Guns and Violence

Guns and Violence

Author: Joyce Lee Malcolm

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2009-06-01

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 9780674040472

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Behind the passionate debate over gun control and armed crime lurk assumptions about the link between guns and violence. Indeed, the belief that more guns in private hands means higher rates of armed crime underlies most modern gun control legislation. But are these assumptions valid? Investigating the complex and controversial issue of the real relationship between guns and violence, Joyce Lee Malcolm presents an incisive, thoroughly researched historical study of England, whose strict gun laws and low rates of violent crime are often cited as proof that gun control works. To place the private ownership of guns in context, Malcolm offers a wide-ranging examination of English society from the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century, analyzing changing attitudes toward crime and punishment, the impact of war, economic shifts, and contrasting legal codes on violence. She looks at the level of armed crime in England before its modern restrictive gun legislation, the limitations that gun laws have imposed, and whether those measures have succeeded in reducing the rate of armed crime. Malcolm also offers a revealing comparison of the experience in England experience with that in the modern United States. Today Americans own some 200 million guns and have seen eight consecutive years of declining violence, while the English--prohibited from carrying weapons and limited in their right to self-defense have suffered a dramatic increase in rates of violent crime. This timely and thought-provoking book takes a crucial step in illuminating the actual relationship between guns and violence in modern society.


Firearms and Violence

Firearms and Violence

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2005-01-13

Total Pages: 341

ISBN-13: 0309091241

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For years proposals for gun control and the ownership of firearms have been among the most contentious issues in American politics. For public authorities to make reasonable decisions on these matters, they must take into account facts about the relationship between guns and violence as well as conflicting constitutional claims and divided public opinion. In performing these tasks, legislators need adequate data and research to judge both the effects of firearms on violence and the effects of different violence control policies. Readers of the research literature on firearms may sometimes find themselves unable to distinguish scholarship from advocacy. Given the importance of this issue, there is a pressing need for a clear and unbiased assessment of the existing portfolio of data and research. Firearms and Violence uses conventional standards of science to examine three major themes - firearms and violence, the quality of research, and the quality of data available. The book assesses the strengths and limitations of current databases, examining current research studies on firearm use and the efforts to reduce unjustified firearm use and suggests ways in which they can be improved.


Gun Violence and Mental Illness

Gun Violence and Mental Illness

Author: Liza H. Gold, M.D.

Publisher: American Psychiatric Pub

Published: 2015-11-17

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 1585624985

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Perhaps never before has an objective, evidence-based review of the intersection between gun violence and mental illness been more sorely needed or more timely. Gun Violence and Mental Illness, written by a multidisciplinary roster of authors who are leaders in the fields of mental health, public health, and public policy, is a practical guide to the issues surrounding the relation between firearms deaths and mental illness. Tragic mass shootings that capture headlines reinforce the mistaken beliefs that people with mental illness are violent and responsible for much of the gun violence in the United States. This misconception stigmatizes individuals with mental illness and distracts us from the awareness that approximately 65% of all firearm deaths each year are suicides. This book is an apolitical exploration of the misperceptions and realities that attend gun violence and mental illness. The authors frame both pressing social issues as public health problems subject to a variety of interventions on individual and collective levels, including utilization of a novel perspective: evidence-based interventions focusing on assessments and indicators of dangerousness, with or without indications of mental illness. Reader-friendly, well-structured, and accessible to professional and lay audiences, the book: * Reviews the epidemiology of gun violence and its relationship to mental illness, exploring what we know about those who perpetrate mass shootings and school shootings. * Examines the current legal provisions for prohibiting access to firearms for those with mental illness and whether these provisions and new mandated reporting interventions are effective or whether they reinforce negative stereotypes associated with mental illness. * Discusses the issues raised in accessing mental health treatment in regard to diminished treatment resources, barriers to access, and involuntary commitment.* Explores novel interventions for addressing these issues from a multilevel and multidisciplinary public health perspective that does not stigmatize people with mental illness. This includes reviews of suicide risk assessment; increasing treatment engagement; legal, social, and psychiatric means of restricting access to firearms when people are in crisis; and, when appropriate, restoration of firearm rights. Mental health clinicians and trainees will especially appreciate the risk assessment strategies presented here, and mental health, public health, and public policy researchers will find Gun Violence and Mental Illness a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume that eschews sensationalism and embraces serious scholarship.


