Introduction to the special issue on Gun violence: addressing a critical public health challenge

Excerpt

Nearly 40,000 lives are lost in gun-related deaths in the United States each year with another approximately 70,000 American sustaining gun related injuries https://​www.​cdc.​gov/​nchs/​fastats/​injury.​htm; Weinberger et al. (2015). Whether the result of unintentional injuries, homicides, or suicides, firearm-related morbidity and mortality has long posed a substantial risk to public health and safety in the United States. Unfortunately, research funding in this area has lagged far behind funding directed toward understanding other forms of injury or illness substantially limiting the ability of health professionals, law enforcement officials, or policy makers to effectively address the issue (Stark & Shah, 2017). Moreover, gun-related violence has itself only recently begun to be characterized as a public health issue, a fact that seems inexplicable given the long standing societal impact of the issue (Bauchner et al., 2017). In recent years, a string of tragic, high profile mass shootings, particularly those involving school children, have seemed to bring about some shift in public sentiment toward a greater sense of urgency for addressing the scourge of gun violence. However, because of past constraints on conducting or funding gun violence related research at the federal level (Stark & Shah, 2017), the knowledge base for determining what approach is likely to be most useful from a public health, law enforcement, or policy perspective, remains elusive. …