Did you know current data shows that in the United States there are more guns than people (approximately 1.5 guns per person); that in 2023 guns were involved in 55% of all suicides and 79% of homicides; that in 2024 there were 44,447 firearm related deaths; and that firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers?

These statistics were among those cited by Megan Walsh in UMRA’s final Living Well Workshop for the 2025-26 academic year on May 12. Professor Walsh is the founder and director of the Gun Violence Prevention Clinic at the University of Minnesota Law School. This clinic assists the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office in defending the constitutionality of Minnesota’s gun regulation laws, and seeks proactively to rein in unlawful gun use. 

A topic of hot debate

How best to regulate guns is a topic of hot debate. The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution “preserves the right to bear arms,” and the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) provides broad immunity to the gun industry against civil litigation asserting the industry’s responsibility for firearm-related harms. But the right to bear arms is not unlimited, and there are exceptions in PLCAA to non-liability for industry actors. 

For example, if a gun manufacturer markets an automatic weapon for civilian combat-style use (e.g., “consider your man card reissued”) in violation of a state’s consumer protection laws against unfair trade practices, the manufacturer may be sued for playing a substantial role in causing injuries in a mass shooting involving the manufacturer’s so-advertised weapon. 

Similarly, if a gun retailer—with reasons to be suspicious—sells a gun to a buyer who is procuring the gun as a “straw” purchaser for a criminal actor in violation of a state’s gun sale laws (e.g., overheard in-store phone conversation between buyer and an outsider, “I am sending you photos of your various options.”), the retailer can be pursued for civil liability for harm caused. 

So, there are many ways to rein in gun misuse aside from an absolute ban on manufacturing automatic weapons for civilian purchase, including a number of approaches to encourage the gun industry to make and market powerful guns more carefully under existing law. 

Working to prevent gun violence is a bit like working with slices of Swiss cheese, Walsh explained. Although each slice has its own holes, when you put the slices together, they form a solid block of cheese. So, too ,there is no one simple fix to gun violence. Each strategy will address some, but not all, of the causes of gun violence, but when you use multiple approaches together you can create a comprehensive system where the weaknesses of one layer are covered by the strengths of another. 

Whatever your personal views might be on a civilian right to bear arms, you can participate in reducing gun violence in many ways, by supporting gun-injury survivors, posting social media commentary, writing and sending letters to newspapers, supporting local political candidates, and educating youth on the safe-handling of guns, and the like. 

—Bradley Clary, UMRA Program Committee