"In this small book David Hemenway has produced a masterwork. He has dissected the various aspects of the gun violence epidemic in the United States into its component parts and considered them separately. He has produced a scientifically based analysis of the data and indeed the microdata of the over 30,000 deaths and 75,000 injuries which occur each year. Consideration and adoption of the policy lessons he recommends would strengthen the Constitutional protections that all of our citizens have to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." -Richard F. Corlin, Past President, American Medical Association "This lucid and penetrating study is essential reading for anyone who wishes to understand the tragedy of gun violence in America and-even more important-what we can do to stop it. David Hemenway cuts through the cant and rhetoric in a way that no fair-minded person can dismiss, and no sane society can afford to ignore." -Richard North Patterson, novelist "The rate of gun-related homicide, suicide, and accidental injury has reached epidemic proportions in American society. Diagnosing and treating the gun violence epidemic demands the development of public health solutions in conjunction with legislative and law enforcement strategies." -Kweisi Mfume, President and CEO of NAACP "In scholarly, sober analytic assessments, including rigorous critiques of NRA-popularized pseudoscience, David Hemenway constructs a convincing case that firearm availability is a critical and proximal cause of unparalleled carnage. By formulating such violence as a public health issue, he proposes workable policies analogous to ones that reduced injuries from tobacco, alcohol, and automobiles." -Jerome P. Kassirer, Editor-in-Chief Emeritus, New England Journal of Medicine, and Distinguished Professor, Tufts University School of Medicine "As a former District Attorney and Attorney General, I know the urgency of providing safe homes, schools and neighborhoods for all. This remarkable tour-de-force is a powerful study of one promising solution: a data-rich, eminently readable demonstration of why we should treat gun violence as an American epidemic." -Scott Harshbarger, Former Attorney General of Massachusetts, President and CEO of Common Cause On an average day in the United States, guns are used to kill almost eighty people, and to wound nearly three hundred more. If any other consumer product had this sort of disastrous effect, the public outcry would be deafening; yet when it comes to guns such facts are accepted as a natural consequence of supposedly high American rates of violence. Private Guns, Public Health explodes that myth and many more, revealing the advantages of treating gun violence as a consumer safety and public health problem. David Hemenway fair-mindedly and authoritatively demonstrates how a public-health approach-which emphasizes prevention over punishment, and which has been so successful in reducing the rates of injury and death from infectious disease, car accidents, and tobacco consumption-can be applied to gun violence. Hemenway uncovers the complex connections between guns and self-defense, gun violence and schools, gun prevalence and homicide, and more. Finally, he outlines a policy course that would significantly reduce gun-related injury and death. With its bold new public-health approach to guns, Private Guns, Public Health marks a shift in our understanding of guns that will-finally-point us toward a solution.

A new edition of a classic: the first complete picture of the public-health approach to gun violence

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.

"This book will differ from other books on gun violence in that it will serve as both a primer and a handbook for public health practitioners, advocates, students, and the public, and will make information about the public health approach to gun violence accessible. Using a conceptual framework that has led to successes in decreasing motor vehicle related deaths and disability, the book will focus on effective strategies to engage in productive dialogue about gun safety while protecting the rights of responsible gun owners. It is meant to be a resource rather than a textbook to be read cover-to-cover"--

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.

Public health has made our lives safer—but it often works behind the scenes, without our knowledge, that is, "while we are sleeping." This book powerfully illuminates how public health works with more than sixty success stories drawn from the area of injury and violence prevention. It also profiles dozens of individuals who have made important contributions to safety and health in a range of social arenas. Highlighting examples from the United States as well as from other countries, While We Were Sleeping will inform a wide audience of readers about what public health actually does and at the same time inspire a new generation to make the world a safer place.

How ordinary Americans, frustrated by the legal and political wrangling over the Second Amendment, can fight for reforms that will both respect gun owners’ rights and reduce gun violence. Efforts to reduce gun violence in the United States face formidable political and constitutional barriers. Legislation that would ban or broadly restrict firearms runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the Second Amendment. And gun rights advocates have joined a politically savvy firearms industry in a powerful coalition that stymies reform. Ian Ayres and Fredrick Vars suggest a new way forward. We can decrease the number of gun deaths, they argue, by empowering individual citizens to choose common-sense gun reforms for themselves. Rather than ask politicians to impose one-size-fits-all rules, we can harness a libertarian approach—one that respects and expands individual freedom and personal choice—to combat the scourge of gun violence. Ayres and Vars identify ten policies that can be immediately adopted at the state level to reduce the number of gun-related deaths without affecting the rights of gun owners. For example, Donna’s Law, a voluntary program whereby individuals can choose to restrict their ability to purchase or possess firearms, can significantly decrease suicide rates. Amending red flag statutes, which allow judges to restrict access to guns when an individual has shown evidence of dangerousness, can give police flexible and effective tools to keep people safe. Encouraging the use of unlawful possession petitions can help communities remove guns from more than a million Americans who are legally disqualified from owning them. By embracing these and other new forms of decentralized gun control, the United States can move past partisan gridlock and save lives now.