Events such as this will not be prevented through legislation alone. It will take the collective will and efforts of many stakeholders, both public and private, to prevent future tragedies.
The World Health Organization’s Violence Prevention Alliance describes a public health approach to addressing firearm violence and firearm deaths. This approach includes four steps:
- Define the problem through the systematic collection of information about the magnitude, scope, characteristics and consequences of violence;
- Establish why violence occurs using research to determine the causes and correlates of violence, the factors that increase or decrease the risk for violence, and the factors that could be modified through interventions;
- Find out what works to prevent violence by designing, implementing and evaluating interventions; and
- Implement effective and promising interventions in a wide range of settings.