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The public health case for gun control

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In the wake of the shooting of two journalists on live television in Virginia on August 25, 2015, several news stories have referenced gun violence research by David Hemenway, professor of health policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center.

In his 2006 book “Private Guns, Public Health,” Hemenway summarizes the research on the relationship between guns and injuries and describes the public health approach to reducing firearm-related violence. Among the statistics he cites: Children in the U.S. are 14 times as likely to die from guns as children in other developed countries.

“Within the United States, a wide array of empirical evidence indicates that more guns in a community leads to more homicide,” Hemenway wrote.