Firearms as a Market‐Driven Epidemic: Potential Pathways to Reduce Preventable Firearm‐Related Harm in the United States
ESZTER RIMÁNYI, JONATHAN D QUICK, STEPHEN W HARGARTEN, CHARLES C BRANAS, SANDRO GALEA, NASON MAANI, JONATHAN LOWY, ZAIN HUSSAIN, NICHOLAS HOFFMANN · 2026
Read Firearms as a Market‐Driven Epidemic: Potential Pathways to Reduce Preventable Firearm‐Related Harm in the United States by ESZTER RIMÁNYI, JONATHAN D QUICK, STEPHEN W HARGARTEN, CHARLES C BRANAS, SANDRO GALEA, NASON MAANI, JONATHAN LOWY, ZAIN HUSSAIN, NICHOLAS HOFFMANN (2026) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/PMC13559981.txt.
Description
Eszter Rimányi and colleagues frame American firearm harm as a market-driven epidemic, borrowing lessons from tobacco and prescription opioids. Their 2026 analysis uses peer-reviewed literature, government documents, and media reports to test firearms against a five-phase epidemic framework. Firearm deaths hit a record 48,830 in 2021, and rates vary tenfold between states.
The authors argue the industry marketed ownership through fear and emphasis on lethality while stalling public health research for decades. Classic market-driven epidemics shrank only when governments, nonprofits, academics, media, and sometimes companies acted together over long periods. A robust shelf of mitigation tools already exists, from safety laws to hospital-based and community programs. State experience shows large sustained reductions are possible where measures take hold. The authors call for applying those lessons with far more active engagement from every stakeholder group.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | ESZTER RIMÁNYI, JONATHAN D QUICK, STEPHEN W HARGARTEN, CHARLES C BRANAS, SANDRO GALEA, NASON MAANI, JONATHAN LOWY, ZAIN HUSSAIN, NICHOLAS HOFFMANN |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 41900 |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |