ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts to summarize the issues and known facts about firearms and violence. He is concerned with the broader patterns of how many firearms are owned by Americans and how they are used. The use of firearms in interpersonal crime is only one of several types of firearms events that produce killings and woundings. The author also concerns strategies of governmental policy toward gun ownership and use. Civilian ownership and use of guns in the United States is thus the major cause of why police officers are at risk in the United States and also an important reason why police kill so many civilians. The author outlines traditional methods of limiting access to guns, attempts to restrict how and where guns may be used, and considers how these approaches may be affected by the emerging personal constitutional right to bear arms created in the United States Supreme Court.
