Gun Violence The Real Costs

Each year in the United States around 35,000 people are killed as theresult of gun violence, and another 100,000 or so suffer nonfatal gunshotinjuries. While everyone agrees that these figures are too high, any attemptsto reduce the number of gunshot injuries presents policy makers and citizenswith difficult trade-offs. In this important new book Philip J. Cook and JensLudwig quantify the social costs of gun violence. Drawing on the most detailedand extensive economic study available, the authors show that the cost of gunviolence is approximately $700,000 per injury. They also provide detailedinformation about how the burden of gun violence is distributed in the U.S.Based on this data, Cook and Ludwig assess the effectiveness ofviolence-reduction programs and make suggestions about how best to curb gunviolence.

Philip J. Cook is the ITT/Sanford Professor of Public Policy at Duke University and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He has been conducting research on firearms and violence for over 25 years, and has served as consultant to the Departments of Justice and the Treasury. He has written extensively on alcohol control, gambling, the economics of crime, and other topics, and is co-author of The Winner-Take-All Society (1995) and Selling Hope: State Lotteries in America (1989).
Jens Ludwig is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at Georgetown University and Affiliated Expert of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. He conducts research on public policies related to crime and education, and has provided testimony on gun policy to state legislatures and other groups in California, Kansas, and Minnesota.