Gun Violence: The Real Costs

The effects of gun violence in the United States go far beyond the costs borne by the legal system, according to the authors (both experts on pubic policy and gun violence) of this convincing, if technical, study. Calculating the costs of the roughly 110,000 annual gun-related deaths and serious injuries, the authors argue that gun violence is a public health problem that costs Americans about $100 billion a year. These costs include more than those immediately resulting from a gun injury (e.g., emergency room costs) ; it also includes related costs such as increased security at airports and schools. But most original and enlightening in this study is that in their cost-benefit outlook, the authors measure not only the financial but the emotional costs of a gun-filled society, which encompasses ""not just victims but potential victims and those who are linked to those potential victims .In short, most all of us bear some part of the cost of gun violence."" The authors go even further, arguing that ""many of the interventions designed to separate guns from violence essentially pay for themselves."" With all the evidence Cook, a professor at Duke, and Ludwig, a professor at Georgetown, marshal about the effects of gun violence, one might expect them to propose strict gun control measures. But instead they propose a series of limited reforms--mandatory registration of handguns, more police patrols against illegal gun carrying, increased sentencing for gun crimes. This study is bound to garner national attention (it has already been reported on in the New York Times), but the technical methodology and abundance of charts, graphs and tables will reduce this book's appeal to general readers--and that's unfortunate, because this volume is an innovative contribution to the growing literature on one of America's most intractable problems. (Nov. 1)