Gun Violence and Solutions
By John Arpee, September 2025, as background reading for the Fairfax Alliance of Braver Angels open conversation on October 14.
The Problems and the Opportunities
Framing “the problem” as “gun violence” misleadingly suggests that gun violence is a single problem with simple solutions such as reducing access to rifles, waiting periods and psych evaluations. Gun violence takes on different forms in rural and urban communities and is primarily a problem for poor people. School shootings and political assassinations are extremely visible to wealthier communities. These tragic but rare events can be reduced by the general strategies discussed below but may also require more specific strategies.
This paper tries to make sense of the data and considers strategies for reducing the different types of gun violence. Some strategies address multiple types of gun violence while others are more specific. Some approaches are more proven than others and for any strategy to be effective it must be politically viable at the state and federal levels.
Statistics
Before we can explore feasible strategies we must improve our situational awareness. Gun violence is a very broad topic. Gun deaths may be separated into relatively uncontroversial categories:
Suicides - 55-60%
Accidental shootings - 1%
Homicides - 35-40%
High visibility shootings:
At schools - <0.1%
Assassinations - 0%
Atypical mass shootings - <1%
These statistics must be interpreted carefully. For example, even though the percent of total gun deaths is less than 1% for children, firearm deaths is the leading cause of death for children at 19% followed by car accidents at 16%. Although school shootings are a small fraction of gun deaths they have a high emotional impact on families and communities.
In 2022 there were 303 incidents involving guns on school grounds resulting in 57 deaths and 134 injuries. Four incidents resulted in 4+ fatalities. Two thirds of the school shooting deaths were only of one child. Rifles are used about 10% of the time for all shootings but more than 20% for school and mass shootings.
Men commit 90% of homicides. The numbers are slightly higher for gun homicides. In shootings in which 2+ people are killed, 95% of the killers are men. When the number is 4 or more the percent committed by men is 98% and virtually 100% of mass school shootings are by males.
Gun Debates
Main Paradigm Difference
People approach gun rights and gun safety from different paradigms. According to Google Gemini:
Gun Safety Advocates
Focus on regulation: Support stricter gun laws, including universal background checks, bans on certain types of firearms (e.g., assault weapons), and red flag laws.
Public safety: Emphasize reducing gun violence and prioritize collective safety over individual gun ownership rights.
Addressing access: Believe that limiting access to firearms will directly lead to a decrease in gun-related deaths and injuries.
Gun Rights Advocates
Second Amendment protection: Strongly advocate for the right to bear arms as enshrined in the Second Amendment, viewing it as a fundamental individual right.
Self-defense: Highlight the importance of firearms for personal and home defense.
Mental health focus: Often suggest that mental health issues, rather than gun availability, are the primary drivers of gun violence.
Enforcement of existing laws: Argue that current laws are not adequately enforced and that new laws are unnecessary.
The following sections discuss the effectiveness of these and other strategies. Enforcement of existing laws is frequently mentioned by gun rights activists. Since there are many laws the following sections focus on the effects of specific laws rather than the general idea of “existing laws”. The existing laws that are implied are described in the Appendix I below “Enforce Existing Laws”.
Guns, Poverty and the Desire to be Seen and Heard
Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.
So even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
Martin Luther King Jr., Aug. 28, 1963
I, John Arpee, am really wrestling with how to write this section. The rate of gun deaths is highly correlated with social and racial factors. People’s emotions run high on these topics and the statistics are tedious and often difficult to interpret. So, I will plainly state my biases that I am aware of and try to let the data speak for itself as much as possible. But I cannot help adding my own interpretation by what I select to include in this paper. Therefore, I have tried to include many sources to allow the reader to do their own research if they disagree.
My belief is that while racism still exists it is much less severe than in the 1950’s. Racial lynchings often exceeded 100 per year in the late 1800s. By 1920 the number was about 60 and after World War II the annual number was in the low single digits. We now have a category of homicides called “hate crimes” but these are not lynchings. The closest category is aggravated assault and the FBI statistics are not easy to parse.