Guns, Gun Violence and Gun Homicides

Guns, Gun Violence and Gun Homicides

Author: Wendell C. Wallace

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-12-11

Total Pages: 382

ISBN-13: 3030845184

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This book provides in-depth coverage of guns, gun violence and gun homicides from a variety of perspectives, including, but not limited to, gender, suicide, peaceology and police (in)action. Reflecting changes in contemporary perceptions as well as desires for scholarship emanating from under-researched areas of the globe, this book addresses the pervasive issue of guns, gun violence and gun homicides. Authored by a wide range of Social Science experts, and premised on the notions of epistemological diversity, inclusivity and knowledge production in the Global South, this book provides comprehensive coverage on the nebulous concern of guns and their destructive force using differing approaches to the same problem, with a focus on prevention/reduction of gun violence. Readers may find the chapters contained in this book to be fascinating, provocative, informative, clearly presented and solution oriented. This book is of special interest to students, criminologists, policymakers, criminal justice system officials and laypersons. It is invaluable to policymakers at differing levels of government who provide advice on the social issue of guns and gun violence in their respective jurisdictions.


After Gun Violence

After Gun Violence

Author: Craig Rood

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2019-05-20

Total Pages: 296

ISBN-13: 0271085452

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Mass shootings have become the “new normal” in American life. The same can be said for the public debate that follows a shooting: blame is cast, political postures are assumed, but no meaningful policy changes are enacted. In After Gun Violence, Craig Rood argues that this cycle is the result of a communication problem. Without advocating for specific policies, Rood examines how Americans talk about gun violence and suggests how we might discuss the issues more productively and move beyond our current, tragic impasse. Exploring the ways advocacy groups, community leaders, politicians, and everyday citizens talk about gun violence, Rood reveals how the gun debate is about far more than just guns. He details the role of public memory in shaping the discourse, showing how memories of the victims of gun violence, the Second Amendment, and race relations influence how gun policy is discussed. In doing so, Rood argues that forgetting and misremembering this history leads interest groups and public officials to entrenched positions and political failure and drives the public further apart. Timely and innovative, After Gun Violence advances our understanding of public discourse in an age of gridlock by illustrating how public deliberation and public memory shape and misshape one another. It is a search to understand why public discourse fails and how we can do better.


Regulating Gun Sales

Regulating Gun Sales

Author: Daniel W Webster

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press+ORM

Published: 2013-03-26

Total Pages: 32

ISBN-13: 1421411725

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This excerpt from the “masterful, timely, data-driven” study of the gun control debate examines the potential of stronger purchasing laws (Choice). As the debate on gun control continues, evidence-based research is needed to answer a crucial question: How do we reduce gun violence? One of the biggest gun policy reforms under consideration is the regulation of firearm sales and stopping the diversion of guns to criminals. This selection from the major anthology of studies Reducing Gun Violence in America presents compelling evidence that stronger purchasing laws and better enforcement of these laws result in lower gun violence. Additional material for this edition includes an introduction by Michael R. Bloomberg and Consensus Recommendations for Reforms to Federal Gun Policies from the Johns Hopkins University.


Confronting Gun Violence in America

Confronting Gun Violence in America

Author: Thomas Gabor

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2016-09-12

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 3319337238

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This book critically examines the link between guns and violence. It weighs the value of guns for self-protection against the adverse effects of gun ownership and carrying. It also analyses the role of public opinion, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and the firearms industry and lobby in impeding efforts to prevent gun violence. Confronting Gun Violence in America explores solutions to the gun violence problem in America, a country where 90 people die from gunshot wounds every day. The wide-range of solutions assessed include: a national gun licensing system; universal background checks; a ban on military-style weapons; better regulatory oversight of the gun industry; the use of technologies, such as the personalization of weapons; child access prevention; repealing laws that encourage violence; changing violent norms; preventing retaliatory violence; and strategies to rebuild American communities. This accessible and incisive book will be of great interest to students and researchers in criminology and sociology, as well as practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in gun ownership and violence.


