Framing gun violence at the United Nations: a missed public health opportunity

This report argues that the United Nations has consistently framed gun violence through lenses of disarmament, security, and human rights, while failing to recognize it as a public health crisis with profound health-system, social, and economic consequences. Drawing on AOAV’s analysis of UN bodies including the Security Council, General Assembly, and Human Rights Council, the authors show how political power dynamics—particularly U.S. resistance to regulating civilian firearm ownership—have constrained health-oriented approaches to firearm harm. The paper concludes that integrating a public health lens into UN firearm policy is essential to reducing deaths, supporting survivors, and alleviating the global burden on healthcare systems, and calls on civil society and member states to push for this reframing.