Taking stock: The contribution of policy studies to our understanding of gun policy

Abstract

AbstractIn the summer of 2022, the tragic mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas once again thrust firearms policy onto the public agenda and opened an agenda window for bipartisan gun reforms in the Senate. Almost simultaneously, the Supreme Court struck down restrictions on concealed carry in New York state in the first major ruling on Second Amendment Rights since MacDonald v. Chicago. Given the salience of firearms policy to contemporary policy debates, it is important to take stock of how the discipline of policy studies has contributed to our understanding of this pressing area of policy. As we see, scholars of policy studies have largely left discussions of firearms policy to disciplines like criminology, sociology, economics, and public health. Despite this, a small group of scholars has used the theoretical toolkit of our discipline to better understand this issue. This short review article will present the contribution of policy studies to our understanding of firearms policy from Sandy Hook to Uvalde and provide suggestions for areas where the discipline can contribute to our understanding of this vitally important regulatory issue. Most importantly, more work is needed to develop robust and multidimensional evaluations of firearms policies.Related ArticlesCook, Philip J., and Jens Ludwig. 2019. “Understanding Gun Violence: Public Health vs. Public Policy.” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management 38(3): 788–95. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.22141.Haider‐Markel, Donald P., and Mark R. Joselyn. 2017. “Special Issue Editors' Introduction: Gun Politics.” Social Science Quarterly 98(2): 377–81. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12415.