Gun violence in the U.S. is on the rise. In the wake of two devastating mass shootings just 10 days apart—the Buffalo grocery store shooting (May 14, 2022) and the Uvalde elementary school shooting (May 24, 2022)—our national attention has again turned to firearms. Far from isolated incidents, these mass shootings follow disturbing trends of dramatic increases in gun violence since the onset of COVID-19.

In 2020, the crude rate of firearm homicides rose 33% across the U.S. with only a 1.1% increase in firearm suicides. Youth and Black Americans have been most disproportionately impacted: gun violence surpassed car accidents as the leading cause of death among youth and children, and Black Americans account for nearly half the nation’s homicide victims despite making up only 14% of the U.S. population.

While many have named other issues as public health crises (APHA recently called out racism as a public health crisis), we have yet to see the same level of urgency for gun violence research and prevention from the public health world. While the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings prompted leaders from Kaiser Permanente, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, and healthcare systems across Minnesota to call for action addressing gun violence as a public health crisis, thus far, few others have joined them. As changemakers and stewards of our communities, it is time for us to consider what addressing gun violence as a public health crisis looks like in practice, and to push for preventing gun violence by addressing root causes.

This collection focuses specifically on taking action. It offers context for addressing gun violence as a systemic public health crisis, and houses some of Community Commons’ best tools, toolkits, resources, datasets, maps, policy briefs, and stories related to ending, preventing, and healing from gun violence.

Addressing the Root Causes of Gun Violence

Following major events like the Buffalo and Uvalde shootings, gun violence solutions are often discussed through the lens of high profile mass violence. Gun violence and its increasing impacts, however, aren’t limited to mass shootings and homicides. Gun violence exists along a broad and complex continuum, including: 

• Suicide (53% of gun-related deaths in 2020)

• Murder (43% of gun-related deaths in 2020)

• Police violence or involving law enforcement (1.4% of gun-related deaths in 2020)

• Accidental or unintentional shootings, often involving children and youth (1.2% of gun-related deaths in 2020)

• Domestic and intimate partner violence (over 50% of intimate partner homicides are committed with guns and 2/3 of child fatalities involving domestic violence are caused by guns)

• Gang and substance-related violence (13% of total homicides annually are gang-related)

• Mass shootings and domestic terrorism (less than 1% of gun-related deaths)

Commonly-suggested solutions following mass shootings—like increasing school security, arming teachers, and police crackdowns on illegal activities—are unable to reduce gun violence long-term because they fail to address the majority of gun violence and its root causes.

Gun violence is linked to inequity, inequality, and poverty. Root causes include disparities in income, housing, public services, schooling, and access to care. Isolation, hopelessness, lack of opportunity, past experiences with violence (as either a victim or a perpetrator), and indoctrination into hate groups are also significant factors in committing gun violence.

It’s important to understand the most common underlying factors that lead to violence: untreated anger, family violence, past history of violent acts, growing up where violence is used, and being young and male. To be clear, anger is not a mental illness. Hatred of others is not a mental illness. –Lauren Simonds, Executive Director, NAMI Washington

Because all types of violence are interconnected, addressing gun violence requires addressing all violence, including non-physical violence and hate. 

Addressing Gun Violence As A Public Health Crisis

The public health field is tasked with protecting and improving the health of all people and their communities. This responsibility is ever changing as the threats against communities change, and the strategies to advance well-being shift in response. As a leading cause of death for our future generations, gun violence has indisputably become a priority for public health in the United States. 

Addressing gun violence as a public health crisis involves: 

1. Understanding and acknowledging the significant public health impacts of gun violence, including long-term, systemic impacts, and

2. Urgently deploying a public health response to gun violence, including improving research and data collection and tracking, increasing funding, and acting on data-driven prevention strategies, interventions, and policies.

Each year, over 45,000 Americans lose their lives to gun violence, and over 120,000 are injured. The impacts of gun violence, however, go much deeper. Exposure to gun violence (being threatened or injured with a firearm, or witnessing gun violence) also has significant lasting impacts on the health and wellbeing of people and communities. It alters brain chemistry—especially in developing brains—and can lead to chronic fear and feelings of insecurity, trauma and traumatic stress, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), antisocial feelings and behavior, alcohol and substance use, and other lifelong health and mental health issues associated with traumatic stressors. People exposed to gun violence are also more likely to engage in violence, perpetuating the cycles of harm, trauma, and inequity.

