Police inspectors have called for a national firearms licensing authority after finding England and Wales' current system is "not fit for purpose", echoing concerns raised by AOAV over inconsistent practices between forces.
Drill and rap lyrics are increasingly being used as evidence in British courts. But violent music should not be treated as autobiography, nor performance as proof of participation in violent crime.
This paper argues that Hollywood has long functioned as an influential, largely unregulated vehicle for normalising and marketing firearms by associating them with heroism, masculinity and power, with evidence suggesting these portrayals shape public attitudes towards guns and warrant greater public health scrutiny and regulatory transparency.
This report by The University of Essex Human Rights Centre clinic argues that while UK and EU laws regulate illegal content and formal advertising, they fail to adequately address how influencers, online subcultures, and platform algorithms normalise gun-related and violence-adjacent behaviours, particularly among vulnerable audiences, and recommends a broader public health and regulatory approach to accountability.
A new study finds that more than 600,000 firearms sold in the United States were recovered in crimes within a year of purchase between 2015 and 2023, revealing structured trafficking routes across the Americas.
A comparative analysis of Taurus and Glock argues that firearm manufacturers’ global expansion, marketing and regulatory environments shape access to small arms and contribute to long-term public health risks.
This report argues that global firearm violence should be understood as a gendered public-health crisis driven by the military-industrial complex, militarised masculinity, cultural normalisation of guns, and structural inequalities, requiring preventive, cross-sector policy responses rather than purely criminal justice approaches.
Tracking changes in gun deaths, mass shootings and the strength of state gun laws, a study concludes that Alabama now ranks as the most dangerous state in America when it comes to firearms. More troubling still, this is not an anomaly but part of a broader southern pattern, where weak regulation and rising lethality reinforce one another.
A new regional study shows that firearms trafficking has transformed Caribbean gun violence from a policing challenge into a full-blown public health crisis, draining fragile health systems and reshaping the region’s economic and social landscape.
Britain’s ostensibly stringent gun-licensing regime is far less uniform than it appears, with only eight of 44 police forces asking applicants to declare every firearm they already own, leaving most of the country reliant on forms that omit key details and creating a fragmented system in which the state cannot be sure what weapons civilians actually hold.
This comparative review finds that gun violence across Punjab, Chicago, Rio, Lesotho and Mexico tracks poverty, policing failures, criminal-market shifts and weapon flows rather than musical genres, showing that censoring songs does nothing to reduce homicides while investments in institutional capacity, prevention and gun-supply controls do.
A new Johns Hopkins survey finds broad bipartisan support among Americans—including most gun owners—for stronger gun safety measures such as licensing, safe storage, and red flag laws, reflecting a growing consensus that gun violence is a public health issue rather than a partisan one.