There are few issues more explosive than guns. "Guns don't kill people, people kill people", is an often-heard response to calls for firearm control. But are there ways to make guns safer without placing further restrictions on gun owners? Can guns be engineered to reduce the number and severity of injuries?

This book is about guns and new solutions for addressing problems they create. Trudy Karlson and Stephen Hargarten, two experts in public health and injury control, show readers how guns are products, designed to injure and kill, and how changes in the design, technology, and marketing of firearms can lead to reductions in the number of injuries and fatalities.

Just as innovations in the design and technology of motor vehicles succeeded in creating safer cars, Karlson and Hargarten describe how responsible changes to gun products can reduce the number of serious injuries and fatalities. The injury control perspective illustrates how the characteristics of guns and ammunition are associated with their ability to cause injury and death. It also provides options for how guns can be re-engineered to ensure a greater degree of safety and protection. Reducing Firearm Injury and Death teaches basic facts about guns and gun injuries, and by reframing the problem of firearms as a public health issue, offers hope for saving lives.
-- There are nearly 40,000 gun-related deaths and more than 100,000 injuries annually in the U.S.
-- The lifetime cost of all firearm injuries, fatal and nonfatal, that occurred in 1990 alone has been estimated at $20.4 billion.
-- Guns are used in approximately 65% of all youth suicides. The risk of youth suicide is 2.5 times higher if there is a gunin the house.
-- There are very few safety standards, or standards of any kind, for domestically manufactured firearms and manufacturers are under no obligation to make guns that have saftey features. By contrast, there are many safety standards for almost all other domestic and imported consumer products, including cars and most toys, including toy guns.
-- In public health, education is used to inform people about risks they face when they choose to smoke, drink alcoholic beverages, eat fatty meals, and own guns. The better we are at describing high risk situations, high risk weapons, and high risk populations for deaths and injuries from firearms, the more specific our public health strategies can be.
-- Public health education based on sound scientific information and marketed appropriately has changed eating, smoking, exercise, and drinking habits among some segements of the population. In doing so, it has also changed social behavior and provided impetus for public policy change.
-- Summarizes the problem of gun-related injuries and fatalities from a public health perspective.
-- Provides basic facts about firearm technology, wound ballistics, ammunition, and the public health implications of gun design and technology.
-- Informs public policy debate by recommending changes in gun products and the marketing of guns to reduce the likelihood of injury and death.