Abstract
The objectives of this chapter are to provide an overview of gun violence in the United States, discuss the challenges that exist in addressing this crisis, and to provide policy recommendations. To do so, the authors compiled and analyzed information from academic articles, reports from nonprofit organizations, datasets from government agencies, press releases, and news media content. Section one provides an overview of how gun violence manifests in the United States and its impact on numerous communities. Three main challenges are discussed in sections two through four. Section two describes how this country is an outlier in terms of gun production as well as gun ownership, and the linkage between the prevalence of guns to higher levels of gun violence. Section three analyses already implemented policies to reduce gun violence and addresses gaps as well as regulatory challenges that make the population more vulnerable. Section four describes the ties between the gun industry and the NRA, detailing how that relationship has contributed to higher levels of gun ownership, to blocking gun laws, and to adopting dangerous regulations. Finally, recommendations are provided in the conclusion.
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Notes
- 1.
These states are Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, and South Carolina.
- 2.
These states are Hawaii, New Hampshire, Maine, Vermont and North Dakota.
- 3.
Only considering cases with one aggressor and one victim.
- 4.
The U.S. accounted for less than 50 percent of the population of all 23 high-income nations combined.
- 5.
This definition is different from the one used by Gun Violence Archive because it only considers fatalities and excludes those shooting where shooter and victims were generally unknown.
- 6.
Firearms include the following categories: pistols, rifles, revolvers, shotguns as well as miscellaneous firearms.
- 7.
Organized events with the objective of displaying and selling firearms and accessories. They are often held in public spaces. They are not regulated.
- 8.
Weapons capable of continuously firing more than one round with a single trigger pull.
- 9.
Although exact numbers cannot be known, due to the facts related to such incidents being treated as tax information under federal law.
- 10.
A gun capable of firing one round per trigger pull.
- 11.
Not including close to 52,000 licensees of collectors of curious and relics. Figures as of December 2019.
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Weigend Vargas, E., Sugarmann, J., Bhatia, R. (2021). Gun Violence and Key Challenges in the United States. In: Pérez Esparza, D., Ricart, C.A.P., Weigend Vargas, E. (eds) Gun Trafficking and Violence. St Antony's Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-65636-2_3
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