The Annals

America has both the highest gun death rate (12 per 100,000 persons) and the highest gun circulation rate (about 121 firearms in circulation for every 100 persons) of any developed country. Taken together, these statistics might lead one to assume that high gun death rates in America are all but a certain outcome. However, gun death rates vary substantially across America suggesting that a range of solutions to reduce gun death and injury exist. This transdisciplinary volume contains a novel collection of articles that overview the evolution of American gun policy, presents evidence on the efficacy of both policy and non-policy interventions, and provides insight on where we go from here given American culture, norms, and legal structures.

In an address to the American Society of Newspaper Editors on April 20, 1950, President Truman declared that it was necessary for us to “make ourselves heard round the world in a great campaign of truth.” Calling attention to the vital importance of the psychological front in the present battle for world friendship, the President noted that the task of presenting the truth “to the millions who are uninformed or misinformed or unconvinced… is not separate and distinct from other elements of our foreign policy. It is as important as armed strength or economic aid.  ‘We must,’ he said, ‘pool our efforts with those of the other free peoples in a sustained, intensified program to promote the cause of freedom against the propaganda of slavery.'”