Adolescent Gun Violence Prevention

Adolescent Gun Violence Prevention

Author: Nancy A. Dodson

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-10-29

Total Pages: 157

ISBN-13: 3030847101

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Each year, gun violence kills approximately 2,700 and injures approximately 14,500 children in the U.S.; the overwhelming majority of child gun deaths are among teenagers who die by homicide or suicide. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for Black teens. A recent spate of high-profile tragedies involving children, such as the Newtown mass shooting in 2012 and the Parkland mass shooting in 2018, have reinvigorated a national debate about the role of guns in our private and public spaces. Physicians, and in particular pediatricians, have become increasingly vocal about the need to address the epidemic of gun violence in the U.S. This book serves as an in-depth, comprehensive guide to adolescent gun violence prevention. It describes the epidemiology of teen gun violence in the U.S. by focusing on the parallel epidemics that claim the most lives: gun suicide among rural white males, and gun homicide among urban Black males. It offers in-depth reviews of key concepts that are crucial to reaching a meaningful understanding of gun violence. The text also addresses specific methods of intervention at various levels of society, from the individual; to the local community; and finally to the entire nation. This first of its kind book is a valuable reference for physicians, public health scientists, policy-makers, gun reform advocates, and anyone interested in working towards a safer future for young people.


Beating Guns

Beating Guns

Author: Shane Claiborne

Publisher: Brazos Press

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 149341707X

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★ Publishers Weekly starred review Parkland. Las Vegas. Dallas. Orlando. San Bernardino. Paris. Charleston. Sutherland Springs. Newtown. These cities are now known for the people who were shot and killed in them. More Americans have died from guns in the US in the last fifty years than in all the wars in American history. With less than 5% of the world's population, the people of the US own nearly half the world's guns. America also has the most annual gun deaths--homicide, suicide, and accidental gun deaths--at 105 per day, or more than 38,000 per year. Some people say it's a heart problem. Others say it's a gun problem. The authors of Beating Guns believe it's both. This book is for people who believe the world doesn't have to be this way. Inspired by the prophetic image of beating swords into plows, Beating Guns provides a provocative look at gun violence in America and offers a clarion call to change our hearts regarding one of the most significant moral issues of our time. Bestselling author, speaker, and activist Shane Claiborne and Michael Martin show why Christians should be concerned about gun violence and how they can be part of the solution. The authors transcend stale rhetoric and old debates about gun control to offer a creative and productive response. Full-color images show how guns are being turned into tools and musical instruments across the nation. Charts, tables, and facts convey the mind-boggling realities of gun violence in America, but as the authors make clear, there is a story behind every statistic. Beating Guns allows victims and perpetrators of gun violence to tell their own compelling stories, offering hope for change and helping us reimagine the world as one that turns from death to life, where swords become plows and guns are turned into garden tools.


Reducing Gun Violence in America

Reducing Gun Violence in America

Author: Daniel W. Webster

Publisher: JHU Press

Published: 2013-01-28

Total Pages: 311

ISBN-13: 1421411113

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Outstanding Academic Title, Choice Magazine The staggering toll of gun violence—which claims 31,000 U.S. lives each year—is an urgent public health issue that demands an effective evidence-based policy response. The Johns Hopkins University convened more than 20 of the world's leading experts on gun violence and policy to summarize relevant research and recommend policies that are both constitutional and have broad public support. Collected for the first time in one volume, this reliable, empirical research and legal analysis will help lawmakers, opinion leaders, and concerned citizens identify policy changes to address mass shootings, along with the less-publicized gun violence that takes an average of 80 lives every day. Selected recommendations include: • Background checks: Establish a universal background check system for all persons purchasing a firearm from any seller. • High-risk individuals: Expand the set of conditions that disqualify an individual from legally purchasing a firearm. • Mental health: Focus federal restrictions on gun purchases by persons with serious mental illness on the dangerousness of the individual. • Trafficking and dealer licensing: Appoint a permanent director to ATF and provide the agency with the authority to develop a range of sanctions for gun dealers who violate gun sales or other laws. • Personalized guns: Provide financial incentives to states to mandate childproof or personalized guns. • Assault weapons and high-capacity magazines: Ban the future sale of assault weapons and the future sale and possession of large-capacity ammunition magazines. • Research funds: Provide adequate federal funds to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and National Institute of Justice for research into the causes and solutions of gun violence. The book includes an analysis of the constitutionality of many recommended policies and data from a national public opinion poll that reflects support among the majority of Americans—including gun owners—for stronger gun policies.