Programs

Program Highlight: The Separating Kids and Guns Program


                                                                 Visual Voices, Inc., 2002

Overview
While guns and their regulation is a contentious topic in the United States, there is little debate that kids and guns are a dangerous combination.  In 2001, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation generously awarded the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research a grant to establish the Separating Kids and Guns program.

The Center's vision for this applied research program is to explore and advance effective strategies for separating the 70 million U.S. kids from the 200 million privately-owned guns in the United States.

Separating Kids and Guns is a diverse array of research activities that are critical to advancing effective youth gun violence prevention strategies. The program is the first specialized program within the Center, which reflects both its importance and its relevance to the current public discourse on gun violence prevention.

The main goals of the program are:

• To examine youth gun violence prevention policies and strategies from a public health perspective
• To better understand the science and policies related to preventing youth gun violence
• To inform policy decisions related to youth gun violence prevention

The program will achieve these goals by examining the following research topics:

• Adolescent development and risk assessment 
• Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws and youth suicide 
• Roles of youth advocacy organizations in gun violence prevention
• Regulation of guns as consumer products
• Legal strategies to separate kids and guns

One of the Center's priorities is to ensure that Program results are both meaningful and accessible to local and national advocacy and policy groups committed to preventing youth gun violence in the United States. Toward that end, the Center plans to implement a  communications strategy to effectively disseminate and publicize Program findings.

For further information on the Separating Kids and Guns Program, please contact the Center .