While there are evidence-based interventions to reduce gun violence at the community level, and mental health treatments to support individuals exposed to gun violence, those most impacted often lack access to these vital services. Funding—for both improved data collection and monitoring, and for implementing solutions—is one significant barrier. Between the 1990s and 2019, no federal funding was allocated to gun violence, creating significant gaps in community-level data and severely limiting changemakers’ abilities to make meaningful progress on reducing and preventing gun violence. The public health field is uniquely suited to address this gap and bring data-driven solutions, interventions, and policies back to the forefront of public gun violence discourse.

Public health and related professionals can start by incorporating gun violence into existing frameworks and research (such as calling out gun violence as an Adverse Childhood Experience), and pushing for increased funding, improved research and data monitoring, and better prevention strategies and policies. Labeling gun violence as a public health crisis is an important first step in creating the urgency and leverage needed to end gun violence.

Actions to Get Started

In practice, ending gun violence involves addressing both gun control and resolving systemic issues contributing to all types of violence, including abuse, isolation, untreated anger, inequity, and socioeconomic disparities. With this goal in mind, anti-violence movement-building must always collaborate with and advance justice movements for all marginalized people and our shared environment and communities.

Because gun violence in the United States is deeply systemic, action can take many forms. Key actions to start with include:

• Centering the voices and input of survivors and those who have lost loved ones to gun violence

• Centering the voices and input of communities most impacted by gun violence, especially youth, communities of color, women and femme people, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people

• Supporting community violence intervention programs and other localized approaches to ending gun violence, including Group Violence Intervention (GVI), street outreach and violence interruption, and Hospital-Based Violence Intervention Programs (HVIPs)

• Advocating for common sense gun control laws, including extreme risk (red flag) laws, firearm removal laws, firearm purchaser licensing, concealed and open carry laws, and regulation of ghost guns (firearms made from home DIY kits or 3D printers)

• Ensuring all laws and policies are vetted for disproportionate impacts on communities of color, and people with disabilities and mental health conditions

• Advocating for an increase in culturally competent, trauma-informed services and support for people exposed to gun violence

• Addressing police violence, which can cause individuals and communities to avoid calling the police, often results in the death of BIPOC people, and reduces the safety of communities for all residents

• Advocating for access to mental healthcare and other social-emotional supports in schools, instead of increasing armed security, which often disproportionately harms BIPOC students and fuels the school-to-prison pipeline

• Promoting safe and secure gun storage

• Sharing only factual information and correcting harmful myths about gun violence. For example, most violence in cities is not “gang-related” (gun violence actually occurs more frequently within informal social settings) and most mass shooters are not “mentally ill people who snapped” (travel, logistics, acquiring weapons, and dressing in body armor all involve extensive premeditation)

• Not conflating mental illness with mass shootings, and instead working to reduce stigma and improve care access for people with mental health conditions (people with mental health conditions account for only 2% of crimes involving a firearm, but 60% of gun deaths in the U.S. are suicides)

• Publicly sharing the names of gun violence victims, and lifting up their lives and stories

• Not publicly sharing the names and stories of shooters, especially mass shooters who often admit to seeking and enjoying media attention

To provide direct support to those impacted by recent mass gun violence, consider:

• Donating directly to individuals and families impacted by mass shootings through GoFundMe’s verified relief hubs, including the Buffalo Mass Shooting Relief Hub and the Uvalde Elementary School Shooting Relief Hub

• Donating directly to impacted communities, including the BuffaloTogether Community Response Fund, Buffalo 5/14 Survivors Fund, Uvalde Strong Fund, Robb Elementary Memorial Fund, and the League of United Latin American Citizens’ Uvalde Fund

• Supporting local organizations who are working to improve well-being in impacted communities, including Buffalo Go Green, Buffalo Community Fridges, FeedMore WNY, Buffalo Urban League, Black Love Resists In The Rust, the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center, SAY Sí, and the San Antonio Legal Services Association

• Supporting organizations tackling gun violence and related issues from a systemic perspective, including VictimsFirst, Sandy Hook Promise, Race Forward, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the Violence Policy Center

• Donating blood, especially if you live in or near an impacted community

• Because gun violence—especially mass shootings—leave people feeling unsafe across the U.S., consider donating food, providing rides, or offering support in your own community, even if you don’t live in or near a community where a shooting occurred

Please reach out with any suggested actions, resources, stories, or tools you think should be included here. We are committed to supporting the movement to end gun violence in the United States, and would love to hear from you.