Social Policy expert co-authors report and actions aimed at reducing U.S. gun violence
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Dr Nason Maani has joined another 40 international expert authors on a new report outlining how the United States could reduce gun deaths and injuries.
The report in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) – by experts across a range of sectors – provides a blueprint for evidence-based solutions to reduce firearm-related death and injury by 2040.
The University of Edinburgh’s Dr Maani and his fellow authors – from areas including medicine, public health, law, and community violence intervention – have proposed five essential actions to tackle the problem.
Since the start of the 21st century, more than 800,000 people in the US have died from firearm-related injuries, and more than two million have been injured. These include homicide, suicide, and unintentional shootings, resulting in psychological, social, and economic consequences that go far beyond physical injury.
The JAMA Summit Report on Reducing Firearms follows the summit in March this year, which brought 60 thought leaders from various sectors to identify how to substantially reduce harm from firearms.
Effective firearm violence reduction
The report draws on specific policies and interventions that have reduced firearm violence, including:
- State laws on handgun purchaser licensing and safe firearm storage
- Strong domestic violence restraining orders and removal policies
- Extreme risk protection orders
- Community violence intervention programmes
- Environmental changes that reduce crime
- Collaborative, focused policing
Experts’ recommendations
Using this evidence base, the authors – who besides Dr Maani are predominantly from the U.S. –identified these actions to drive progress:
- Invest in community-based initiatives and address upstream drivers like housing, opportunity, and mistrust
- Advance technologies such as biometric smart guns, passive detection systems, and safety tools driven by artificial intelligence, while strengthening oversight for firearms as consumer products
- Shift public and policymaker understanding about the preventability of firearm harms, reframing gun violence as a public health, social, and environmental issue
- Support coordinated action at federal, state, and local levels informed by scientific insight and advocacy
- Expand research on the effectiveness, scaling, and equity of interventions—from basic science to agent-based modelling and community impact assessment.
Dr Maani, a Senior Lecturer in Inequalities and Global Health Policy at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Social and Political Science, said:
“The sheer scale and unequal nature of firearm harm in the US can be hard for us here in Scotland to comprehend. Guns kill around 50,000 people a year in the US, and are the leading cause of death for children and teens, with gaps in experience of gun harm deeply etched by age, race and ethnicity.
“A key prerequisite to addressing this challenge is highlighting this burden, and bearing witness to its foundational causes. This includes reckoning with the power and influence of the firearm industry in the US, which our research seeks to do. It was a privilege to be invited to this historic summit and to learn from a wide range of experts, including people directly affected by firearm violence in the US.”