Johns Hopkins University has announced that the Center for Gun Violence Solutions at the Bloomberg School of Public Health will receive a five-year, $5 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. 

The grant will help the center collect and analyze data on shootings by police, assess the effects of key gun laws on arrests and incarceration for illegal gun possession and violent crimes committed with guns, and assess how structural racism and social vulnerability impact the effectiveness of gun policies, including permit-to-purchase laws. The grant also will support the center’s National Survey on Gun Policy, a biannual, nationally representative survey of U.S. adults to measure support on firearm policy and public safety reforms. The survey waves for 2023, 2025, and 2027 will continue to estimate public support from people who are Black, Latinx, and/or gun owners. 

“Systemic inequities drive these disparities,” said Daniel Webster, a researcher at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions and Bloomberg Professor of American Health. “This new grant will support research that examine connections between policies and inequities in gun violence, arrests, incarceration, and system responses.” 

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Katarzyana Bialasiewicz)