By Joseph Blocher, Samuel W. Buell, Jacob D. Charles, and Darrell A.H. Miller  

The American gun debate is increasingly populated with scenes of people pointing and otherwise displaying guns. What is the legal regime governing gun displays, and how well can it address the distinct social and legal problems they pose? In this Essay, we argue that the current structure of criminal law does not supply clear rules of conduct sufficient to avoid the negative effects of gun displays, and that the rhetorical and expressive effects of Second Amendment debates threaten to make the situation worse. We also suggest how the legal rules might be improved, and how battles over norms—as much as criminal prohibitions and defenses—will continue to shape both social practice and law when it comes to displays of firearms in public and towards other persons.

99 Texas Law Review 1173-1200 (2021)

By  Aziz Huq, Robert Vargas & Caitlin Loftus

From May 29, 2020, onward, the City of Chicago witnessed an escalating wave of protests against police violence under the Black Lives Matter (BLM) banner. On one count, some 52,000 people participated in BLM protests in the city. Many hoped that such mobilization “would democratize our politics and embolden our visions for change,” especially when it came to public safety. Yet just over a year later, the Chicago City Council passed Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s municipal budget with a $189 million dollar jump in police funding. That budget received support from several Democratic Socialist alderpeople — previously among BLM’s most vociferous supporters — and many progressive activists. No law forced the council’s or the mayor’s hands. Unlike many other jurisdictions, Chicago does not have a “structural entrenchment” of law enforcement arising from an “insulation of urban police departments” through state legislation. To the contrary, earlier in 2021, Governor Jay Pritzker had signed a “sweeping” criminal justice reform bill partly in response to concerns about racial justice. State-level forces, that is, listed in favor of change. What then happened to defuse the momentum of social change in Chicago?

The answer, we contend in this Essay, has in part to do with guns, and in particular the way that we talk about guns. Through increased rhetoric about illegal guns and heightened enforcement of gun possession laws, Chicago’s mayor and police chief have managed to legitimize an increase in policing that widened racial inequalities at a time of unprecedented pressure from activists. In the teeth of sharp criticism from BLM, Mayor Lightfoot deployed a historically enduring set of arguments about gun violence against liberal, reform-minded political competitors. At the same time, her police superintendent pressed for a set of coercive responses that again had at best questionable effects on gun violence even as they more assuredly reinforced racially stratified patterns of law enforcement. The result has been a shift in policing resources that has increased the disparate burden of policing upon Chicago’s Black and Hispanic communities without much evidence of an offsetting public-safety benefit. This echoes experience in similar past periods of social unrest, when Chicago used gun talk to defuse mobilizing energies of social movements. In 2020, as before, officials tendered both regulatory and coercive interventions in response to the perceived problem of gun violence. The former have tended to wither; the latter endure, even if their effect upon actual rates of gun-related crimes is ambiguous at best.

Harvard Law Review Forum [Vol. 135:473, 2022.

By Joseph Blocher & Reva B. Siegel  

  Is racism in gun regulation reason to look to the Supreme Court to expand Second Amendment rights? While discussion of race and guns recurs across the briefs in New York State Rifle & Pistol Ass’n v. Bruen, 1 it is especially prominent in the brief of legal aid attorneys and public defenders2 who employed their Second Amendment arguments to showcase stories of racial bias in the enforcement of New York’s licensing and gun possession laws. Because this Second Amendment claim came from a coalition on the left, it was widely celebrated by gun rights advocates.3 This Essay argues that the racial justice concerns the public defenders highlight should be addressed in democratic politics rather than in the federal courts. We show that problems to which public defenders point are partly attributable to the Court’s decades-long abdication of equal protection oversight of the criminal justice system — its transformation of equal protection into an instrument for protecting majority  rather than minority rights.4 Actors in democratic politics can enforce equal protection in ways that courts have not and they can enforce equal protection in ways that courts cannot, by coordinating multiple racial justice goals, seeking freedom from gun violence in nondiscriminatory law enforcement and transformed, less carceral approaches to public safety.5 Only democratic actors have the institutional competence to integrate these race-egalitarian aims and to experiment with strategies for achieving them. We highlight jurisdictions where there is debate about the best toolkit to achieve inclusive forms of public safety in an era of rising crime.6 None of this is possible if the Court expands Second Amendment rights in ways that deprive communities of the democratic authority they need to coordinate these various compelling public ends 

Harvard Law Review Forum,  Vol. 135:449  2022.

