were only two laws for which the researchers concluded that evidence of any effects was supportive: Child-access prevention laws had supportive evidence that they reduce intentional and unintentional firearm self-injuries among children, and supportive evidence suggested that stand-your-ground laws increase firearm homicides (28).

I have reviewed a number of existing research questions and priority statements (consensus statements based on a mix of evidence and opinion) (3, 7, 18, 24, 26, 28, 31–34, 39, 40, 52, 53, 56, 58, 59, 62, 65–69, 71, 72, 74) and, in particular, looked at the research agenda that was developed by the Institute of Medicine for the CDC in 2011 (32). The framework offered here is meant to be easier to understand and communicate by comparison. We also reviewed existing gun research systematic reviews and sought input from advocacy and academic stakeholders. The framework and questions below are meant to be more of a road map for how this research might proceed rather than a compilation of all the research that has been done to date or what we know about gun violence prevention. Listing a specific area or question on this agenda does not mean that there is no research to address this question. Rather, it indicates an area where our policies and programs and our communities could benefit by knowing more. Science is not static; rather, our knowledge is constantly evolving.

WHERE DO WE NEED TO GO? WHAT ARE THE MAJOR CATEGORIES OF QUESTIONS THAT RESEARCH NEEDS TO ANSWER?

We propose that the framework of the agenda consists of four separate questions, the basic steps of the public health approach. Each of these four organizing questions is listed and explained below, followed by more specific questions that should guide further research.

What Is the Problem?

This first step in the public health approach includes the questions that any good reporter would ask: who, what, where, when, and how. These questions include the basic descriptive epidemiology of gun violence to answer the questions of who gets shot, where, when, and how? Are there subgroups for whom firearm injuries are increasing, decreasing, or holding steady? For interpersonal violence, what is the relationship between the shooter and the victim? Although many studies have examined individual characteristics associated with firearm violence and suicide, much less is known about family, community, and ecological factors that may be associated with victimization or the commission of gun violence. What kind of weapons are involved and how were they acquired? How should this information best be collected, analyzed, and disseminated? Some more specific research questions are discussed as follows.

How can we collect, analyze, and utilize better data and information to reduce injury risk and to reduce disparities?

Timely information is essential to inform public health and criminal justice action. The use of accurate, real-time data to inform decision-making is as essential for injury control as it is for the control of infectious diseases. But, unlike for many infectious diseases, the United States does not have standard, national data on firearm injuries and efforts to prevent them. The CDC has developed the National Violent Death Reporting System (NVDRS), which at least for fatal firearm injuries functions as a national reporting system, now expanded to all 50 states (41). NVDRS “links information about the ‘who, when, where, and how’ from data on violent deaths and provides some insights about ‘why’ they occurred.” NVDRS pools more than 600 unique data elements from multiple sources into a usable, anonymous database. NVDRS covers all types of violent deaths—including homicides and suicides—with different means, in all settings for all age groups (41).

How can we develop standards for state-, county-, and city-level public reporting to improve NVDRS and other data systems with special attention to more accurate and timely counts of nonfatal as well as fatal injuries? Official government data are a trusted, reliable source of information for the media, academic organizations, and citizens. Efforts have been initiated by state, county, and city public health and law enforcement departments to share such data. How can we establish standard data elements and indicators for publicly reporting essential data using consistent indicators that can be compared both across regions and over time? How can we strengthen our relevant data systems needed to adequately describe and better understand the problem, with attention to data quality, accessibility, and aggregation, data to assess gun acquisition and storage, data fragmentation and standardization, and new research methods (40, 44)? How are guns typically stored in homes? What is it that makes a family more likely to store guns safely when there are children in the home? Better and more timely data on risks associated with different storage practices for specific household configurations would allow individuals and communities to both understand and reduce their firearm injury risk, start to measure the impact of different control measures on law-abiding gun owners, foster transparency about the effectiveness of control measures, and drive continuous improvement (35). If our government can provide us with the number of chickens that were slaughtered in the last month (https://www.nass.usda.gov/), we should not have to wait more than a year to find out how many people were killed, shot, or assaulted during that same period.

How can we most effectively collect and use data and information to best measure disparities in the impact of gun violence on individuals, families, and communities? How do we collect the information we need to make racial and/or ethnic disparities a key outcome variable in our research into these laws’ effectiveness (54)? What do we know about the disproportionate impact of gun violence on minority communities and its effects on social capital, income, education, mental health, and property values?

What are the benefits associated with gun possession for gun owners, their families, and their communities?