Why the focus on race? Because, when doing the research, I ran across articles such as the following: Texas Pastor Urges Parents to Have ‘The Talk’ With Kids About Black People: ’30 Times More Danger’. Race is a factor as discussed below but most homicides are not the direct result of racism and the ways that we talk about racism and gun violence are extremely imprecise. The correlations between race and homicide must be untangled from factors such as the ones discussed below.
I believe, to become a post-racist society, relationships of trust must be established between races that enable people to speak their mind and for difficult topics to be discussed. We must level up in our trust and our understanding of statistics.
Wealth and Income
Even though there is great media attention on the racial aspects of homicide, gun deaths are driven by three major factors:
Wealth vs poverty
Urban vs rural
Segregation
African Americans are twenty times 20 times more likely to be shot to death than whites but is this due to racism or a combination of the other three factors? African Americans are more likely to be poor, live in urban areas, and in segregated neighborhoods. Each of these is a risk factor for homicide which means that African Americans are more likely to be killed by guns for reasons that are not directly related to race. Most gun homicides of African Americans are committed by African Americans but this is NOT because African Americans are more violent. It is because of these other factors.
The inverse correlation between wealth and gun deaths is well established as can be seen in the following graphs.
These are based on the 2021 CDC and Census data. The inverse relationship with income is clear. The data points don’t line up on the trend line completely which would be true for higher correlations. Other factors also play a role such as whether the communities in the sample are rural or urban or how segregated they are. In reports that analyze homicide rates, segregation is a clearly defined metric that indicates how unmixed communities are by race or ethnic group.
Although poor African Americans endure more homicides, poor whites experience more suicides. This is largely because suicide is more prevelant in rural communities and more rural communities are white.
For a more detailed picture of the distribution of homicides and suicides please read the Wikipedia article Gun death and violence in the United States by state which includes some helpful maps and charts. Unfortunately the separate suicide and homicide data is indicated per state but the combined death rate is shown at the county level. The difference in the apparent density is surprising at first but shows the effects of how the data is aggregated.
Zooming in to a level of detail at the neighborhood level we can see how the wealth and poverty dynamics influence homicide patterns in DC. The high homicide neighborhoods are inevitably poor neighborhoods. Gentrified neighborhoods, black or white are less violent and when segregation is factored in the differences evaporate.
https://opendata.dc.gov/datasets/adult-arrests
Strategies for Reducing Gun Deaths
For Reducing Suicides
Reducing immediate access (“means safety”)
Safe storage laws and practices
Extreme risk protection orders - aka ERPOs or “red flag laws”
Waiting periods for firearm purchases
Health system interventions
Screening and counseling in healthcare settings
Integration of suicide-prevention into mental health and primary care
Community and cultural interventions
Partnerships with firearm-owner communities
Public awareness campaigns on safe storage
Broader policy levers
Permit-to-purchase laws
Raising minimum age for purchase
Protective substitutes
For Reducing Accidental Deaths
Safe Storage (Means Safety at Home) - Storing firearms locked and unloaded, with ammunition locked separately is strongly associated with lower risk of accidental shootings among children and adolescents.
Child Access Prevention (CAP) Laws - CAP laws hold gun owners legally responsible if children gain access to their firearms.
Education + Training (Mixed Evidence) - Programs teaching children “don’t touch, tell an adult” (like NRA’s Eddie Eagle) increase knowledge but do not reliably change behavior in real-world tests.
Distribution of Locking Devices - Trigger locks, cable locks, lockboxes, safes distributed free or subsidized (often via pediatricians, police, or community programs) significantly improve storage compliance.
Public Awareness Campaigns - Campaigns emphasizing child safety framing (“protect your kids”) resonate more with gun-owning households than general gun-control messaging.
For Reducing Homicides
Permit-to-Purchase (PTP) / Licensing Laws - Require a background check + license/permit (often with fingerprinting) before buying a handgun.
Background Checks (especially comprehensive, universal ones) - States with comprehensive background checks (covering private sales, not just licensed dealers) have 10–15% lower firearm homicide rates.
