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by David Hemenway, 326 pp, $27.95, ISBN 0-472-11405-0, Ann Arbor, University of Michigan Press, 2004.

JAMA. 2004;292:632-633.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

The United States has the highest rate of firearm injuries and fatalities in the developed world. The United States also has the largest private firearms arsenal and the weakest firearm regulations. Each of these conditions is closely associated with the others, David Hemenway argues in Private Guns, Public Health. The prevalence of guns in homes and on the streets and the absence of adequate gun control increase injury and fatality rates. Hemenway, director of Harvard's Injury Control Research Center and a leading public health researcher on firearm violence, advocates a "public health approach" to reduce gun-related injury and death.

Public health solutions favor prevention over treatment and population-based over individual preventive measures. An outright firearms ban, Hemenway insists, is not part of the "public health agenda." Nor would "reasonable" firearms policies deprive law-abiding adults of firearms for protection or sport. A partial list of such policies includes national registration . . . [Full Text of this Article]

Richard Rosenfeld, PhD, Reviewer
University of Missouri-St Louis