Resources

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) monitors alcohol, tobacco, and firearms production and regulation and is the major source of statistical and technical information on these categories. The annual Firearms State Laws and Published Ordinances provides a complete overview of firearm regulations of towns, cities, states, and the federal government. The ATF also publishes periodic press releases with vital information about licensing, domestic gun manufacturing, and importing and exporting statistics. "War Between the States: How Gunrunners Smuggle Weapons across America," a study conducted by U.S. Representative Charles Schumer and based on data from the ATF, provided information on gun trafficking.

The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), both in Washington, D.C., maintain statistics on crime in the United States. The FBI's annual Crime in the United States is based on crime statistics reported through its Uniform Crime Reports program. The FBI also produces Law Enforcement Officers Killed and Assaulted.

The annual Bureau of Justice Statistics' Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics is the most complete source of statistical information published on crime. The annual Criminal Victimization in the United States is based upon periodic sampling surveys of about 45,000 American households. Presale Handgun Checks, a report of data collected on background checks of applicants for handguns, is also published periodically. The BJS's Homicide Trends in the United States, Guns Used in Crime and Firearm Injury and Death from Crime provide valuable information on handgun crime, handgun victimization, and handgun theft. Indicators of School Crime and Safety presents statistics on school violence.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP; Washington, DC), a branch of the U.S. Department of Justice, reported on young offenders in Juvenile Justice Bulletin. The OJJDP also published Combating Fear and Restoring Safety in Schools (1998) and Kids and Guns: From Playgrounds to Battlegrounds (1997). The National Institute of Justice published High School Youths, Weapons and Violence: A National Survey (1998) and Guns in America: National Survey on Private Ownership and Use of Firearms (Philip J. Cook and Jens Ludwig, 1997). The Justice Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank dedicated to reducing society's reliance on incarceration, and the Children's Law Center released School House Hype: Two Years Later in April 2000. The report describes rising public fears about youth and youth violence even as the violence declined.

Information on background checks for firearms purchases was provided in Gun Control—Implementation of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act (prepared by the General Accounting Office, Washington, DC, 2000). The ATF's Firearms Commerce in the United States—2001/2002 reported on the number of federal firearms applications and renewals. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published several studies in its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) provided both national and international data on injury mortality.

Thomson Gale would like to express its continuing appreciation to The Gallup Organization of Princeton, New Jersey, for its kind permission to publish its surveys and the National Opinion Research Center of the University of Chicago for use of its material, especially the National Gun Policy Survey by Tom Smith (2001).

The Consumer Federation of America allowed republication of a table from Consumers Strongly Support Renewing and Strengthening the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, (2004). Handgun-Free America also provided valuable information from its seminal study of workplace violence, Terror Nine to Five: Guns in the American Workplace, 1994–2003 (May 2004). BMJ Publishing granted publication for two interesting graphics on BB/pellet gun violence originally published in its periodical, Injury Prevention (Vol. 185, 2002).

The Violence Policy Center provided helpful information in its press releases and publications. The Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) allowed us to use tables from Disabilities from Guns: The Untold Costs of Spinal Cord and Traumantic Brain Injuries (The HELP Network, Chicago, 2000) and offered access to several other publications.

Other sources used in the preparation of this book include Private Guns, Public Health (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2004), "The Relative Frequency of Offensive and Defensive Gun Uses: Results from a National Survey" (David Hemenway and Deborah Azrael, Violence and Victims, Vol. 15, 2000), "Teaching Safety Skills to Children to Prevent Gun Play," (Michael B. Himle, et al., Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, (Spring 2004); "Age 14 Starts a Child's Increased Risk of Major Knife or Gun Injury in Washington, DC," (Howard A. Freed, et al., Journal of the National Medical Association, (Vol. 96, February 2004); Guns, Crime, and Punishment in America, edited by Bernard E. Harcourt (New York: New York University Press, 2003), and The Politics of Gun Control, 3rd edition, by Robert Spitzer (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2004).