How do these trade-offs between gun costs and benefits differ across subgroups in the United States? How do we measure the benefits of gun ownership for their owners, their families, and their communities in terms of safety, security, and sense of well-being from recreational use; from hunting; and from defense of self, family, and community?

How often are guns used to deter or prevent a crime? How often, and in what circumstances, are children and adolescents actively protected by their own self-defensive firearm use or that of someone else (e.g., friend, parent, or acquaintance) (10–12)? When guns are used to deter a crime, in what percent of cases is there a physical injury or death? Research is needed to better define what precisely is being measured, whether existing studies and reports are accurate, and what kinds of studies are needed to provide reliable answers with respect to the frequency and effectiveness of defensive gun use.

What are the costs of gun violence in terms of not only the number of victims injured or killed, but also the impact of these shootings on family and community?

How can we measure the impact of the threat of gun violence, how it impacts communities and traumatizes individuals, and how it stresses schoolchildren and their parents? How can we measure the social burden of gun violence? What are the economic, social, and psychological costs of gun violence over and above the costs of deaths and physical injuries themselves? How do we measure the costs associated with the “anticipation of victimization that engenders widespread anxiety, disinvestment in impacted communities, and costly efforts to avoid and mitigate attacks?” (P.J. Cook, unpublished communication; 11). What are the advantages and disadvantages of different measurement approaches, such as the cost of illness approach and the contingent valuation method (12)? What are the economic costs of firearm violence (7)?

How can we better understand how guns are distributed, carried, and used in the United States?

What are the economics of gun supply and demand? How do the legal gun markets work and how are illegal gun markets (thefts, straw purchases, trafficking, ghost guns, etc.) structured? How do guns move from rural owners to urban gangs? How many new guns are sold in each state each year, and how have gun sales been trending? How many used guns change hands each year? How long, on average, do guns of different types remain usable and in circulation? What trends are there in the issuance of concealed-carry permits, who seeks concealed-carry permits, and how often do permit holders choose to carry their weapons in public? How can the supply of guns that are used in crimes be cut off without interfering with the supply of guns to law-abiding gun owners? The legal ownership of firearms comes at a social and economic cost: In large part, the supply of guns to offenders involves the diversion of guns from legal commerce and ownership (9, 11, 13). What are the beliefs and motivations of those who do and do not want guns (risk perceptions, cultural norms, uses)? How much means substitution occurs when firearm deaths are prevented? What are the conditions under which means substitution does and does not occur?

How can we improve information collected by police about gun violence?

In order to prevent future crimes, how can we improve police investigations of criminal shooting incidents, including assaults and homicides, by using deterrence, incapacitation, and possibly interruption of private revenge cycles (12)? How many officer-involved shootings occur each year, and where? How many of these are determined to be lawful? What features of officers, their departments, or the communities they serve are associated with the risk of such shootings?

Can we learn more about where guns are carried and used?

Increased attention is needed to determine where people can carry guns, who can carry them, how they carry them (i.e., openly or concealed), and what kind of weapons they can use. This approach looks at policy approaches to three simultaneous areas, where each area can be portrayed as one of three overlapping circles in a Venn diagram. One circle is “place,” another is “guns,” and a third is “people.” In the very center where all three circles overlap is the area defining where people with certain characteristics possess guns and can carry them in a well-defined place. Gun violence prevention policies can define the people who are allowed to have guns and carry them in a given place. By varying the degree of restrictions on these three policy realms, one can set a policy and empirically see their effect on gun violence as well as the impact on the rights of law-abiding gun owners (S. Teret, personal communication).

What Are the Causes?

For many risk factors, it is possible to state that there is an association between a particular factor and gun violence, but it usually requires much better data and studies to prove a causal relationship between a particular factor and the gun violence outcome. Demonstrating causality usually requires experimental trials or observational cohort or case-control study designs that use comparison groups (6). Better data are also needed to establish how much of an individual's risk for involvement in gun violence is actually attributable to social, economic, and environmental factors. Sometimes this step is referred to as risk factor identification. But a risk factor requires establishing only whether an association exists; more research is needed to establish causality. How can we identify those factors that protect individuals and communities from the risk of gun violence? Are there circumstances in which gun possession is protective?

Individual risk factors for firearm homicide perpetration and victimization.