By The  U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

The shooting death of Trayvon Martin on February 26, 2012, and later that year, on November 12th, the shooting and killing of Jordan Davis triggered a national controversy over the legislated criminal defense called “stand your ground.” These laws expanded the self-defense principles of the castle doctrine to situations and areas outside the curtilage of a home. It also expanded the principle of self-defense to a lesser justification standard than that of justifiable homicide. The United States Commission on Civil Rights opened its own inquiry on the subject in May 2013, and in October 2014, held a hearing in Florida. The transcript of that hearing forms the main body of that report. Unlike other hearings or briefings, the work of the Commission was conceived as an investigation, on a bipartisan vote made possible by the vote of then-Vice-Chair Abigail Thernstrom.  We are here presented with only the testimony heard in Florida five years ago, as well as research and public information subsequent, but that does not prevent members of this Commission to state their observations on an issue that continues to trouble our nation to this day. And so my statement begins. The question we asked then, and we ask now, continues to be: do Stand Your Ground laws have an unacceptable racial bias in their application in the criminal justice system. What we do know, and what we cannot ignore, is that the same racial biases that have permeated our criminal justice system cannot be separated from this issue. When you consider the racial disparities in selective prosecution and sentencing that have been amply documented in the literature is it any wonder that a law like Stand Your Ground, which in effect grants both powers to an individual under the guise of self-defense would suffer similar maladies?

Washington, DC: USCCR, 2020. 386p.

By Joel Negin, Philip Alpers and Rebecca Peters   

The Australian experience with firearm regulation provides important lessons for other jurisdictions with high rates of gun violence. This example demonstrates that taking a public health approach to firearm injury prevention by reducing access, strengthening regulation, and engaging the community can reduce gun deaths. Along with emerging evidence in New Zealand after the Christchurch mosque massacre, it also shows that a mass shooting incident can be a galvanising event for a country to improve policies on a wide scale.. Australia’s sweeping policy change used a substantial amount of the political capital of the relatively new, right-leaning Prime Minister. The support of many conservatives was crucial and was secured by overwhelming pro-firearm regulation opinion polls and media pressure. Gun policy reforms were supported by all major political parties, whereas conservative parties in many other countries staunchly oppose such reforms. The success of firearm regulation has since become a source of pride for many Australians. Mass shootings account for a small proportion of firearm-related deaths, but they tend to receive a substantial amount of media coverage and can focus the attention of the public and politicians on gun violence more broadly. Although preventing gun deaths is essential, focusing on deaths obscures another tragic reality of firearm violence. Beyond the people killed with firearms, a larger number are injured and have life-changing pain, disability, and psychological distress, which leads to substantial expenses related to medical care, mental health care, and rehabilitation. Australian firearm policy now focuses more than it did in the mid-1990s on domestic and family violence, which often involves additional victims besides intimate partners, including children. While firearm injury prevention has been a notable public health success in Australia, the field of firearm injury prevention is remarkably under-researched and poorly understood. This public policy gap undermines gun control successes. Data on firearms and firearm violence in Australia is patchy, inconsistent, and incomplete. Most studies are based only on deaths and ignore injuries completely. Eight jurisdictions store widely variable data, often in obsolete and inaccurate firearm registers. In order to support the policy response, strong data collection and data use, as well as data-sharing across jurisdictions, are required. This can allow the monitoring of trends and impacts as well as the analysis of the impact of policy changes over time    

Halifax, NS: The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2022. 49p.

By The Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty

  Volume 4 addresses several issues set out in the Commission’s mandate, including the direction to inquire into “the steps taken to inform, support and engage victims, families, and affected citizens.” We also develop additional main findings as well as lessons learned and recommendations pertaining to the direction to examine these issues set out in the Orders in Council: (ii) access to firearms (v) communications with the public during and after the event, including the appropriate use of the public alerting system established under the Alert Ready program (ix) policies with respect to the disposal of police vehicles and any associated equipment, kit, and clothing (xi) information and support provided to the families of victims, affected citizens, police personnel, and the community. Volume 4, Community, focuses on the role of communities and their members in responding to critical incidents and in contributing to community safety and wellbeing. We open our report by recognizing the extensive harm resulting from the April 2020 mass casualty, one that centres on the lives taken, the survivors, and their families; and ripples out to affected communities, emergency responders, and outward through a circular pattern of impact. One of our main findings in Volume 2 is that community members played a central role as first responders during the mass casualty. We also find the harms caused by the perpetrator’s violence did not begin on April 18. in Volume 3 we bring together these two findings and underscore the ways in which community members are also first preventers, in the sense of fostering the safety of women and others affected by gender-based violence. This volume elaborates this understanding of the dual community role. Communities and their members are both affected by critical incident responses and by systems for ensuring everyday safety, and they have an active role in responding to  incidents and in contributing to community safety and well-being on an ongoing basis. Perhaps more fundamentally, the structure of our Report recognizes that we need to rebalance the relationship between communities and police in ensuring public safety. To put it simply, communities come first.     

