In addition to the direct victims of gun violence and their immediate families or survivors, entire communities are traumatized. Sometimes the violence comes in the form of a horrific mass shooting that grabs headlines across the country. More typically, people are killed or injured in shootings that, sadly, are viewed as so routine that they do not even make the news. The annual death toll demonstrates the staggering cumulative impact of these incidents. Firearm deaths in most two-year periods easily exceed the total fatalities suffered by United States troops during the entire Vietnam war.
Local governments are on the front lines.
They manage the police departments, the schools, the hospitals, and the morgues. The cost has been high. Multiply this number across the nation, and add in more generalized losses to the community, such as lost tax revenues, decreased property values, lost productivity, and loss of enjoyment of life, and the enormity of this country's gun violence problem becomes apparent. Local governments are taking an increasingly active role in combating this problem. Over the past decade, many local laws have been passed to regulate various aspects of the gun industry and to curb some of its most obvious abuses.