Research is needed to further understand the relationship of these risk factors to firearm homicides, to further clarify those situations in which these risk factors play a causal role, and to explain how these risk factors interact when present at the same time (30). This information may allow researchers to develop profiles of very high-risk individuals and situations. These risk factors include alcohol and drugs; mental illness, especially depression, bipolar disease, and schizophrenia; economic motivations such as robbery; gangs; easy access to weapons and the influence of particular weapon types on crime; intimate partner violence; and workplace violence (61). Research is also needed to clarify the risks associated with exposure to firearm violence and other forms of violence, especially for children. How does childhood exposure to gun violence affect the development of children? To what extent does the availability of guns influence the choice of weapon in criminal violence? To what extent do legal consequences for gun crime affect offenders’ choices (12, 13)?

Individual risk factors for firearm suicide.

What are the risk factors for firearm suicides (16, 25, 27, 29, 36, 50, 51, 55, 57, 59, 60, 67)? To what extent does access to firearms affect the risk for suicide? What are the causes and risk factors for gun suicide in veterans? What is the impact of exposure to suicide within a family, a group of acquaintances, or a community?

Risk factors for perpetration of mass shootings.

What are the causes behind the recent increases in mass shootings? Perpetrators of mass shootings are often suicidal: Is there a cluster of risk factors for both gun suicide and homicide that can help to identify persons at high risk for perpetrating a mass shooting? What is the role of domestic violence in mass shootings? Can a focus on school or workplace grievances identify an individual as high risk for perpetrating mass shootings? What is the role of social alienation, discrimination, hopelessness, and unemployment?

Causes of disparities in firearm violence among different race, ethnic, and gender groups.

What explains the marked disparity in firearm homicides between men of color and white men? What are the social and economic determinants and antecedents of gun violence? What impact does structural racism have on gun violence? Is there a belief that the failure of law enforcement to arrest and capture perpetrators of gang violence reflects a lack of police officials’ interest in minority communities and, in particular, the lives of minority males (11, 12)?

What are the characteristics and what are the physical and social features of locations at high and low risk for gun violence? How do stress and trauma in a community affect firearm-related violence? What are the social and economic factors that increase an individual's risk of involvement in gun violence? What are the community consequences of exposure to firearm violence, and how might exposure be uncoupled from those consequences (G. Wintemute, personal communication)? How do structural racism and economic disadvantage affect firearm-related violence (32)?

Risk factors in police shootings.

What is the role of unconscious bias in police shootings? What policies are effective in preventing police shootings that may be deemed unnecessary? Because many mass shooters commit suicide or plan to have themselves shot by a police officer, how often is suicide a primary motivation for mass shooters?

What Works to Prevent Gun Violence and Protect Gun Rights?

To answer the question of what works, one must find interventions that simultaneously satisfy two objectives: reducing gun violence and protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners. These are not mutually exclusive objectives. Through gun violence prevention research, we can find interventions that will achieve both objectives: protect gun rights and reduce gun violence. Strategies that work by meeting both objectives might, for example, aim to keep guns out of the hands of those who should not have them while allowing law-abiding gun owners to keep their guns. These strategies should be carefully crafted using behavioral risk factors and targeted to individuals at high risk for gun homicides or gun suicides while fully respecting constitutional law and policies (55). Once we find these strategies, research will be needed to prove that these interventions work to both reduce gun violence and protect gun rights. A third objective of this research should also be to find interventions that will reduce racial disparities in terms of the burdens of gun violence and in the ways that laws are applied. Some of the answers to these questions will come from the analysis of existing data sets, others may require new data collection efforts, and some may require large-scale controlled trials that cover multiple jurisdictions over a sustained period of time. Federal and state governments may have a unique role to play in helping to design and implement such studies, especially when they will require the collaboration of different departments (such as police, public health, housing and urban development, education, health care, and mental health). Examples of possible ways to achieve both objectives include universal background checks, eliminating loopholes, and tracking results; access restrictions for domestic violence offenders; red flag laws; and safe storage (50).

How do we measure the extent to which an intervention or policy impacts the rights of law-abiding gun owners?

Research is required to develop a way to measure the impact of different interventions on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. Just as environmental impact measures help us protect the environment, this research will help us protect and measure gun rights. What gets measured gets done.

What are the benefits and costs of gun ownership?

What are the benefits and costs of gun policies for law-abiding gun owners, individuals who do not own guns, and other stakeholders (e.g., police, school personnel)? Does having more law-abiding citizens carry weapons deter crime and reduce gun violence? Are firearm safety programs that include improved safety practices for firearm owners effective?

How effective are interventions that focus on firearm regulations and regulatory enforcement?

