Private Guns Public Health:

Article Outline

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“In the United States, gun violence is a modern day public health epidemic.” The characterization, noted in an early chapter of this book, reflects the significant risk privately owned guns pose to public health in the United States. Guns may be owned privately, but theirs is as public a threat as small pox. In Private Guns Public Health, a wonderful synthesis of many different pieces of the issue, Hemenway makes a compelling case that using a public health approach to gun-related injuries in this country is the best way to reduce death and injuries. The author describes the issues associated with easy access to guns, for example, and describes a strategy that could be successful.

This is an accurate, concise, and well-written synthesis of firearm-related injury and death data as well as the associated and causative factors. The book content proceeds logically from a description of the problems related to private guns, to reasons the problems exist, to methods that will make an impact on the many factors. Each chapter contains essential elements of the issues surrounding private guns and the impact they have on public health, with a summary of take-away points at the close of each chapter. The bibliography is comprehensive and the appendices provide additional relevant information.

Private Guns, Public Health is essential reading for those interested in gun injury and death in the United States. Public health officials, legislators, proponents of injury prevention, and health care professionals could all benefit from reading this book. The author has integrated what is known about firearm injuries into one easy-to-read source. The only limitation of this book is that the data is from 2000, the most current data available at the time it was written.

In this book, David Hemenway has put forth a highly credible compilation of the impact of private guns on public health in the United States, while posing a realistic approach to solving this public health dilemma, including better data aggregation and use of data as ammunition to fight the prevalence of gun violence.—Patricia Kunz Howard