Behind the passionate debate over gun control and armed crime lurk assumptions about the link between guns and violence. Indeed, the belief that more guns in private hands means higher rates of armed crime underlies most modern gun control legislation. But are these assumptions valid? Investigating the complex and controversial issue of the real relationship between guns and violence, Joyce Lee Malcolm presents an incisive, thoroughly researched historical study of England, whose strict gun laws and low rates of violent crime are often cited as proof that gun control works. To place the private ownership of guns in context, Malcolm offers a wide-ranging examination of English society from the Middle Ages to the late twentieth century, analyzing changing attitudes toward crime and punishment, the impact of war, economic shifts, and contrasting legal codes on violence. She looks at the level of armed crime in England before its modern restrictive gun legislation, the limitations that gun laws have imposed, and whether those measures have succeeded in reducing the rate of armed crime. Malcolm also offers a revealing comparison of the experience in England experience with that in the modern United States. Today Americans own some 200 million guns and have seen eight consecutive years of declining violence, while the English--prohibited from carrying weapons and limited in their right to self-defense have suffered a dramatic increase in rates of violent crime. This timely and thought-provoking book takes a crucial step in illuminating the actual relationship between guns and violence in modern society.

How ordinary Americans, frustrated by the legal and political wrangling over the Second Amendment, can fight for reforms that will both respect gun owners’ rights and reduce gun violence. Efforts to reduce gun violence in the United States face formidable political and constitutional barriers. Legislation that would ban or broadly restrict firearms runs afoul of the Supreme Court’s current interpretation of the Second Amendment. And gun rights advocates have joined a politically savvy firearm industry in a powerful coalition that stymies reform. Ian Ayres and Fredrick Vars suggest a new way forward. We can decrease the number of gun deaths, they argue, by empowering individual citizens to choose common-sense gun reforms for themselves. Rather than ask politicians to impose one-size-fits-all rules, we can harness a libertarian approach—one that respects and expands individual freedom and personal choice—to combat the scourge of gun violence. Ayres and Vars identify ten policies that can be immediately adopted at the state level to reduce the number of gun-related deaths without affecting the rights of gun owners. For example, Donna’s Law, a voluntary program whereby individuals can choose to restrict their ability to purchase or possess firearms, can significantly decrease suicide rates. Amending Red Flag statutes, which allow judges to restrict access to guns when an individual has shown evidence of dangerousness, can give police flexible and effective tools to keep people safe. Encouraging the use of unlawful possession petitions can help communities remove guns from more than a million Americans who are legally disqualified from owning them. By embracing these and other new forms of decentralized gun control, the United States can move past partisan gridlock and save lives now.

n 1996 the shooting and killing of 16 young children in a Dunblane primary school provoked wide reaching parliamentary reform to British gun laws. Within months virtually all privately owned handguns had been outlawed. Gun Culture or Gun Control? presents the first substantial analysis of the social and political reactions to events in Dunblane and also examines many of the wider issues relating to gun control in the United Kingdom. Rigorously comparative throughout, Peter Squires provides a non-partisan exploration of the differences between attitudes to firearms and their control in Britain and in the United States. Amongst the topics the author considers are: * the social history of firearms on both sides of the atlantic * the differing policy directions adopted in Britain and the USA * media coverage of the gun question * firearms and policing * the future of the gun in society.

Readers are presented with two sides of the debate related to gun control, including policies and practices throughout American history, gun laws and legislation, gun safety, crime, and law enforcement. In 1791, The Bill of Rights was added to the U.S. Constitution which included the second amendment, or, The Right to Bear Arms. Two-hundred years later, the controversial issue of gun control is still being debated because the statistics surrounding gun violence and death remains staggering and continues to grow. Encourage your readers to step inside the pages of this book to see where they stand on this topical issue.

This excerpt from the “masterful, timely, data-driven” study of the gun control debate examines the potential of stronger purchasing laws (Choice). As the debate on gun control continues, evidence-based research is needed to answer a crucial question: How do we reduce gun violence? One of the biggest gun policy reforms under consideration is the regulation of firearm sales and stopping the diversion of guns to criminals. This selection from the major anthology of studies Reducing Gun Violence in America presents compelling evidence that stronger purchasing laws and better enforcement of these laws result in lower gun violence. Additional material for this edition includes an introduction by Michael R. Bloomberg and Consensus Recommendations for Reforms to Federal Gun Policies from the Johns Hopkins University.

Few schisms in American life run as deep or as wide as the divide between gun rights and gun control advocates where the debate is largely defined by forceful rhetoric rather than substantive analysis. This text explores the gun-control options of the most heavily armed democracy in the world.

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.