Gun violence in the United States is a public health crisis.
It goes beyond the mass shootings that grab the nation’s attention. Every day, gun violence takes lives from communities all across the country in the form of suicides, unintentional shootings, and interpersonal conflicts that become fatal due to easy access to guns.
Yet this violence is not inevitable. In 2018, the Center for American Progress released a comprehensive analysis of actions that could be taken to reduce gun violence in America. There is no single, simple solution to reducing gun violence in this country. But these commonsense reforms offer a starting point.
Extreme risk protection orders provide a crucial tool for family members and law enforcement to intervene and prevent a tragic shooting.
Guns in the hands of domestic abusers pose an extreme risk to victims of abuse.
A comprehensive approach to reducing gun violence must include support for evidence-based violence intervention programs that engage all community stakeholders.
A glaring gap in the federal law allows individuals to buy a gun without a background check and with no questions asked.
Two decades of restrictions on public health research into gun violence has left us willfully ignorant about the full scope of this problem and the most effective interventions to prevent it.
Weapons of war should have no place in our communities.