How can the evidence needed to make scientifically sound statements about the effectiveness of a broad range of interventions focused on firearm regulations and regulatory enforcement be collected to assess background checks, bans on the sale of high-capacity magazines, child-access prevention laws, concealed-carry laws, firearm sales reporting requirements, gun-free zones, licensing and permitting requirements, lost or stolen firearm reporting requirements, minimum age requirements, prohibitions associated with mental illness, stand-your-ground laws, surrender of firearms by prohibited possessors [including extreme risk protective orders (5, 14–18, 21, 47, 64, 73) or red-flag laws], and waiting periods?

How effective are each of these interventions listed above for the different categories of gun use, including defensive gun use, hunting and recreation, mass shootings, officer-involved shootings, suicide, unintentional injuries and deaths, violent crime, terrorism, and hate crimes? What would be the effect of extending background checks to include currently undocumented sales and transfers (23, 38, 70)?

What are the strategies for keeping guns from individuals who should not legally have them? How can the effectiveness of regulations for gun transactions be improved? What enforcement policies are effective in preventing the diversion of guns from legitimate private hands into criminal hands (9, 13)? How can we effectively write and enforce these laws so that they keep guns away from people who should not legally purchase or possess them while not infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners? How can we improve police investigations of criminal shooting incidents, including assaults and homicides? Solving past crimes prevents future crimes: deterrence, incapacitation, and possible interruption of private revenge cycles (12).

What are the effects of alternative law enforcement strategies? How can enforcement of existing laws be improved? What are the most cost-effective strategies for holding perpetrators of shootings accountable by investigating to increase arrest and conviction rates (8, 9, 13)? How can we best assess the costs and benefits of policies designed to reverse the long-term decline in arrest and conviction rates (9)? To what degree is state and local law enforcement oversight of gun dealers, including licensing, inspections, and stings, effective at reducing illegal gun trafficking?

Assessing the impact on gun deaths of suicide and interpersonal violence prevention programs that are not specifically focused on firearms.

What are the most effective interpersonal violence prevention programs, and how can we continue to improve their effectiveness (including programs that are not focused specifically on guns, such as mentoring and early child development programs, job training programs, housing, and antipoverty programs that address socioeconomic determinants)? How can we prevent gun suicides by suicide prevention programs that are not focused specifically on firearm accessibility?

Engineering and technological innovations to reduce gun violence.

Which technological innovations are effective and what new innovations can be developed? Innovations would include “safe guns” as well as new technologies that might be developed. Can smaller-caliber weapons be substituted for larger-caliber weapons to reduce their lethality and save lives without substantially limiting the benefits of firearm ownership?

Educational and communication programs.

If some gun owners have incorrect beliefs about the average risk of, for instance, gun ownership or safe storage practices, what communication strategies would be most successful in bringing their beliefs in better alignment with the available evidence?

Measuring the effectiveness of interventions to reduce health and economic disparities.

How effective are behavioral interventions to reduce crime and school dropout among economically disadvantaged youth (22)? There is some evidence that providing mentoring, training, and job opportunities for young people facing poverty and discrimination can reduce their involvement in gun violence. Can these programs be delivered consistently and over the course of several years? Can they be scaled up and rigorously evaluated?

Individual and population-based interventions through the health care sector.

What impact can health care providers and organizations have by improving the care we provide in all domains—physical, psychological, and spiritual—for those who are victims of violence? Because gun violence is often closely linked to other forms of violence—including sexual assault, intimate partner violence, child abuse, and elder abuse—how can the full power of both health care institutions and criminal justice institutions be mobilized to address all forms of violence? How can organizations and institutions, including the military, mobilize people and policies to recognize people at risk of victimization or perpetration and help them using interventions focused on prevention as well as enforcement? What can nongovernmental groups (e.g., universities, labor unions, standards writing organizations, insurance companies, gun trainers, hospital accreditors, therapists, the faith community, the media, the Red Cross) do that can effectively reduce firearm violence (4)?

How Do We Translate Proven Effective Interventions into Policy and Legislation? How Do We Scale Up Programs and Implement Them?

Once interventions or programs are shown to work—i.e., by limiting illegal use without infringing on the rights to legal use, while preserving the positive aspects of gun possession and use—in a well-controlled setting (i.e., efficacy has been demonstrated), how do they get scaled up to cover a larger target audience and a wider geographic area? How do we take the information derived from a program that has proven effective and use that evidence to develop policies and legislation? How can we take the relevant evidence from research and deliver it to law makers and politicians at every level so that they can use it effectively to make evidence-based policy? How do we develop and monitor the capacity to implement, practice, and enforce that policy?

How can we improve the data and information needed to evaluate program and policy implementation?

