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Health Journalism Glossary

Firearm Violence Glossary

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  • Access to lethal means – Access to lethal means is a jargony term often used by public health experts and suicide prevention advocates. Lethal means…
  • Action – The central mechanism of a firearm, generally applied to rifles.  It consists of the receiver, a short hollow tube of…
  • AR-15 – Commonly called “America’s rifle” by gun enthusiasts.  This is the civilian version of the standard rifle of the American military…
  • Assault weapon – These firearms, usually semiautomatic rifles, are designed and equipped with features enabled for high-volume rapid fire and mass violence.
  • Assault weapons ban of 1994 – The assault weapons ban prohibits manufacturing, transferring and possessing certain semiautomatic firearms designated as assault weapons and “large capacity” ammunition…
  • Automatic – A firearm which fires continuously while the trigger is depressed like a machine gun or submachine gun.
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  • Background checks  – Anyone looking to purchase a gun from a federally licensed firearms dealer is subject to a background check.
  • Barrel – A steel tube through which a bullet travels after discharge in the action.  The tube compresses gases from the ignition…
  • Bore – The inside face of the barrel which contacts the bullet during its travel. Source: UC Davis Campus Community Book Project
  • Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993 – Congress passed the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in 1993. The legislation is commonly called the Brady Bill and was…
  • Bullet – The projectile fired by a gun.  Modern bullets are conical masses of lead, jacketed in copper and designed for aerodynamic…
  • Bullet button – A device to disqualify a gun as an assault rifle by removing one of the six “evil features” of the…
  • Bump fire – A means of manipulating semiautomatic weapons to achieve continual fire while keeping the trigger depressed. Source: UC Davis Campus Community…
  • Bump stock – A device to facilitate the process of bump firing wherein a semiautomatic gun is manipulated so as to simulate automatic…
  • Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) – The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — commonly called ATF — is a United States law enforcement agency…
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  • Caliber – A measure of the size of a bullet.  It corresponds to the largest diameter of its cross-section and is commonly…
  • Carbine – Shortened rifle, firing a pistol cartridge. Source: UC Davis Campus Community Project
  • Cartridge – Package of gunpowder and a bullet that can be conveniently inserted into a firearm for firing.  The cartridge consists of…
  • Case – Cylindrical brass container for holding the gunpowder and bullet.  It is closed at one end (the case head) which holds…
  • Centerfire – Refers to the placement of the primer on the case head.  A primer in the form of a small disk…
  • Chamber – The end of the barrel that meets the receiver and which holds the bullet when it is ready to be…
  • Child access prevention laws – Child access prevention laws (CAP) make it illegal for an adult to keep unsecured guns in a way that a…
  • Clip – A metal rack that holds cartridges together to permit them to be loaded together instead of one at a time. …
  • Community policing – Community policing is a philosophy within law enforcement that relies on using partnerships within the community and problem-solving techniques to proactively address the conditions that risk public safety issues.
  • Community violence  – Community violence is exposure to intentional acts of interpersonal violence committed in public areas. In the case of firearm violence,…
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  • Dickey Amendment – Part of a 1996 omnibus bill that effectively stifled CDC-funded research on gun violence.
  • District of Columbia v. Heller – In 2008, The Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual’s right to own a firearm unrelated to service in a militia.
  • Domestic violence  – Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behaviors in any relationship, familiar, romantic or otherwise, that is used by one…
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  • Episodic framing – Episodic framing is a type of story framing used in reporting that focuses on an individual or a particular incident…
  • Evil Features – A colloquial term used for the six defining features of an assault rifle in the AWB that are intended to…
  • Extreme Risk Protection Orders (ERPOs) – Extreme Risk Protection Orders, or ERPOs for short, empower families and law enforcement to petition to temporarily restrict access to firearms for individuals at an elevated risk of harming themselves or others. 
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  • Firearm restraining order (FRO) – A Firearm restraining order (FRO) is a civil – not criminal – procedure that allows family and law enforcement to petition a court to temporarily restrict a person’s access to firearms while they pose an imminent danger to themselves or others.
  • Firearm violence – Firearm violence is any conflict, injury or fatality involving a firearm. That includes a wide variety of instances that aren’t…
  • Full Metal Jacket – A bullet design popularized as the title of a Stanley Kubrick movie about the Vietnam War (1987).  (See Bullet.)  These bullets,…
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  • Gas operation – A system which uses the gases from gunpowder to cycle the action.  Gas from a discharge is bled off from…
  • Ghost guns – A ghost gun is an untraceable firearm without a serial number. The ATF also calls them “privately made firearms.” 
  • Glock – A brand of handgun of revolutionary design that has taken military and law enforcement by storm and appears often in…
  • Gun control – Gun control is any legal measure that intends to prevent or restrict the use or possession of firearms.
