Awareness Now is a blog examining social issues using a critical psychology lens. Although additional topics will be added over time, the first version of this blog is focused solely upon gun violence in the U.S.
Gun violence is a pervasive and deadly social issue in the United States. According to the Pew Research Center (2021), 45,222 Americans died of gun-related injuries, more than in any other year on record. 54% of these deaths were suicides, 43% were murders, and the remaining 3% of deaths were either unintentional or involved law enforcement. The number of gun-related deaths in 2020 represents a 43% increase from a decade prior. Louisiana, Wyoming, Missouri, and Alabama had the highest rates of gun-related deaths in 2020, while Hawaii, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Rhode Island, and New York had the lowest. According to a study from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (2016), the U.S. gun death rate of 10.6 per 100,000 people in 2016 was 5 times higher than Canada, 10 times higher than Australia, 11 times higher than Germany, and 17 times higher than Spain. Incidents of mass shootings have also increased fifteen-fold over the last twenty years. Finally, according to the Pew Research Center (2022), American civilians collectively own over 400 million guns, more than one gun for every man, women, and child in the U.S. population.
Extensive psychology research has documented that gun violence has had a significant impact on the mental health, anxiety, and perceptions of safety across the U.S. population (Lowe & Galea, 2018). The psychological impact to survivors and observers of gun-related deaths are only the tip of the iceberg as it is predicted that there are over 100 assaults for every homicide (Slovak, 2022). Both direct exposure to a violent assault, or indirect exposure through a loved one or close friend, has been shown to result in negative mental health outcomes including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and major depression (MD) (Breslau et al., 1996; Lowe et al., 2015). This blog will explore the topic of U.S. gun violence from a psychological perspective. Various psychological aspects of gun violence will be examined including its causes, its effects, and ideas for its reduction.
References
Breslau, N., Kessler, R., Chilcoat, H., Schultz, L., Davis, G., & Andreski, P. (1996). Trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder in the community: The 1996 Detroit Area Survey of Trauma. Archives of General Psychiatry, 55, 626–632. doi:10.1001/archpsyc.55.7.626
Lowe, S., Blachman-Forshay, J., & Koenen, K. (2015). Epidemiology of trauma and trauma-related disorders: Trauma as a public health issue. In U. Schnyder & M. Cloitre (Eds.), Evidence-based treatments for trauma-related psychological disorders: A practical guide for clinicians (pp. 11–40). Springer.
Lowe, S., & Galea, S. (2018). The mental health consequences of mass shootings. Trauma, Violence, and Abuse, 18(1), 62–82.
Pew Research Center. (2021). What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S. 3 Feb 2022. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2022/02/03/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/.
Pew Research Center. (2022). Key facts about Americans and guns. 13 Sept 2021. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/09/13/key-facts-about-americans-and-guns/.
Slovak, K. (2002). Gun violence and children: Factors related to exposure and trauma. National Association of Social Workers, Health & Social Work, 27(2), 104-113.
University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. (2016). Study of Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries and Risk Factors. Retrieved from https://www.healthdata.org/gbd/publications.