We need to improve our data collection and dissemination methods. Even if programs that are proven effective are used to generate policies, it will be important to collect and analyze the data that can show whether and how well the policies are working. We will need to keep collecting data to keep improving our programs and refining our policies. The NVDRS is one very important data set that should be supported and improved because its data can be used to examine the impact of evidence-based policies (41).

Continue to build the nation's research capacity.

We in the United States will have to invest in strengthening our research capacity by training researchers from an array of disciplines and expanding their data collection and analysis capabilities.

How can we better measure the effectiveness of education and information campaigns?

How can the scientific evidence about firearms and public health be conveyed most effectively to gun owners, law makers, and others to promote behaviors that reduce firearm violence? Who are the trusted messengers who can reach gun owners to let them know that gun safety and gun rights are not in conflict? What do we know about how gun owners are organized, formally and informally, to help accelerate the practices proven to reduce suicide, domestic violence shootings, and unintentional injuries?

WHICH VALUES AND QUALITIES DOES THE RESEARCH PROGRAM NEED TO EXHIBIT?

It would be useful to survey a broad range of researchers, institutions, and interested parties to see what they would like this research agenda to cover. The answers to the research questions need to be understood as they apply to a diverse set of vulnerable groups (e.g., Blacks, Hispanics, Native Americans, people with mental illness, Veterans, and LGBTQ individuals). This research cannot assume that findings will hold across racial/ethnic groups or other relevant categories of people at high risk. A variety of different types of grants and organizations should be utilized, including individual researcher-initiated grants (these should be made available to examine the effectiveness of interventions, programs, and policy and may contribute to more than one of the four primary question areas); gun violence research centers; and large multiyear, multicentered grants to assess the effectiveness of different policies and programs. Research program administrators should understand how we got to this impasse in research funding to understand that in moving forward it will be important to have research oversight by scientists to ascertain whether the research is both leading to improvements in gun violence prevention and protecting the rights of law-abiding gun owners. The review process should also be explained to the public. The panels of scientists who review the grant applications and vote for the awards must avoid bias and conflicts of interest and pursue objectivity in their decisions. In an area that is so politically charged, it will be critical to assure that this research is characterized by scientific objectivity and credibility. Once grants are awarded, grants should be monitored to assure that the research will be of high quality.

Equity must become an important value as effectiveness is evaluated. It will be very important to work closely with affected communities to make progress jointly in the search for solutions (54, 55, 61). How can we vigorously enforce effective gun laws while stopping the over policing and mass incarceration of young men of color (54)? These are hard questions, but addressing them is both important and urgent.

The research agenda that is developed might serve as a guide for the CDC and the NIH as they invest new congressional funds in research to prevent gun violence. The research program that will serve the American people best is one that draws on multiple disciplines and involves multiple governmental departments. The CDC and the NIH can collaborate and develop complementary approaches. The disciplines that should be involved include epidemiology, law, sociology, psychology, anthropology, statistics, political science, decision theory and quantitative analytical methods, medicine and medical specialties, education, urban development, economics, and economic development. This research agenda should not only provide guidance for organizations that fund gun violence prevention research, but also help others push for the enforcement of evidence-based legislation and policies and strengthen the data collection and enforcement powers of local agencies and federal agencies such as the CDC, the NIH, the National Institute of Justice, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The US governmental departments that should be involved include the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Energy, the State Department, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Commerce.

This agenda is not intended only for public health. The criminal justice sector plays a role that is every bit as important, and research questions should help to fully utilize the experience and resources of that sector. Many people believe that gun violence is a problem of public safety and not of public health. They believe that law enforcement should be concerned with gun violence and should use the techniques of investigation, incarceration/incapacitation, and deterrence to reduce gun violence. They also believe that because the safety of the public—and not just their health—is threatened by gun violence, public safety officials should be the group involved in and in charge of these efforts. But the critical question is not in which department or discipline does this research belong; rather, how can they collaborate and work effectively together? Criminal justice and the legal system have very important roles to play in reducing gun violence, and this agenda should be designed to help guide their research and evidence development as much as it may help guide public health. In fact, to advance some of the research—such as large-scale, long-term, multijurisdictional studies of the effectiveness of different gun laws—close collaboration between public health and public safety agencies will be necessary. Saying that firearm violence is a public health problem is not saying that public health is the most important or only important sector to address this problem. Public health does not own the problem of gun violence. Public health needs to pay attention to this problem because it is such a significant cause of death, disability, injury (both physical and psychological), and distress. Public health needs to pay attention to gun violence because it has tools and approaches that can contribute to reducing the burden. We are also saying that public health must collaborate closely with criminal justice and public safety. The government funding agencies should do more than support some research in criminal justice and some in public health. It would be much more productive to encourage real collaboration, with both disciplines working on the same problem together. And these efforts should go beyond public health and criminal justice to include close collaboration with education, housing and urban development, labor, treasury, homeland security, and the state department.

