In November 2025, the Journal of the American Medical Association or JAMA published a study titled Toward a Safer World by 2040. Its goal is to reduce gun violence in America by addressing the social determinants that contribute to gun violence. It’s ambitious, necessary, and overdue.
For too long, America has been whipsawed by preventable gun violence, especially as it relates to the study of shootings as a pressing public health issue. The JAMA study reported 800 thousand deaths from firearms including homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings since the year 2000. During this same time frame, more that two million people also have survived gunshot injuries. A 2022 study by Harvard University, also published in JAMA, reported that gun injuries are also responsible for economic losses totaling $557 billion annually, or 2.6% of the U.S. gross domestic product.
Now before you mistake me for an anti-2A person, know this: I live in the country and country people keep guns. Emergency response times are notoriously high in rural areas. I learned this first-hand when my neighbors’ house caught fire three years ago. They were not at home at the time, so my son called 911. Then, he used their own garden hose to contain the conflagration to their porch, saving both their home and their precious dog's life. The fire was out for more than 20 minutes before we saw our first fire engine arrive. I don’t delude myself into thinking that law enforcement would’ve arrived any faster had it been one of us experiencing a home invasion.
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore has conducted its National Gun Survey every two years since 2013, in which it has queried Americans about their views on gun policy. In 2023 they reported that Americans overwhelmingly support policies that would reduce gun violence, despite the protests of politicians, lobbyists, and the media. If politicians listened to the American people instead of lobbyists, we could create a culture of safety for all that doesn’t have to curtail the rights of responsible gun owners.
When Safer by 2040 was published, Dr. Joseph Sakran, the study’s co-author and a trauma surgeon at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, told NPR: “firearm harm is a symptom of deeper structural issues when you think about poverty and segregation and trauma and lack of opportunity.” Sakran himself survived a shooting when he was 17 years-old and was critically injured during a shooting following a high school football game.
What the JAMA study—which included 60 experts in the fields of medicine, public health, criminology, technology, social sciences, and law—revealed is that it’s social determinants that greatly contribute to societal violence. These include lack of educational funding, housing instability, healthcare inequity, job insecurity, and unemployment.
Community violence intervention programs in Chicago and Baltimore are already showing promising results. In Chicago, the Create Real Economic Destiny or CRED program, identifies individuals at-risk for being involved in gun violence and mitigates potential tragedy through interventions like mental health care, job training, peer support, mentorship, and education. A 2023 study by the National Academy of Science showed that graduates of the CRED program had a 73% lower risk of being involved in violent crime after two years in the program.
Why should you care about this? Because gun violence affects us all. It is often random, and people going about their business in an evolved society have the right to do so without the fear of being shot. I myself almost became a shooting victim last year.
As I was traveling along I-70 in Indianapolis on my way to visit my daughter, a car drifted into my lane. I did what most of us would do: I laid on my horn. Instantly, the passenger window dropped, and I was face-to-face with a young man holding a massive pistol aimed right at me. It happened so fast I’m certain he was playing with that gun while driving.
In an effort to ditch him, I slowed down, trying to hang back, but he pulled ahead of me and kept brake-checking me, thinking I’d pass him. Not likely. I didn’t want a gun pointed at the back of my head. To his own peril, a pick-up truck driver travelling along the same route saw what was happening and laid a block between this irresponsible young man and me. That pick-up driver likely saved my life.
I didn’t report the incident to the police. I had no plate number and only a vague description of the young man. It all transpired so fast. I didn’t want an innocent person being shot by police because he fit my nebulous description. I could never live with myself if I were the impetus for that. Neither do I envy the police and the perilous job they do. I pray for their safety everyday.
By 2040, I pray that we all live in a world where everyone has the opportunity for self-actualization and everyone lives free from gun violence.
Music: "What It’s Like" by Everlast
