Suicide is a leading cause of death in the United States with rates increasing over the past two decades. The rate of suicide is higher in rural areas, but a greater number of people in urban areas die by suicide; understanding risk factors for suicide in this context is critically important to public health. Additionally, while many studies have focused on individual-level risk factors, few studies have identified social or structural features associated with suicide or firearm suicide, especially among young people.
Overt forms of interpersonal, physical, and gun violence have dominated mainstream narratives regarding violence in schools. However, covert and hegemonic forms of violence propagated daily throughout K-12 urban public schools often persist unnoticed and thus unchallenged. The perceived equalizing nature of public education often labels schools as safe, race-neutral landscapes capable of buffering students from outside harm.
Communities impacted by homicide endure profound loss and trauma, yet the voices of those intimately acquainted with navigating its aftermath are often overlooked and undervalued. In this study, we center the perspectives of community violence prevention specialists (CVPS) to understand the role of community-based violence intervention (CVI) in the aftermath of homicide and identify essential needs for fostering holistic and sustainable safety and healing following homicide.
Gun-related crime continues to be an urgent public health and safety problem in cities across the US. A key question is: how are firearms diverted from the legal retail market into the hands of gun offenders?
Firearm purchasing records offer a potentially important administrative data source to identify individuals at elevated risk of perpetrating firearm violence. In this study, we describe individual, firearm, and transaction characteristics of purchasers in California who were arrested for a firearm-related violent crime (FRV) as compared to the general population of registered purchasers in the state.
Abstract BACKGROUNDMost Americans believe that gun-free zones make locations more vulnerable to violent crimes, particularly active shootings. However, there is no empirical evidence regarding the impact of gun-free zones on protecting locations from violence.
Surveys have found concerningly high levels of agreement that the United States will experience civil war soon. This study assesses variation in expectation of and perceived need for civil war with respondent sociopolitical characteristics, beliefs, firearm ownership, and willingness to engage in political violence.
Abstract OBJECTIVEThis study investigates the association between replacement thinking, status threat perceptions, and the endorsement of political violence among non-Hispanic white adults in the United States.
A 2022 survey in the USA found concerningly high prevalences of support for and personal willingness to engage in political violence, of beliefs associated with such violence, and of belief that civil war was likely in the near future. It is important to determine the durability of those findings.