Research programs should avoid getting caught in a partisan battle because there will be a need to grow these programs and increase the funding for this research. There is no single magic remedy that, once discovered and proven effective, will solve the larger problem of gun violence in one fell swoop. Instead, the progress will be incremental, much like there is no single solution to the problem of motor vehicle injuries and deaths; rather, 50 years of federally funded research have produced front-, side-, and rear-collision impact protection; seatbelts and child safety seats; many types of air bags; safer roadway design; and safer drivers. These changes have been incremental and additive. Progress in gun violence prevention will take a similar path. We need bipartisan action to advance the science of gun violence prevention, and this needs to be a long-term project with long-term funding. In 2019, for the first time in more than 20 years, the US Congress appropriated, and the president signed, a bill that included $25 million for gun violence prevention research at the CDC and the NIH. This amount is just a beginning.

THE FOUR PHASES OF KNOWLEDGE DEVELOPMENT: GENERATION, INTEGRATION, DISSEMINATION, APPLICATION: HOW DO WE DO THIS?

In listing the specific areas that should be explored, this article has focused on the questions that gun violence prevention research should work to answer. This research will generate information and evidence. But once generated, this new information needs to be integrated with what is already known. Getting the research funded and finished will not in itself stop the problem. Next, the information needs to be disseminated. And finally, it needs to be used or applied by those who make policy, design programs, and pass legislation. Each of these steps takes time, but there are ways to accelerate the process. Developing and training the human resources needed to do each of these steps could be started now. Our ability to answer all four of the big research questions is dependent on better and more complete data to address almost all the questions in this agenda, and, of course, we need a new generation of researchers. Three related needs across the board are funding, data, and researchers. Twenty-five million dollars is a start—or we should say a restart—but is not enough to proceed at the rate that this problem demands: The existing data are inadequate, and we need young researchers to enter this field. The enormous burden of gun violence will not be clearly seen until we start to add the social costs of disrupted and stressed lives and communities to the lives lost, physical and psychological injuries sustained, and lives left to be lived with serious disabilities (P. Cook, unpublished). Indeed, as Cook & Ludwig wrote, “Whether the social costs of gun ownership are positive or negative is arguably the most fundamental question for the regulation of firearms in the United States” (11, p. 380). The extremely inequitable way in which the burdens of gun violence are borne should also propel us to seek solutions much sooner than later. These are burdens that we all bear and burdens from which science can free us.

disclosure statement

The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.

acknowledgments

This article is dedicated to my wonderful friend and teacher, Jay Dickey. I am also very indebted and grateful to all the colleagues, mentors, and students who have generously taught me—and continue to teach me—about gun violence prevention during the past 37 years. Their work has helped to clarify and define new directions for a continuously evolving research agenda. I thank Andrew Morral, James Mercy, Mark Miodusky, Steve Teret, Jeffrey Swanson, Garen Wintemute, David Hemenway, Daniel Webster, Phil Cook, Rebecca Peters, Phillip Alpers, Roseanna Ander, and Betty Dickey.

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Effects of Policies Designed to Keep Firearms from High-Risk Individuals

Daniel W. Webster¹ and Garen J. Wintemute² ¹Center for Gun Policy and Research, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21205; email: [email protected]²Violence Prevention Research Program; Department of Emergency Medicine; University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California 95817; email: [email protected]

Annual Review of Public Health Vol. 36: 21 - 37

...crime gun sales were not just frequent; they were disproportionate (56)....

73.

Wintemute GJ, Wright MA, Drake CM, Beaumont JJ. 2001. Subsequent criminal activity among violent misdemeanants who seek to purchase handguns: risk factors and effectiveness of denying handgun purchase. JAMA 285(8):1019–26

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Gun Markets

Philip J. CookSanford School of Public Policy, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA; email: [email protected]

Annual Review of Criminology Vol. 1: 359 - 377

...A causal analysis by Garen Wintemute and colleagues found a substantial reduction in violent recidivism by those convicted of misdemeanor violence after the gun ban than immediately before (Wintemute et al. 2001)....

Effects of Policies Designed to Keep Firearms from High-Risk Individuals

Daniel W. Webster¹ and Garen J. Wintemute² ¹Center for Gun Policy and Research, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21205; email: [email protected]²Violence Prevention Research Program; Department of Emergency Medicine; University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California 95817; email: [email protected]

Annual Review of Public Health Vol. 36: 21 - 37

...population-based cohort of persons younger than 35 years of age who sought to purchase a handgun in California in 1991 but were denied as a result of this new disqualification (57)....

