Expert: We’ve been thinking about gun violence in the wrong ways

An expert argues that in order to curb gun violence, we need to address behavioral causes of crime, in addition to policy and policing.

Despite decades of policy ideas, pouring millions of dollars into the problem, and a slow pace of gun control measures, the United States hasn’t made much progress on curbing the epidemic of gun violence in our country.

For the past 25 years, Professor Jens Ludwig of the University of Chicago has examined the questions of: Why does gun violence happen, and is there anything we can do about it?

In his new book, Unforgiving Places: The Unexpected Origins of American Gun Violence (U. Chicago Press, 2025), Ludwig—who is director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab—discusses why we’ve been thinking about the problem in the wrong ways.

Drawing upon behavioral economics, he explains that most shootings are not premediated; rather, the result of arguments that escalate into violence. Using data-backed interventions, Ludwig introduces new ideas beyond policy and policing to get at the real root causes of gun violence today:

Read the transcript of this episode.

Source: University of Chicago

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