 Halifax, NS: Joint Federal/Provincial Commission into the April 2020 Nova Scotia Mass Casualty, 2023. 734p.

By Davis, Ari; Kim, Rose; Crifasi, Cassandra K.

From the document: "Gun violence is an ongoing public health crisis in the United States that impacts the health and wellbeing of all of us. [...] Fortunately, there are evidence-based, equitable solutions to prevent gun violence. These solutions are supported by most people, including gun owners. In spite of this wide support, many policymakers have been unwilling to follow the evidence and enact policies that will save lives. Each year it is our mission to provide policymakers and the public accurate and up-to-date data on gun fatalities and illustrate the enormous toll gun violence has on our country. This report is an update of 'A Year in Review: 2020 Gun Deaths in the U.S.' [hyperlink] It uses 2021 firearm fatality data released by the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] in January 2023. We recognize that each data point discussed in this report is a person who died by gun violence. This loss has an immeasurable impact on families, friends, and communities; data can only partly illuminate the true burden of gun violence. In addition to analyzing the data, we must listen to and uplift the voices of those directly impacted by gun violence, their loved ones, and their communities. Yet even on its own, the 2021 CDC data paints an alarming picture of the epidemic of gun violence. [...] By leveraging the data outlined in this report, we can improve gun violence prevention strategies and create a more peaceful future, free from gun violence."

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School Of Public Health; Johns Hopkins Center For Gun Violence Solutions. 2023. 45p

By Everytown for Gun Safety and Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions. ( 

Extreme Risk Protection Order (ERPO) laws create an opportunity to intervene and prevent firearm violence when there are warning signs that an individual poses a risk of harm to self or others. While ERPO laws are relatively new, a growing body of research demonstrates the potential for these laws to prevent firearm violence, particularly firearm suicide, and multiple victim/mass shootings. Interest in ERPO laws has increased in recent years, with 16 states having enacted these laws between 2018 and 2023. Implementation varies widely across and within states. As a result of strong ERPO implementation efforts in some jurisdictions, more information is now available for state and local leaders about how to implement and adapt ERPO laws for their own communities. In addition, the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act of 2022 included $750 million in new federal grant funding for states, some of which is designated to support ERPO implementation. To meet this moment, the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund and the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions have partnered to compile this guide of the best available practices and promising approaches to effective implementation of extreme risk laws. These recommendations are informed by conversations with individuals who are pioneering ERPO implementation, in addition to the best practices shared at a December 2022 convening of ERPO leaders from around the country.   

New York; Baltimore: The Authors: 2023. 52p.  

By The  Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy and the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health

  Alcohol use and gun violence are leading causes of preventable injury and death in the United States. Alcohol kills 140,000 people annually;2 guns kill more than 48,000.3 Both of them are public health crises demanding strong policies. These issues are most deadly when they intersect with one another. An estimated 1 in 3 gun homicide perpetrators drank heavily before murdering their victims, 30% of gun homicide victims drank heavily before being killed, and a quarter of gun suicide victims were heavily drinking before they died by suicide.4,5 Despite alcohol clearly being a strong risk factor for gun violence, few attempts have been made to address this intersection. Heavy drinking was involved in: Nearly one third of all gun homicides A quarter of all gun suicides In 2013, the Consortium issued its first policy recommendation related to risky alcohol use and firearm access.i Five years later, the Consortium convened leading experts to reassess this recommendation about firearm prohibitions associated with DUIs as an effective policy measure to prevent firearm-related deaths while ensuring racial equity in enforcement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, excessive drinking increased by 21% and alcohol-related deaths increased approximately 25%.6 At the same time, gun sales increased by 40%, gun homicides by 35%, and gun suicides had the largest one-year increase ever recorded.7,8 These alarming trends urge us to think about alcohol misuse as a risk factor for gun violence. To better understand this connection, the Consortium, in partnership with the Center for Gun Violence Solutions, developed this report to highlight the available research to inform policy. As detailed in this report, alcohol misuse is associated with a risk of dangerous firearm behaviors, interpersonal firearm violence, and gun suicide. Although data about how this dangerous intersection affects different communities is limited, people of color are disproportionately affected by both gun violence and alcohol misuse. This report summarizes the connection between alcohol and firearm use, reviews existing state laws, and makes a core set of recommendations for addressing the problem at the state level: 11 Limiting access to firearms by persons with a record of alcohol misuse 2) 2 Limiting access to guns when and where alcohol is consumed