Focused Deterrence / “Group Violence Intervention” - Policing strategy targeting high-risk groups (gangs, repeat offenders) with a mix of strict enforcement + social services.
Hot Spots Policing - Concentrating patrols in high-crime “micro-locations” reduces shootings without displacing crime.
Violence Interruption / Hospital-Based Programs (Moderate Evidence) - Cure Violence and hospital-based “violence intervention programs” use credible messengers to defuse cycles of retaliation.
Alcohol-Related Restrictions - Policies reducing alcohol outlet density or limiting sales hours are associated with fewer gun homicides.
Community Investment - Non-gun-specific but powerful: summer jobs programs, greening vacant lots, improving street lighting reduce violence in randomized trials.
Gun Trafficking Surges Across State Lines: One Pistol’s 1,200-Mile Journey to a Boston Homicide
Data Sources
The Center for Disease Control (CDC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Organizations such as the Pew Research Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) do not collect their own statistics on gun deaths and injuries, however they evaluate some of the data and sometimes organize and present the information in helpful ways. The Pew Research Center sometimes includes their own survey data on public opinions regarding guns and gun violence.
Websites and Data
Shippensburg University - Gun Control: links to many related sites
Gun Safety and Health
2nd Amendment Rights
Articles
What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S., Pew Research Center
Gun Trafficking Surges Across State Lines: One Pistol’s 1,200-Mile Journey to a Boston Homicide, WSJ
Gun death and violence in the United States by state, Wikipedia
Annual Gun Law Scorecard, Giffords Law Center
Use of Maine’s yellow flag law continues to be consistently high, Maine Morning Star
What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S., Pew Research
Income Inequality, Household Income, and Mass Shootings in the United States
An Examination of US School Mass Shootings, 2017–2022: Findings and Implications
Appendix I - Enforce Existing Laws
According to ChatGPT 5, the laws that second amendment rights advocates have in mind include the following:
🔹 1. Felon-in-Possession and Prohibited Person Laws
18 U.S.C. § 922(g) makes it illegal for felons, fugitives, domestic abusers, drug users, or the mentally adjudicated to possess firearms.
Common arguments:
Thousands of convicted felons are caught with guns each year but rarely prosecuted federally.
Many gun crimes are committed by people already legally prohibited from owning guns.
Advocates want:
More federal prosecutions under Project Safe Neighborhoods / Project Exile (programs that impose mandatory federal sentences for felons with guns).
🔹 2. Lying on Background Check Forms (Form 4473)
Lying on ATF Form 4473 (e.g. denying a felony record) is a federal felony, but:
Very few attempted illegal purchasers are prosecuted (usually <0.1% of failed background checks each year).
Gun-rights advocates argue this encourages straw purchasing and illegal trafficking because it’s low risk.
🔹 3. Straw Purchases and Gun Trafficking
Buying a gun on behalf of someone prohibited is a felony straw purchase.
Claims that these cases are rarely pursued, especially when linked to gangs.
Advocates say traffickers and repeat offenders often escape serious punishment while lawful owners face strict rules.
🔹 4. Using a Gun in a Crime (Sentencing Enhancements)
Federal law (18 U.S.C. § 924(c)) adds mandatory minimums for using or carrying a gun during a violent crime or drug trafficking.
Supporters argue prosecutors often drop these enhancements during plea deals, reducing deterrence.
They want full sentencing for armed criminals instead of bargaining them down.
🔹 5. Red Flag / Mental Health Disqualifications (Where on the Books)
Some states already allow courts to disarm people judged dangerous.
Gun-rights advocates often say these are not used consistently, and dangerous individuals “slip through” existing systems.
They often prefer better use of current mental health reporting to NICS over creating new categories of bans.
📌 Core Belief Behind This Argument
Violent repeat offenders and prohibited possessors drive most gun crime,
so if laws targeting them were fully enforced, gun deaths would fall without restricting lawful owners.
This is why they frame new restrictions (like magazine limits, waiting periods, or rifle bans) as misdirected: they target lawful purchasers, not the relatively small population of known violent offenders.