A Roadmap to a Safer Future: JAMA Summit Charts Bold Path to Reduce Firearm Harms by 2040
More than 800,000 lives have been lost to firearms in the United States since the start of the 21st century. It is an ongoing public health crisis that affects individuals, families, and communities in every corner of the nation. To address this urgent challenge, the two members of the Center for Gun Violence Solutions joined dozens of other experts in authoring the newly released article, “The JAMA Summit Report on Reducing Firearm Violence and Harms: Toward a Safer World by 2040.”
The article is a product of JAMA’s landmark Summit on Firearm Violence in March 2025. The summit brought together 60 thought leaders from across public health, medicine, law, technology, and community violence prevention – including the Center’s co-director, Cassandra Crifasi, PhD ‘14, MPH and Daniel Webster, ScD ‘91, MPH, distinguished research scholar at the Center – to chart a roadmap for reducing firearm harms by 2040.
Similar to the Center’s goal to reduce gun violence 30% by 2030, authors envision a United States where firearm violence is substantially reduced and where all people and communities feel safe from firearm harms. Achieving that vision, they write, will require expanding proven evidence-based approaches and developing innovative strategies rooted in equity, accountability, and collective responsibility.
“Firearm violence must be understood as both a public health and societal problem,” said Webster. “A safer future depends on addressing the structural conditions that create risk conditions like concentrated poverty, racism, and disinvestment that have left many communities vulnerable while also acting to swiftly to address neighborhood conditions that facilitate gun violence. Examples of an environmental approach to preventing gun violences are cleaning and greening initiatives, securing or removing vacant buildings, reducing the number of alcohol outlets in a neighborhood, and improved street lighting.”
Five Key Actions for the Future
The article emphasizes the importance of existing policies including the Center’s policy priorities of firearm purchaser licensing, safe firearm storage, domestic violence restraining orders, extreme risk protection orders, and community violence intervention programs.
Beyond these policies, summit participants outlined five actions needed to move toward this safer future:
Focus on Communities and Change Fundamental Structures That Lead to Firearm Harms
A broad systems-thinking approach is needed that engages communities as partnered collaborators with the supportive infrastructure required for permanent community-based interventions with a strong and professional CVI workforce.
Harness Regulatory and Technological Opportunities
Responsibly Innovations such as multi-biometric “personally authorized” firearms, robotics, passive firearm detection systems, and AI for upstream prevention combined with a consumer product approach to firearms can strengthen safety in homes and communities.
Change the Narrative on the Preventability of Firearm Harms
There is a need for a normative shift in how people understand, prevent and respond to increasing firearm availability, firearm carrying in public places, and firearm harms. Work is needed to better communicate with the public about firearm safety and risks. Changing attitudes and beliefs about firearm ownership, safety, and the likelihood of surviving to adulthood may help reduce multiple drivers of injury.
Take a Whole-Government and Whole-Society Approach
Coordinated action aligned with scientific insight can accelerate harm reduction. Given the state-by-state variability in firearm deaths, states have the opportunity to lower the burden of firearm harms by modeling laws shown to be effective in other states.
Spark a Research Revolution on Preventing Firearm Harms
There is a need for more basic science, agent-based modeling, better measurement of intervention impacts in firearm research, and a framework to evaluate the effectiveness and necessity of new technologies and interventions in preventing firearm harms.
“Evidence-based policies and programs exist,” said Crifasi. “What’s needed now is the will to scale them equitably and sustainably so every community can experience safety. That begins by innovating with strategic use of data and community partnerships.”
The JAMA report concludes that a safer nation will require long-term investments in solutions that center the people and communities most affected by firearm violence. By focusing on equity, innovation, and collaboration, the authors call for a unified national effort to turn evidence into action.
Read the full article, “The JAMA Summit Report on Reducing Firearm Violence and Harms: Toward a Safer World by 2040.”
