By Gary Klein

In light of the difficulty achieving consensus about gun violence prevention at the federal level in the current political climate, leadership and innovation on gun violence prevention must come at the state and local levels. State legislators, law enforcement leaders, and state attorneys general must take the lead to find the pathway that most effectively protects their residents in collaboration with concerned communities. There is substantial evidence that states with comprehensive and effective gun laws have fewer incidents of gun homicides, gun suicides, and unintentional shooting deaths. These 50 proposals for state or local action have demonstrated success where they have been enacted and are a starting point for states interested in promoting public safety by addressing preventable gun violence.  

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2022. 24p.

By The Violence Policy Center

Large capacity ammunition magazines are the common thread running through most mass shootings in the United States. Since 1980, there have been at least 106 mass shootings (three or more fatalities not including the shooter) where the shooter used large capacity ammunition magazines containing more than 10 rounds. A total of 959 people were killed in these shootings, and 1,309 were wounded. This number is likely a significant undercount of actual incidents as there is no consistent collection or reporting on this data. Even in many high-profile shootings, information on magazine capacity is neither released nor reported. The Violence Policy Center has compiled this list of incidents by analyzing news reports and follow-up investigative reports on mass shootings. Only shootings in which there is specific information that large capacity magazines were used are included.  ( This document was last updated on January 11, 2024.

Washington, DC: Violence Policy Center, 2024. 17p. 

By Public Safety Canada

Overall crime rates in Canada have been decreasing over the past several decades. Despite this, there has been a marked increase in recent crime trends involving gun and gang violence (GGV). For example, between 2013 and 2020, Canada experienced a 91% increase in firearm-related homicides. At Canada’s borders, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has reported an overall increase in firearms seizures over the last five years. GGV-related issues are complex, cross-jurisdictional and multi-sectoral. Given the nature of gang violence and the knowledge that organized crime groups are involved in a variety of criminal activities and illegal commodities, interventions must be comprehensive and include activities across the spectrum of prevention, intervention, and enforcement. While provinces and territories (PTs) are responsible for the administration of justice, including policing, in their jurisdictions, there is also a federal role for supporting a multi-faceted coordinated approach to address GGV. To respond to these increased crime trends, the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada was mandated to work with provincial, territorial and municipal counterparts to develop a strategy for the federal government to best support communities and law enforcement in their ongoing efforts to make it tougher for criminals to secure and use handguns and assault weapons and to reduce GGV in communities across Canada. From this, Budget 2018 committed funding over five years to establish the Initiative to Take Action Against Gun and Gang Violence (ITAAGGV). This horizontal initiative supports Public Safety Canada (PS) (as the lead agency), the CBSA, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) with investments across three themes.

Ottawa: His Majesty the King in Right of Canada, as represented by the Ministers of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, 2023. 40p.

By The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence

Gun violence is an American public health crisis decades in the making. The latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data show that 39,707 people, 86% of whom were male, lost their lives to gun violence in 2019. Gun death data are the most reliable type of gun violence data currently available -- but gun deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of gun violence. With this report, it is our mission to share the most accurate and up-to-date data related to gun deaths while we advocate for more and better data related to gun violence in all its forms. Ultimately, we strive to apply these data to create and implement life-saving policies and programs that will end the gun violence epidemic

Washington, DC: Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. 2021. 37p.

Joseph Blocher, Reva B. Siegel

Government regulates guns, it is widely assumed, because of the death and injuries guns can inflict. This standard account is radically incomplete—and in ways that dramatically skew constitutional analysis of gun rights. As we show in an account of the armed protesters who invaded the Michigan legislature in 2020, guns can be used not only to injure but also to intimidate. The government must regulate guns to prevent physical injuries and weapons threats in order to protect public safety and the public sphere on which a constitutional democracy depends.

For centuries the Anglo-American common law has regulated weapons not only to keep members of the polity free from physical harm, but also to enable government to protect their liberties against weapons threats and to preserve public peace and order. We show that this regulatory tradition grounds the understanding of the Second Amendment set forth in District of Columbia v. Heller, where Justice Antonin Scalia specifically invokes it as a basis for reasoning about government’s authority to regulate the right Heller recognized.

Today, a growing number of judges and Justices are ready to expand gun rights beyond Heller’s paradigmatic scene: a law-abiding citizen in his home defending his family from a criminal invader. But expanding gun rights beyond the home and into the public sphere presents questions concerning valued liberties and activities of other law-abiding citizens. Americans are increasingly wielding guns in public spaces, roused by persons they politically oppose or public decisions with which they disagree. This changing paradigm of gun use has been enabled by changes in the law and practice of public carry. As courts consider whether and how to extend constitutional protection to these changed practices of public carry, it is crucial that they adhere to the portions of Justice Scalia’s Heller decision that recognize government’s

“longstanding” interest in regulating weapons in public places.

We show how government’s interest in protecting public safety has evolved with changing forms of constitutional community and of weapons threats. And we show how this more robust understanding of public safety bears on a variety of weapons regulations both inside and outside of courts—in constitutional litigation, in enacting legislation, and in ensuring the evenhanded enforcement of gun laws. Recognizing that government regulates guns to prevent social as well as physical harms is a critical first step in building a constitutional democracy where citizens have equal claims to security and to the exercise of liberties, whether or not they are armed and however they may differ by race, sex, or viewpoint.

116 Northwestern University Law Review 139-201 (2021)