Firearms and Violence

Firearms and Violence
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 341
Release: 2005-01-13
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0309091241

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.

Investigating Gun Crimes

Investigating Gun Crimes
Author: Michelle Faulk, Ph.D.
Publisher: Enslow Publishing, LLC
Total Pages: 106
Release: 2017-12-15
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 0766091864

An explosion propels a bullet from a firearm, a life is taken, and a gun crime has been committed. This book uses true life crime stories from early cases like the St. Valentine's Day Massacre to more recent war crimes in Croatia to engage readers while educating them on forensic firearm analysis, which includes identifying basic types of firearms and bullets, matching bullet toolmarks to a specific gun, and gathering crime scene evidence. This book is excellent for readers interested in STEM, as forensic firearm analysis is a multidisciplinary field that incorporates chemistry, microscopy, physics, medical pathology, and deductive reasoning.

Another Day in the Death of America

Another Day in the Death of America
Author: Gary Younge
Publisher: Bold Type Books
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016-10-04
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 156858976X

Winner of the 2017 J. Anthony Lukas PrizeShortlisted for the 2017 Hurston/Wright Foundation AwardFinalist for the 2017 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in JournalismLonglisted for the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Non Fiction On an average day in America, seven children and teens will be shot dead. In Another Day in the Death of America, award-winning journalist Gary Younge tells the stories of the lives lost during one such day. It could have been any day, but he chose November 23, 2013. Black, white, and Latino, aged nine to nineteen, they fell at sleepovers, on street corners, in stairwells, and on their own doorsteps. From the rural Midwest to the barrios of Texas, the narrative crisscrosses the country over a period of twenty-four hours to reveal the full human stories behind the gun-violence statistics and the brief mentions in local papers of lives lost. This powerful and moving work puts a human face-a child's face-on the "collateral damage" of gun deaths across the country. This is not a book about gun control, but about what happens in a country where it does not exist. What emerges in these pages is a searing and urgent portrait of youth, family, and firearms in America today.

Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence

Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
Total Pages: 121
Release: 2013-10-03
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0309284414

In 2010, more than 105,000 people were injured or killed in the United States as the result of a firearm-related incident. Recent, highly publicized, tragic mass shootings in Newtown, CT; Aurora, CO; Oak Creek, WI; and Tucson, AZ, have sharpened the American public's interest in protecting our children and communities from the harmful effects of firearm violence. While many Americans legally use firearms for a variety of activities, fatal and nonfatal firearm violence poses a serious threat to public safety and welfare. In January 2013, President Barack Obama issued 23 executive orders directing federal agencies to improve knowledge of the causes of firearm violence, what might help prevent it, and how to minimize its burden on public health. One of these orders directed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to, along with other federal agencies, immediately begin identifying the most pressing problems in firearm violence research. The CDC and the CDC Foundation asked the IOM, in collaboration with the National Research Council, to convene a committee tasked with developing a potential research agenda that focuses on the causes of, possible interventions to, and strategies to minimize the burden of firearm-related violence. Priorities for Research to Reduce the Threat of Firearm-Related Violence focuses on the characteristics of firearm violence, risk and protective factors, interventions and strategies, the impact of gun safety technology, and the influence of video games and other media.

Guns, Gun Violence and Gun Homicides

Guns, Gun Violence and Gun Homicides
Author: Wendell C. Wallace
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 382
Release: 2021-12-11
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3030845184

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.

Gun Violence

Gun Violence
Author: Philip J. Cook
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2000-10-26
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0190285966

100 billion dollars. That is the annual cost of gun violence in America according to the authors of this landmark study, a book destined to change the way Americans view the problem of gun-related violence. Until now researchers have assessed the burden imposed by gunshot injuries and deaths in terms of medical costs and lost productivity. Here, economists Philip Cook and Jens Ludwig widen the lens, developing a framework to calculate the full costs borne by Americans in a society where both gun violence and its ever-present threat mandate responses that touch every aspect of our lives. All of us, no matter where we reside or how we live, share the costs of gun violence. Whether waiting in line to pass through airport security or paying taxes for the protection of public officials; whether buying a transparent book bag for our children to meet their school's post-Columbine regulations or subsidizing an urban trauma center, the steps we take are many and the expenditures enormous. Cook and Ludwig reveal that investments in prevention, avoidance, and harm reduction, both public and private, constitute a far greater share of the gun-violence burden than previously recognized. They also employ extensive survey data to measure the subjective costs of living in a society where there is risk of being shot or losing a loved one or neighbor to gunfire. At the same time, they demonstrate that the problem of gun violence is not intractable. Their review of the available evidence suggests that there are both additional gun regulations and targeted law enforcement measures that will help. This urgently needed book documents for the first time how gun violence diminishes the quality of life for everyone in America. In doing so, it will move the debate over gun violence past symbolic politics to a direct engagement with the costs and benefits of policies that hold promise for reducing gun violence and may even pay for themselves.

Evaluating Gun Policy

Evaluating Gun Policy
Author: Jens Ludwig
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
Total Pages: 504
Release: 2004-05-13
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780815753377

Compared with other developed nations, the United States is unique in its high rates of both gun ownership and murder. Although widespread gun ownership does not have much effect on the overall crime rate, gun use does make criminal violence more lethal and has a unique capacity to terrorize the public. Gun crime accounts for most of the costs of gun violence in the United States, which are on the order of $100 billion per year. But that is not the whole story. Guns also provide recreational benefits and sometimes are used virtuously in fending off or forestalling criminal attacks. Given that guns may be used for both good and ill, the goal of gun policy in the United States has been to reduce the flow of guns to the highest-risk groups while preserving access for most people. There is no lack of opinions on policies to regulate gun commerce, possession, and use, and most policy proposals spark intense controversy. Whether the current system achieves the proper balance between preserving access and preventing misuse remains the subject of considerable debate. Evaluating Gun Policy provides guidance for a pragmatic approach to gun policy using good empirical research to help resolve conflicting assertions about the effects of guns, gun control, and law enforcement. The chapters in this volume do not conform neatly to the claims of any one political position. The book is divided into five parts. In the first section, contributors analyze the connections between rates of gun ownership and two outcomes of particular interest to society—suicide and burglary. Regulating ownership is the focus of the second section, where contributors investigate the consequences a large-scale combined gun ban and buy-back program in Australia, as well as the impact of state laws that prohibit gun ownership to those with histories of domestic violence. The third section focuses on efforts to restrict gun carrying and includes a critical examination of efforts in Pit

Ghettoside

Ghettoside
Author: Jill Leovy
Publisher: One World/Ballantine
Total Pages: 386
Release: 2015
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0385529988

"Discusses the hundreds of murders that occur in Los Angeles each year, and focuses on the story of the dedicated group of detectives who pursued justice at any cost in the killing of Bryant Tennelle"--Publisher's description.