How mapping America's "firearm ecosystem" could help lead to gun violence solutions

Institute Professor and Director of the Center for Urban Studies and Progress Maurizio Porfiri – who received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to study gun prevalence and harms in the U.S. – spoke about the strides his engineering team at NYU Tandon has made in understanding gun violence, how engineering and mathematical equations can provide insights into gun violence, and what it means to map America's "firearm ecosystem." His team found that fame-seeking mass shooters plan their crimes around the novelty of the location and targets, unpending traditional assumptions of what motivates such perpetrators. 

When describing his approach to gun violence research, Porfiri said “the way we see the ‘firearm ecosystem’ is a combination of different layers, that includes individual behavior, state-level behavior and the national level. We have to understand how policies shape individual behavior and then overall how these interactions define where we stand as a country.”