Confronting Gun Violence In America

This book critically examines the link between guns and violence. It weighs the value of guns for self-protection against the adverse effects of gun ownership and carrying. It also analyses the role of public opinion, the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, and the firearms industry and lobby in impeding efforts to prevent gun violence. Confronting Gun Violence in America explores solutions to the gun violence problem in America, a country where 90 people die from gunshot wounds every day. The wide-range of solutions assessed include: a national gun licensing system; universal background checks; a ban on military-style weapons; better regulatory oversight of the gun industry; the use of technologies, such as the personalization of weapons; child access prevention; repealing laws that encourage violence; changing violent norms; preventing retaliatory violence; and strategies to rebuild American communities. This accessible and incisive book will be of great interest to students and researchers in criminology and sociology, as well as practitioners and policy-makers with an interest in gun ownership and violence.

From voices in the field, Dress Rehearsals for Gun Violence: Confronting Trauma and Anxiety in America’s Schools considers how damaging fear and anxiety are for those who are in our schools every day in the United States and living with both the ever present threat of a school shooting and the continuous preparations for one. This book examines those impacted directly including not just students and teachers, but preservice teachers considering teaching as a profession, college professors, support staff, and librarians. This follow up book to A Relentless Threat: Scholars Respond to Teens on Weaponized School Violence, goes in depth into the human cost of violence by exploring the fear of potential violence in our schools and what may be done to lessen that trauma and anxiety. This book includes discussion on the very real impact of false alarms, the trauma and anxiety experienced by teachers, the risks and benefits of armed shooter training, the unique challenges of non-classroom spaces, using young adult literature as a tool for processing emotions with students, and the importance of teaching critical reading skills for evaluating how school shootings are portrayed in the media.

In his book CARNAGE, Thomas Gabor examines the 1,000+ mass shootings in America in 2019-2020, as well as trends in US mass shootings. CARNAGE explores the geography and demographics of mass shootings, weapons used, extent of defensive gun uses by victims, and the settings and circumstances of mass shootings.  Gabor's analysis shatters the myth that most mass shootings are random attacks on strangers. While such events dominate the media's attention, the most common reason for a shooting is a dispute between individuals or groups. A disproportionate number occur in disadvantaged neighborhoods, especially communities of color. Gabor offers solutions ranging from tackling persistent poverty, defusing vendetta-like conflicts, and addressing widespread gun carrying to various gun policy reforms. A key message is that mass shootings can only be reduced if both the social conditions that underlie them and easy access to guns by those at risk of violence are addressed.

A complete guide to the origins and everyday experience of gun violence in America—and a series of solutions to put a stop to its destruction once and for all. Gun violence is a problem with many faces, but seemingly no solution. From mass shootings to deadly domestic abuse to police officers opening fire, it permeates American life. And yet it feels impossible to address. The lines are firmly drawn and the federal government has not passed any legislation to reduce gun ownership in over twenty-five years. That's why it's time to look at the issue differently. In this revelatory collection, gun violence in America is addressed from three angles: how gun violence affects us today, how we have gotten to this juncture legally and socially, and finally, what we can do to reduce and end gun violence in America. Too many lives are lost by gun fire--around 15,000 a year--but we do have the tools to address this crisis. Top journalists, organizations, and anti-gun-violence advocacy groups are represented here--from Pamela Coloff to Ibram X. Kendi to Everytown for Gun Safety and the Giffords Organization--to collect the most comprehensive, thoughtful and practical guide on gun violence in America. There are no deadlocks and no excuses--we have the tools to stop gun violence now.