The Epidemiology of Firearm Violence in the Twenty-First Century United States

Garen J. WintemuteViolence Prevention Research Program; Department of Emergency Medicine; University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California 95817; email: [email protected]

Annual Review of Public Health Vol. 36: 5 - 19

...A prior history of violence is strongly predictive of future violence (12, 23, 39, 43, 56, 57), including specifically among firearm owners (68, 71, 72)....

...Prohibitions on the purchase of firearms by persons convicted of violent misdemeanor crimes such as assault and battery have been effective (71)...

74.

Zeoli AM, McCourt A, Buggs S, Frattaroli S, Lilley D, Webster DW. 2018. Analysis of the strength of legal firearms restrictions for perpetrators of domestic violence and their associations with intimate partner homicide. Am. J. Epidemiol. 187(7):1449–55

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Footnotes:

Copyright © 2021 by Annual Reviews. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See credit lines of images or other third-party material in this article for license information.

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Considerations for Developing an Agenda for Gun Violence Prevention Research

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In December 2019, for the first time in more than 20 years, the US Congress appropriated, and the president signed, a bill that included $25 million for gun violence prevention research at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. This research should find…

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13 mass shootings over the weekend, 18 fatalities, 72 injured and there is still a debate over gun control...

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A string of shootings left at least 15 people dead and more than 60 others wounded in eight statesthis weekend, a spasm of gun violence that came as the nation continues mourning the lives lost in mass shootings last month in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.

In Pennsylvania, police say multiple shooters fired into a crowd late Saturday night on South Street, a famous Philadelphia drag known for its nightlife, character and vibrancy. Authorities said three people were killed by the gunfire, and at least 11 others were wounded. Police said multiple handguns were recovered at the scene, but no arrests have been made.

"Once again, we see lives lost and people injured in yet another horrendous, brazen and despicable act of gun violence," Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement on Sunday.

Gunfire in Chattanooga leads to three dead

In Chattanooga, Tenn., police responded early Sunday to a shooting near a nightclub. Three people were killed and 14 others were injured, according to police chief Celeste Murphy.

Two people died from gunshot wounds, while a third person died of injuries after being hit by a vehicle, Murphy said. The police chief said multiple people are thought to have opened fire, but no arrests had been made as of Sunday afternoon. Last week, six people were wounded in a gunfire exchange in downtown Chattanooga.

Bullets tore apart a graduation party in South Carolina

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, at least eight people were shot at a graduation party in what authorities in Clarendon County described as a suspected drive-by shooting. A 32-year-old woman was killed, while seven others were wounded. Six of the seven injured were age 17 or younger, authorities said.

Police say the incident may have been gang-related.

"This was a school graduation party and you've got all these innocent children that were there that were hit by gunfire," Sheriff Tim Baxley said.

Multiple weekend shootings rattle Arizona

A 14-year-old girl was killed and eight others were injured during a shooting early Saturday at a Phoenix strip mall, The Associated Press reported.

Nine people were hospitalized, including the 14 year-old girl, who later died. Two women were transported with life-threatening injuries.

"Seems we can't go a day without another mass shooting," Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego tweeted Saturday. "This time, it's Phoenix, at 10th Ave & Hatcher. Time has run out. Change must happen now."

The next day, a shooting outside a bar in Mesa, Ariz. early Sunday morning left two people dead and two others injured, according to the AP.

156 days, at least 240 mass shootings

Mass shootings also happened in Texas, Georgia, New York and Michigan over the weekend, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a group that tracks mass shootings.

Some 156 days into 2022, the country has now seen at least 246 mass shootings, according to the group's tally. That puts the U.S. on track for one of the deadliest years on record since the archive began tracking gun deaths. The site defines a mass shooting as any incident in which four or more people are killed or injured by a gun.

Since May 14, when a racist attack at a Buffalo, N.Y., supermarket took the lives of 10 people, there have been at least four dozen mass shootings in the U.S., according to data from the group. That includes the attack on Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas that left 19 students and two teachers dead.

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Mass shootings across the U.S. leave dozens killed or wounded this weekend

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A string of shootings left at least 15 people dead and more than 60 others wounded in eight statesthis weekend, a spasm of gun violence that came as the nation continues mourning the lives lost in mass shootings last month in Buffalo, N.Y., and Uvalde, Texas.

