A gun violence ‘action plan’ calls for a new emphasis on prevention : Shots

Over the past 25 years, more than 800,000 people have been killed by guns in the United States and another 2 million or more have been injured. A new report offers a roadmap to reduce the human toll of this crisis by 2040.

Sixty leading experts from a variety of fields including medicine, public health, criminology, law and the technology sector met earlier this year to develop an action plan to tackle the problem. The report was published in JAMA on Monday.

“I think we've thought this was inevitable for too long,” says Dr. Joseph Sakranco-author of the study, a trauma surgeon and executive vice chair of the department of surgery at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

Gun violence is now the leading cause of death in children and teenagersalthough the vast majority of gun deaths occur among adults. And nearly 60% of all gun deaths are suicides.

“We have scientific evidence that can inform and reduce the burden of injury from gun violence,” says Dr. Sandro GaleaDean of the School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis and co-author of the study.

“For example, through laws that provide adequate vetting to ensure guns do not end up in the hands of people with a history of violence.”

The authors support alternatives to the typical approach to addressing gun violence through the criminal justice system.

“We're not saying we don't need arrests or jail time,” says the study's co-author. Daniel Websterprofessor Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “This is still necessary for public safety reasons. But you need to invest in programs that prevent violence.”

The roadmap outlined in the study includes adopting a whole-of-society approach to prevention by addressing socioeconomic inequalities.

“Gun harm is a symptom of deeper structural issues when you think about poverty, segregation, trauma and lack of opportunity,” says Sakran, who is a gun violence survivor himself. When he was 17, he was seriously wounded in a shooting after a high school football game.

Research shows that addressing these bottom-up factors can prevent gun violence, Sakran says.

“Things like housing stability, having a strong education system, job opportunities, access to health care, which are as important to preventing violence as perhaps any other law enforcement strategy,” he adds.

One such anti-violence effort in Chicago called Create a real economic destinyuses community organizations to identify individuals most at risk of becoming involved in violent crime and recruits them to receive supports such as mental health care, mentoring, education and job training.

A 2023 study found that graduates of this program are 73% less likely to become involved in violent crime in the next two years.

Webster and his colleagues found that a similar program in Baltimore called Safe streetsresulted in a 32% reduction in homicides and a 23% reduction in non-fatal shootings.

State gun laws also matter, Webster says. For example, recent research in JAMA Pediatrics showed that states with stricter gun laws had fewer gun deaths among children.

Webster and his colleagues showed that gun licensing laws “could reduce gun homicides by about 30% or perhaps more.” “And a similar impact on reducing gun suicide,” he says.

Overall, the report calls for a multifaceted approach to prevention.

“In America the burden [of addressing gun violence] often falls on the shoulders of several people,” says Sakran. “This report speaks to the collective action that is so important to moving forward.”