In Harm’s Way in America: The Burden of Gun Violence

Abstract

Gun violence in the USA annually accounts for vast suffering and death, yet many of us have become so habituated to it that we fail to grasp its scale or impact. It takes a heavy toll on American children, especially children in America’s inner cities. While its direct carnage is quite massive, its indirect impacts are quite pervasive as well. We, as a society, suffer decade after decade by failing to understand the range of impacts of our national policies of open firearm access that allow a spread of handguns and other firearms to proliferate across homes and communities throughout our country (Garbarino, 1999; Kopel, 1995; Prothrow-Smith, 1991). We lead the developed nations of the world in firearm homicides, and our children, families, and society at large pays a heavy price (Cook & Ludwig, 2000). In 1998, the City of Chicago, for example, in a lawsuit against some gun manufacturers and gun store operators sought to recover monies that the city incurred in 4 years of police, medical, and other municipal expenses required for addressing firearm violence. The costs borne by the city and its taxpayers were estimated at $433 million (Butterfield, 1998, 2002).