GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

Status

Accepted

Abstract

In his Advisory of June 25th, 2024, the U.S. Surgeon General, Vivek H. Murthy, declared firearm violence a public health crisis and presented a damning picture of the widespread deaths, injuries and trauma caused by gun violence in the United States. A critical feature of the firearm violence crisis in the United States that the Surgeon General did not expressly address in his report–or even mention–is the role of the manufacturers, distributors, and dealers of firearms, collectively referred to as “the gun industry.” It is an open secret that the U.S.-based firearm industry engages in manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sale practices that fuel gun violence as well as arms trafficking to criminal markets not just in the U.S., but throughout the Americas as well. Industry actors in the United States are aware that their business practices contribute to rising levels of gun violence in the U.S. and abroad but refuse to accept their role in the crises. The steps to safer gun manufacturing, marketing, distribution and sales are well documented, as are the salubrious effects such changes would have on public health and human rights. Yet despite knowing what it means to “do the right thing” in this context, the U.S.-based firearm companies are choosing not to. The gravamen of the problem is thus not what could or should be done, but rather how to make it happen. Indeed, how can researchers and advocates help create the conditions under which gun companies want to “do the right thing,” i.e., be motivated to change their deleterious business practices? And how can such positive change be made sustainable within the firearms industry?

This Article develops novel interdisciplinary perspectives that draw from the fields of public health and international law to address these questions. It proceeds in two Parts. The first describes how private firearms manufacturers, distributors, and dealers in the United States are permitted to make, sell, and circulate guns to civilian markets in ways that supply the criminal market; contribute to and cause excessive firearm-related deaths, injuries, and crimes; fuel transnational crime; and infringe on public health and other fundamental human rights, including the right to life, both in the U.S. and throughout the Americas. Part II introduces the relevant normative frameworks from global public health and international law, respectively, and uses them to analyze the firearm industry misconduct described in Part I. Part II begins with an overview of the public health framework known as the commercial determinants of health, which studies the “strategies and approaches used by the private sector to promote products and choices that are detrimental to health,” and applies it to the harmful firearm industry practices identified. In international law, the relevant framework is the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, which require companies to take into account the impact of their corporate policies and practices on people’s rights to life, personal security, and health, among others. The Article concludes by comparing and contrasting these two methodologies to map divergences as well as convergences and identify new pathways for cross-disciplinary research and advocacy moving forward. It confirms that “two heads” – joining the respective approaches to the problem of gun industry malfeasance from the fields of public health and international law – are indeed better than one when it comes to tackling the critical but under-explored problem of firearm industry complicity in the domestic and regional crises of firearm violence.

GW Paper Series

2026-53

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