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Over 95% of mass shooting perpetrators are male, over 54% of them are white.

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DEFINITION:

A mass shooting is an incident of targeted violence carried out by one or more shooters at one or more public or populated locations. Multiple victims (both injuries and fatalities) are associated with the attack, and both the victims and location(s) are chosen either at random or for their symbolic value. The event occurs within a single 24-hour period, though most attacks typically last only a few minutes. The motivation of the shooting must not correlate with gang violence or targeted militant or terroristic activity.*

*Definition developed by Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass. The data underlying the visualizations below are collected and maintained by Jaclyn Schildkraut and H. Jaymi Elsass.

Number of mass shootings in the United States, 1966-2020

402

They have resulted in:

1,449 deaths

3,590 victims
(both injured and killed)

Mass shootings have been increasing in frequency since 1966

1966-75
12 mass shootings

2011-20
160 mass shootings

95.7%

of perpetrators were male

The majority of mass shootings took place at a

workplace (29.4%)

school (25.1%)

Average age of mass shooters

33.2 years old

74.6%

of perpetrators used handguns

54.8%

of perpetrators were white

MORE FROM THE REGIONAL GUN VIOLENCE RESEARCH CONSORTIUM

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White Supremacist sits with Church members and then shoots them as they closed their eyes for prayer.

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Felicia Sanders is grappling with an unexpected casualty of the deadly Emanuel AME shooting - the loss of connection to the church that shaped her life. Sanders survived the 2015 shooting by playing dead as a gunman killed nine people attending Bible study. For survivors of mass shootings, their emotional and psychological wounds are often unrecognized. Sanders says the overwhelming media attention and calls for unity and solidarity by the church have not translated into actual emotional support for survivors like her. In her eyes, the church's leaders failed to privately minister to the most vulnerable, even as they publicly called for forgiveness and healing. Sanders, Emanuel AME senior pastor Rev. Eric S.C. Manning, and Jennifer Berry Hawes, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter of the Post and Courier and author of 'Grace Will Lead Us Home', spoke to The Post about the aftermath of the shooting.

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'Part of me died that night': Life after surviving the Charleston church shooting

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Felicia Sanders is grappling with an unexpected casualty of the deadly Emanuel AME shooting - the loss of connection to the church that shaped her life. Sanders survived the 2015 shooting by playing dead as a gunman killed nine people attending Bible study. For survivors of mass shootings, their emotional and psychological wounds are often unrecognized.

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Students who watched active shooter preparedness videos felt more afraid that a shooting would occur on campus, in addition to feeling more prepared to respond. The training video increased feelings of preparedness, but also increased feelings of fear among female students. The implications of active shooter training on student mental health and school culture are discussed.

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The communication of intent to do harm is known as leakage. In this study, nearly half of the perpetrators of mass shootings leaked their plans. Leakage was associated with receiving counseling and suicidality. Leakage is a critical moment for mental health intervention to prevent gun violence.

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The motivations of mass shooters have varied over time.

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Over 80% of mass shooters were in a noticeable crisis prior to their shooting

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Citizen-protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline - Jennifer Carlson

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Citizen-protectors: The Everyday Politics of Guns in an Age of Decline - Jennifer Carlson

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"Carlson argues that guns are taken up to address practical problems of policing and protection-in effect to manage social insecurities and suspicions surrounding state disinvestment and the efficacy of state institutions, especially law enforcement. In this context, guns carrying becomes a means of practicing good citizenship by producing social order amidst disorder. "

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Carrying Guns, Contesting Gender - Jennifer Dawn Carlson

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Carrying Guns, Contesting Gender - Jennifer Dawn Carlson

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How carrying a concealed weapon reinforces and challenges gender norms and changes how women move through and experience public spaces.

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Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy - Bernard Harcourt

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Language of the Gun: Youth, Crime, and Public Policy - Bernard Harcourt

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"Rarely is attention given to the young voices belonging to those who carry high-powered semiautomatic handguns. In "Language of the Gun," Bernard E. Harcourt recounts in-depth interviews with youths detained at an all-male correctional facility in the Arizona desert, exploring how they talk about guns and what meanings they ascribe to them in a broader attempt to understand some of the assumptions implicit in current handgun policies."

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About four-in-ten gun owners say there is always a loaded gun within easy reach when they're at home

Source: Pew Research Center

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"Federal data suggests that gun sales have risen in recent years, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic. In 2020, the number of monthly federal background checks for gun purchases was consistently at least 20% higher than in the same month in 2019, according to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System."

~ Pew Research Center, 2021 (https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/)