Baltimore: The Authors, 2023. 32p.

By  Ari Davis, Rose Kim, Cassandra Crifasi

  Gun violence is an ongoing public health crisis in the United States that impacts the health and wellbeing of all of us. In 2020, during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. experienced an unprecedented spike in gun homicides. Many believed that this spike would be short-lived; levels of gun violence would subside as institutions effectively responded to the pandemic and people returned to their daily routines. This, unfortunately, was not the case. In 2021, for the second straight year, gun deaths reached the highest number ever recorded. Nearly 49,000 people died from gun violence in the U.S. in 2021. Each day, an average of 134 people died from gun violence—one death every 11 minutes. Gun homicides continued to rise in 2021, increasing 7.6% over the previous year. Gun suicides reached record levels, increasing 8.3%, the largest one-year increase recorded in over four decades. Guns, once again, were the leading cause of death among children and teens in 2021 accounting for more deaths than COVID-19, car crashes, or cancers. Coincident with the rise in gun-related deaths were record gun sales. Millions of first-time purchasers, including Black and Hispanic/Latino people, and women of all races and ethnicities, bought guns during the pandemic at unprecedented levels. Many of these purchasers were motivated by gun industry marketing claims that guns make you safer. Yet, this is far from the truth; gun ownership greatly increases the risk of dying by suicide and homicide. While it is too early to tell whether this surge in gun purchases contributed directly to the rise in gun violence the country is experiencing, we know that over the long run this influx of guns will only exacerbate the public health crisis of gun violence and worsen health disparities. Fortunately, there are evidence-based, equitable solutions to prevent gun violence. These solutions are supported by most people, including gun owners. In spite of this wide support, many policymakers have been unwilling to follow the evidence and enact policies that will save lives.   

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health 2023. 45p.

By Robert VerBruggen  

When the 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, set off riots, we knew very little about the true number of people killed by American law enforcement. But since that time, private actors have stepped up efforts to count such killings comprehensively—and to collect some basic details about each incident. These data, along with agency-specific information furnished by police departments, have facilitated a massive amount of research into an important question: whether there is racial bias in police officers’ use of lethal force. This report summarizes several major lines of work on this question. The simplest studies merely compare racial groups’ rates of police-killing deaths with their rates of crime. Other studies meticulously account for the situational factors of each case, ask whether black officers are less likely than white officers to kill black suspects, analyze police-shooting rates geographically, or even put officers in simulation exercises to see how they respond to suspects of different races.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2022. 32p.

By Garen J. Wintemute

Off-the-books, untraceable “ghost guns” can now be manufactured at home, easily, and in large numbers; they contribute ever more frequently to firearm violence, including hate violence and domestic terrorism. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives estimates that in 2019 alone, law enforcement agencies recovered more than 10,000 ghost guns. The manuscript describes the current situation and suggests specific actions that state and federal governments can take to avert disaster.

Injury Epidemiology volume 8, Article number: 13 (2021)

By Ye Liu ; Michael Siegel; Bisakha Sen

Question  How are states’ firearm laws associated with firearm-related deaths in nearby states?

Findings  In this pooled cross-sectional analysis involving firearm laws and firearm-related deaths from 2000 to 2019 in the 48 contiguous states, a permit requirement for purchasing all firearms had an interstate association with decreased total firearm-related deaths and homicide, whereas the prohibition of firearm possession for individuals who have committed a violent misdemeanor had an interstate association with decreased firearm suicide.

Meaning  These findings suggest that synergic legislative action to implement firearm laws in proximate states may help prevent firearm-related deaths.

