The Gun Debate

Philip J. Cook is ITT/Sanford Professor of Public Policy and Professor of Economics and Sociology at Duke University; author of Paying the Tab: The Costs and Benefits of Alcohol Control, (Princeton University Press, 2007), Gun Violence: The Real Costs (Oxford University Press, 2000), Evaluating Gun Policy (Brookings Institution Press, 2003), with Charles Clotfelter Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America, (Harvard University Press, 1989), and with Robert H. Frank The Winner-Take-All Society, (The Free Press, 1995). Kristin A Goss is Associate Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at Duke University; author of Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America (Princeton University Press, 2006, 2009), and The Paradox of Gender Equality: How American Women's Groups Gained and Lost Their Public Voice (forthcoming from the University of Michigan Press)

Too many debates about public policy in the US suffer from the absence of accurate information, careful reasoning, and objective research. This superb book not only supplies all that for firearm regulation at the national, state, and local levels but also serves as a sterling model for other policy topics. It sheds light, not heat, on the gun debate.

• Introduction ; 1. America and Its Guns ; 2. Reasons for Owning a Firearm ; 3. The Value of Guns for Safety and Protection ; 4. The Costs of Gun Violence ; 5. Causes of Gun Violence ; 6. Manufacture and Marketing of Guns ; 7. How America Regulates Firearms ; 8. Effectiveness of Firearms Policy ; 9. Guns and Gun Control in History ; 10. Public Opinion and Political Party Positions on Guns ; 11. The Gun Rights Movement ; 12. The Gun Control Movement ; 13. Gun Policy Going Forward ; Bibliography ; Index