Tackling the difficult and charged topic of weaponized school violence, A Relentless Threat: Scholars Respond to Teens on Weaponized School Violence examines some of the root causes that lead teen shooters to make the decision to kill their teachers and peers. This research and commentary on gun violence in U.S. schools positions the reader to understand its historical and political context and to reflect on its social and emotional causes. The book explores potential solutions to this uniquely American phenomenon through a variety of scholarly lenses. With a focus on research and pragmatic solutions, these academics respond directly to individual teen voices in an effort to recognize those stakeholders most often dismissed. This book includes discussion on U.S. firearms policy, ostracism, bullying, social media, capitalizing on shooter events, and programs in schools to prevent violence. A Relentless Threat: Scholars Respond to Teens on Weaponized School Violence establishes the groundwork for the second book by the editors (Dress Rehearsals for Gun Violence: Confronting Trauma and Anxiety in America’s Schools) by examining how we got to this point and what actions may be taken to stop future rampage shootings in schools.

“An engrossing, moving, and utterly motivating account of the human stakes of gun violence in America.”—Samantha Power, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Education of an Idealist Is America destined to always be a violent nation? This sweeping history by U.S. senator Chris Murphy explores the origins of our violent impulses, the roots of our obsession with firearms, and the mythologies that prevent us from confronting our national crisis. In many ways, the United States sets the pace for other nations to follow. Yet on the most important human concern—the need to keep ourselves and our loved ones safe from physical harm—America isn’t a leader. We are disturbingly laggard. To confront this problem, we must first understand it. In this carefully researched and deeply emotional book, Senator Chris Murphy dissects our country’s violence-filled history and the role that our unique obsession with firearms plays in this national epidemic. Murphy tells the story of his profound personal transformation in the wake of the mass murder at Newtown, and his subsequent immersion in the complicated web of influences that drive American violence. Murphy comes to the conclusion that while America’s relationship to violence is indeed unique, America is not inescapably violent. Even as he details the reasons we’ve tolerated so much bloodshed for so long, he explains that we have the power to change. Murphy takes on the familiar arguments, obliterates the stale talking points, and charts the way to a fresh, less polarized conversation about violence and the weapons that enable it—a conversation we urgently need in order to transform the national dialogue and save lives.

Perhaps never before has an objective, evidence-based review of the intersection between gun violence and mental illness been more sorely needed or more timely. Gun Violence and Mental Illness, written by a multidisciplinary roster of authors who are leaders in the fields of mental health, public health, and public policy, is a practical guide to the issues surrounding the relation between firearms deaths and mental illness. Tragic mass shootings that capture headlines reinforce the mistaken beliefs that people with mental illness are violent and responsible for much of the gun violence in the United States. This misconception stigmatizes individuals with mental illness and distracts us from the awareness that approximately 65% of all firearm deaths each year are suicides. This book is an apolitical exploration of the misperceptions and realities that attend gun violence and mental illness. The authors frame both pressing social issues as public health problems subject to a variety of interventions on individual and collective levels, including utilization of a novel perspective: evidence-based interventions focusing on assessments and indicators of dangerousness, with or without indications of mental illness. Reader-friendly, well-structured, and accessible to professional and lay audiences, the book: * Reviews the epidemiology of gun violence and its relationship to mental illness, exploring what we know about those who perpetrate mass shootings and school shootings. * Examines the current legal provisions for prohibiting access to firearms for those with mental illness and whether these provisions and new mandated reporting interventions are effective or whether they reinforce negative stereotypes associated with mental illness. * Discusses the issues raised in accessing mental health treatment in regard to diminished treatment resources, barriers to access, and involuntary commitment.* Explores novel interventions for addressing these issues from a multilevel and multidisciplinary public health perspective that does not stigmatize people with mental illness. This includes reviews of suicide risk assessment; increasing treatment engagement; legal, social, and psychiatric means of restricting access to firearms when people are in crisis; and, when appropriate, restoration of firearm rights. Mental health clinicians and trainees will especially appreciate the risk assessment strategies presented here, and mental health, public health, and public policy researchers will find Gun Violence and Mental Illness a thoughtful and thought-provoking volume that eschews sensationalism and embraces serious scholarship.

Fred Guttenberg, who lost his beloved daughter Jaime in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, and International gun policy consultant Thomas Gabor team up in American Carnage to dismantle some of the most common myths about guns and gun violence.