Gun Violence in America: Public Health, Politics, and Pragmatism

More U.S. residents have been killed with guns since 1968 than died in all the wars since the country’s founding. Addressing this crisis means solving tenacious public health problems in the realms of science and of politics. In this course we will review the epidemiology of gun violence and the empirical foundations of efforts to address it through policy, study design, programmatic interventions, and environmental/physical design. We will consider obstacles to the rigorous study of gun violence as well as the innovative approaches researchers have adopted to overcome them, whether in the fields of epidemiology, medicine, criminology, or economics. And we will place all of this in the political and legal context that shapes our collective actions. Through lectures and discussion, students will become familiar with the main factors connected with firearm injury, the study of gun violence, the policy actors that have influenced the U.S. response to date, and the underlying beliefs and behaviors that define the U.S. relationship with guns.