  AMA Network Open. 2022;5(11):e2240750. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.40750 (Rep  

By Ye Liu, Michael Siegel, Bisakha Sen 

Introduction: Firearm injury is a major U.S. public health concern. This study aims to evaluate whether the relationship between state firearm laws and state firearm deaths are affected by comparatively lenient firearm laws in neighboring states.

Methods: This observational study used 2000‒2017 data on firearm deaths and firearm laws of the 48 contiguous states of the U.S. (Alaska, Hawaii, and the District of Columbia excluded). The associations among state firearm deaths, state firearm laws, and presence of neighboring states with more lenient laws were analyzed using negative binomial regression models with state- and year-fixed effects. Analyses were conducted in 2019‒2020.

Results: There were 578,022 firearm deaths of all intents during the study period or 11.1 firearm deaths (IQR=8.5-14.0) per 100,000 population. The presence of more state firearm laws was associated with decreased firearm deaths (incident rate ratio=0.991, 95% CI=0.987, 0.996). However, weaker firearm laws in neighboring states correlated with more firearm deaths within a state (incident rate ratio=1.016, 95% CI=1.004, 1.028). Failing to account for weaker laws in neighboring states led to the underestimation of the impact of 1 additional law on state's own firearm deaths (incident rate ratio=0.994, 95% CI=0.989, 0.998 vs 0.991, 95% CI=0.987, 0.996) by approximately 20%.

American Journal of Preventive Medicine: 59(5): 648-657, 2020.

By Ned Levine, Bindi Naik-Mathuria, Cary Cain, Lisa Pompeii, Abiodun Oluyomi

Although the media tends to focus on homicides when it comes to firearm violence, and mass shootings in particular, the reality of the public health crisis is more complicated and widespread than many realize. Gun killings are of course tragic, but nonfatal firearm violence can also severely injure victims, leaving them physically debilitated or psychologically damaged for years on end. The family and friends of the victims are often left traumatized as well. But the risks from firearms are even more extensive, involving the psychological costs, since the vast majority of firearm crimes do not involve deaths or injuries.

In the greater Houston area, firearm violence presents various dangers for the public. This report illustrates the scope of the problem by examining firearm incidents occurring in Harris County, Texas, between 2018 and 2021. The incidents were identified using the databases of the four largest law enforcement jurisdictions in Harris County — the Houston, Pasadena, and Baytown police departments and the Harris County Sheriff’s Office — and cover the vast majority of incidents in the county. From this data, we were able to identify trends in the region’s homicide rates, the distribution of firearm incidents by severity, and firearm incident “hot spots”. Ultimately, the findings emphasize the need for a comprehensive approach for reducing gun violence in our society.

Houston: Rice University, Baker Institute for Public Policy, 2023. 12p.

By Claire Boine , Michael Siegel and Abdine Maiga 

Background: Although gun owners overwhelmingly support violence prevention policies, they are hesitant to speak up publicly to advocate for these policies. We tested a series of communication messages on gun owners’ level of support for various firearm violence prevention policies and on their willingness to engage in gun violence prevention advocacy. Methods: We conducted three consecutive experiments, testing a total of thirteen messages on a sample of gun owners over 18 years old who live in the U.S. The first was a random experiment, the second a quasi-experiment, and the third a randomized control trial. The goal of having these varied methods was to develop messages applicable to different contexts with different levels of information about the audience. Results: The most effective message was a script showing respect for gun owners’ decisions to purchase a firearm and proposing a balanced policy roadmap to end gun violence, which led to an increase in gun owner’s willingness to engage in eight diferent advocacy activities. We also found a value-based message conveying loyalty to increase support for domestic violence related prohibitions and willingness to engage in advocacy for gun violence prevention policies. Conclusions: Public health professionals need to develop communication strategies that are aligned with gun owners’ values and that afrm respect for gun culture and for gun owners’ decisions to own a gun.

