Would it be nice to live in a world without so-called gun violence? Absolutely. Will that ever happen? I'm skeptical.
To do so would require knowledge that I don't think we actually possess, but a new study claims otherwise.
In fact, the study suggests it's possible to essentially end so-called gun violence. Not a century down the road, either, but within two decades.
A groundbreaking report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) has laid out an ambitious roadmap to drastically diminish firearm violence and its associated harms across the United States by the year 2040. This comprehensive blueprint emerges from a two-day summit held in March, where a distinguished panel of 60 experts from various disciplines, including public health, criminology, sociology, social work, and public policy, converged to chart a multifaceted approach to this persistent societal challenge. The report deftly balances technological innovation with social reform, emphasizing the complex nature of firearm violence and the imperative of addressing its root causes.
...The summit coalesced around a nuanced understanding that reducing firearm violence entails far more than legislative reforms alone. While the U.S. Supreme Court decisions have constrained certain gun control measures, the report underscores that numerous statutes—such as mandatory background checks, secure firearm storage requirements, and protocols for the surrendering of weapons by high-risk individuals—remain constitutionally sound. These existing legal frameworks provide a foundation upon which further preventative measures can be built, circumventing some of the legal hurdles that often stall policy progress.
...Complementing technology-driven solutions is a pronounced focus on societal programs designed to tackle the underpinnings of violence. Community violence-intervention initiatives emerge as vital components in this strategy, bridging law enforcement with social services to extend housing, financial aid, employment training, and therapeutic resources to individuals at elevated risk. These multidisciplinary programs recognize that the path to safety is not paved by enforcement alone but through holistic support systems that empower communities and individuals.
I'm not at all shocked that they still think gun control is an answer, despite even the left-leaning RAND noting that the evidence for any of it working at all is limited at best, but most of it is sketchy as hell. The so-called scientific community doesn't want to acknowledge that in the least.
However, I will give them some credit for trying to look at other solutions beyond gun control. All too often, the only thing one of these studies looks at is which laws can be passed that would curtail our Second Amendment rights while supposedly also curtailing the activities of people who don't obey laws at all.
This time, they're talking about housing, economics, jobs, and psychological efforts to all band together to address the root causes of violent crime. I think they're off their rockers because they're not addressing cultural aspects that lead to violence among certain subcultures, but I'll still give them credit for looking at potential root causes.
But that only goes so far.
They're still making claims about gun control laws, assuming facts that aren't just in evidence, but are downright non-existent, and arguing that those are still constitutional, all because the Supreme Court hasn't declared them unconstitutional just yet. Maybe it's just me, but there's little reason to assume the people doing studies published in the JAMA are actually well-versed in constitutional law in general, much less Second Amendment law.
And that's never going to sit right with me.
Would it be worth it if it ended so-called gun violence? Not even close, especially since it simply won't end. They're too myopic to the actual problems, refusing to admit that there may be issues that are politically incorrect to even mention, so I'm just not buying it.
But I'll tell them what. They start all the non-gun control parts of their plan, and let's see how things go.
In the meantime, I'm just going to point out how violent crime has been dropping since the Bruen decision, which put more guns in the hands of law-abiding gun owners as they go about their day-to-day lives on the streets of America.
The solution to gun violence has to include armed citizens being in as many places as possible, so bad people won't even think about getting squirrely.
