Violence (Gun): Social Community Movements

Abstract

Gun violence is a major cause of injury and death in the United States, caused in large part by the staggering number of privately owned guns. Efforts to reduce the number of guns and the prevalence of gun violence have been limited by a polarized political climate, irrational deliberation, and legislative incompetence. However, social movements reconceptualizing gun violence as a public health crisis highlight a promising political and discursive remedy. Since the mid‐1990s, activists and organizers, university researchers, and public health professionals have sought to increase federal research funding, facilitate community and academic collaborations, and promote evidence‐based gun safety policies by conceptualizing gun violence as a contagious epidemic – not an individual or moral failing best remedied by punitive measures. Although unfinished, the empirical, social, and political benefit of reconceptualizing gun violence as a public health crisis illuminates valuable lessons for understanding how communication shapes and is shaped by health beliefs and behaviors.