Injury Prevention. 9(30): 2022

By Kathleen Grene, Amani Dharani and Michael Siegel

•   Background While gun owners are frequently surveyed, we are not aware of any study that has examined principles held by gun owners that underlie their gun policy opinions, or their opinions about specific provisions of each policy. To fnd the common ground between gun owners and non-gun owners, this paper aims to answer the following: (1) What underlying principles affects gun owner support for gun policies; (2) how do gun owners’ attitudes change depending on the specific provisions within these policies? Methods In May 2022, a survey was administered by NORC at the University of Chicago and completed by adult gun owners (n=1078) online or by phone. Statistical analyses were performed using STATA. The survey used a 5-point Likert scale to evaluate gun owners’ principles and attitudes toward frearm regulation, such as red fag laws, and possible provisions to these policies. Focus groups and interviews were conducted with 96 adult gun owners and non-gun owners to further clarify points in the survey for the former and to ascertain support for the same policies and their potential provisions for the latter. Results The principle that gun owners identified with the most concerned keeping guns out of the hands of those with an increased risk for violence. There was significant overlap among gun owners and non-gun owners on policy support, especially with this central theme that those with a history of violence should be prevented from accessing a firearm. The degree of support for policies was different depending on what provisions were said to be included in the policy. For example, the degree of support for universal background checks ranged from 19.9 to 78.4% depending on the details of the legislation. Conclusion This research demonstrates common ground between gun owners and non-gun owners: It informs the gun safety policy community about gun owners’ views and principles on gun safety policy and which policy provisions impact their support for a given law. This paper suggests that an effective, mutually agreed upon gun safety policy is possible. 

  Injury Epidemiology (2023) 10:21   

By Monica P. Bhatt, Sara B. Heller, Max Kapustin, Marianne Bertrand & Christopher Blattman

  Gun violence is the most pressing public safety problem in American cities. We report results from a randomized controlled trial (N = 2, 456) of a community-researcher partnership called the Rapid Employment and Development Initiative (READI) Chicago. The program offered an 18-month job alongside cognitive behavioral therapy and other social support. Both algorithmic and human referral methods identified men with strikingly high scope for gun violence reduction: for every 100 people in the control group, there were 11 shooting and homicide victimizations during the 20-month outcome period. Fifty-five percent of the treatment group started programming, comparable to take-up rates in programs for people facing far lower mortality risk. After 20 months, there is no statistically significant change in an index combining three measures of serious violence, the study’s primary outcome. Yet there are signs that this program model has promise. One of the three measures, shooting and homicide arrests, declines 65 percent (p = 0.13 after multiple testing adjustment). Because shootings are so costly, READI generates estimated social savings between $182,000 and $916,000 per participant (p = 0.03), implying a benefit-cost ratio between 4:1 and 20:1. Moreover, participants referred by outreach workers—a pre-specified subgroup—show enormous declines in both arrests and victimizations for shootings and homicides (79 and 43 percent, respectively) that remain statistically significant even after multiple testing adjustments. These declines are concentrated among outreach referrals with higher predicted risk, suggesting that human and algorithmic targeting may work better together. 

Unpublished paper, 2023. 136p.

By Daniel Semenza and Richard Stansfield

America is entrenched in an ongoing epidemic of gun violence. During the COVID-19 pandemic, homicides and nonfatal shootings spiked, reaching unprecedented levels in many US cities. Gun violence remains exceptionally high around the country, although there is evidence that homicides are beginning to decrease in cities like Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis. Generally, the US has a homicide rate roughly 25 times higher than most peer industrialized countries and contains about 40 percent of the global stock of civilian firearms. Almost all of the firearms that end up on the streets are first sold through legally appointed federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) following manufacture or import. Given the unique ease of access to firearms in the US, there is a growing sense of urgency to better understand how crime guns are acquired and from where they originate to support much stronger supply-side efforts to address gun violence.

Prior research has focused extensively on the large “secondary market” for firearms, where guns are transferred between unlicensed persons or to those legally prohibited from buying a firearm. Most guns used in a crime are illegally acquired through secondary market channels via small-scale purchases, middlemen, and “fences” that supply weapons to local illicit markets. In contrast, the focus of our recent work has been on the “primary market,” which includes the legal retail sale of firearms from federally licensed firearm dealers (FFLs) to private consumers. The primary market directly feeds the illicit secondary market for firearms.

Albany, NY: Rockefeller Institute of Government, 2023. 26p.

By Jared Diamond

London. Penguin 1997. 675p.

In this "artful, informative, and delightful" (William H. McNeill, New York Review of Books) book, Jared Diamond convincingly argues that geographical and environmental factors shaped the modern world. Societies that had had a head start in food production advanced beyond the hunter-gatherer stage, and then developed religion --as well as nasty germs and potent weapons of war --and adventured on sea and land to conquer and decimate preliterate cultures. A major advance in our understanding of human societies, Guns, Germs, and Steel chronicles the way that the modern world came to be and stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, the Rhone-Poulenc Prize, and the Commonwealth club of California's Gold Medal.