Even before President Obama announced Wednesday his plans to take comprehensive action against gun violence in the wake of the December tragedy at Sandy Hook, Johns Hopkins University Press was moving quickly to inform the national debate on gun control by fast-tracking into publication a book that was acquired less than a week ago and is scheduled to be shipped January 28. Reducing Gun Violence: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis, edited by Daniel W. Webster and Jon S. Vernick, with a foreword by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, will be published by JHU Press paper format with a 5,000-copy initial print run and as an e-book. Reducing Gun Violence is the first instant book from JHU Press in its 135-year history. Its final chapters are still being written, with a Friday deadline.

Reducing Gun Violence is a compilation of the research, legal analysis, and recommendations presented by international experts on gun policy at a two-day summit held at the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health on January 14-15, a month after a gunman murdered 26 adults and children at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Conn. The summit was conceived a week after Sandy Hook. Mayor Bloomberg presented opening remarks at the summit.

“We think this book is essential and the need is immediate,” Greg Britton, JHU Press’s editorial director explained of the press’ decision to publish an instant book. “That has driven every publishing decision about it. Publishing this book is our way to contribute clear-eyed analysis to a debate that has become both polarized and, because of pro-gun lobby, thin on actual research.”

Full article at PW