Introduction to Gun Violence in America

Abstract

In the United States nearly 40,000 people die annually as a result of being shot by a firearm. Another 73,000 people experience firearm injuries — some so severe they are life altering. There is no question that deaths and injuries from firearms — what we will call gun violence — comprise a serious and important problem in this country. It is also evident that the United States has long resisted solutions to its gun violence epidemic. The reasons for the seeming intractability of our ability to staunch the flow of gun violence are varied. There is not just one gun violence problem in the United States, and there is no single solution.

From 2019-2020, members of the Yale University community, working with scholars, physicians, advocates and other experts from across the country sought to address the issue through the tools of interdisciplinary conversation and research. The twenty-seven articles that resulted, which comprise this issue, engaged three framework questions: 1. What exactly is America’s gun violence problem, and do the policy response fit the real causes?; 2. How is the criminal justice system, and its stakeholders, responding to gun violence?; and 3. How has the law conceived of the nature of gun violence and the constitutional issues concerning gun safety regulations?