  • Gun Control Act of 1968 – The Gun Control Act imposed stricter licensing and regulation on the firearms industry, established new categories of firearms offenses and…
  • Gun show loophole – The gun show loophole refers to the exemption made in the 1993 Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act that exempted sales…
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  • Handgun – A gun that fits in a person’s hand. Handguns fall into two categories: revolvers and pistols. Revolvers have multiple chambers…
  • High power – An ill-defined term with at least two distinct usages.  The older usage was for rifle calibers of .30 or greater…
  • High-capacity magazine – There are different standards for what makes a magazine high-capacity. For guns used for hunting, laws limit magazine capacities to…
  • Hospital-based violence intervention program  – A hospital-based violence intervention program is a type of community violence intervention in the health care setting.
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  • Lethal means  – Suicide prevention experts recommend that newsrooms should avoid detailed descriptions of what lethal means a person uses to take their life.
  • Locked and Loaded – Refers to locking the bolt closed on a round that is loaded into the chamber.  It generally means “ready to…
  • Longarm – A category of firearms with long barrels designed to be hoisted to the shoulder.
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  • Magazine (firearms) – A metal container for holding cartridges for rapid reloading.  It differs from a clip in that it also contains a…
  • Mass shooting – While there is no official definition, the common understanding is an incident in a public place that kills four or more people and attracts widespread attention.
  • Mental health crisis hotlines – Mental health crisis lines operate 24/7 to serve people going through a mental health crisis, such as suicidal ideation.
  • Military weapon – Ill-defined term that attempts to distinguish between weapons used specifically for military purposes and those for other uses such as…
  • Modern sporting rifle – A term used for weapons which have all the features of assault rifles without automatic fire.  The term implicitly contrasts…
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  • National Firearms Act – The National Firearms Act was a federal law passed in 1934 that regulated machine guns. According to the The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, firearms subject to the law include shotguns and rifles with barrels less than 18 inches and 16 inches, respectively, certain firearms described as “any other weapons,” machine guns and firearm mufflers, silencers and destructive devices.
  • New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen – In 2022, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a loaded handgun in public for self-defense
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  • Pistol – A handgun with one chamber per barrel. A semiautomatic pistol has a magazine in the gun’s grip.
  • Pistol brace – A brace similar to a crutch design in which stabilizing metal bands surround the user’s arms.  Such bands are used…
  • Poison bullet – A bullet design to produce maximum damage through tumbling and/or fragmentation.  This is done by creating an empty space inside…
  • Political violence – Political violence is the use of force by a group with a political purpose or motivation to advance political objectives,…
  • Public health model (firearm violence reporting) – Presenting how a person and a community’s quality of life puts them at a greater or lessor risk of being involved in a shooting or dying by suicide.
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  • Red flag laws – Red flag laws, also called gun violence restraining orders or extreme risk protection orders, allow loved ones or law enforcement…
  • Repeater – A firearm with a magazine that can hold more than one cartridge at a time.
  • Revolver – A handgun that contains a rotating cylinder that holds multiple cartridges, usually six. Each time it’s fired the barrel rotates to line up a new cartridge. 
  • Rifling – Spiral grooves running down the length of the bore which engrave the bullet as it travels, imparting spin which stabilizes…
  • Rimfire – An older design for ammunition in which the primer is distributed around a rim, protruding outwardly around the case head…
  • Round – Synonymous with cartridge. Its likely etymology is a reference to repetition (as in boxing round) or, possibly, ammunition for cannons consisting…
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  • Safe storage – Safe storage of firearms means keeping the gun unloaded, locked up and separate from its ammunition. Experts say teaching safe…
  • Safety (firearms) – A switch on a gun that prevents a gun from firing by blocking the trigger mechanism.
  • Second Amendment – The second entry in the Bill of Rights. The amendment reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security…
  • Secure gun storage – Secure gun storage involves keeping a loaded gun locked and separate from its ammunition. Storage involves safes and gun locks.
  • Semiautomatic rifle – A semiautomatic rifle is a weapon designed to be fired from the shoulder and shoots a single bullet with each pull of the trigger.
  • Sidearm – Synonym for a handgun. Source: UC Davis Campus Community Book Project
  • Single-shot/action – An action without a magazine that can only load one cartridge at a time directly into the chamber.  Single-action can…
  • Social determinants of health – Social determinants of health are factors not related to medicine that can influence a person’s health outcomes. That means the…
  • Stand your ground laws  – A stand your ground law allows someone to argue they shot someone out of self-defense. There are variations of these…
  • Stock (firearms) – An accessory of rifles that consists of two parts, the forestock and the buttstock.  The forestock surrounds the barrel, allowing…
  • Straw purchase – A straw purchase is when somebody buys a gun on behalf of another person. That someone is often not allowed to legally purchase a gun, meaning they would fail a background check. Straw purchasing is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
  • Suicide – Firearm suicides represent over half of overall gun deaths in the U.S. And that ratio can be worse in certain areas —…
  • Suicide prevention  – Suicide prevention involves several efforts used to reduce the risk of suicide.
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  • Telescopic sight (scope) – A telescope, with markings (reticle), such as a crosshair, that mounts over the barrel of a gun and extends its…
  • Terrorism – The FBI differentiates its definition between international terrorism and domestic terrorism.
  • Thematic framing – Thematic framing is a type of story framing that illustrates the broader context in which individual incidents happen. This approach…
  • Third spaces – Third spaces are social settings separate from home (the first place) and workplace (the second place).
  • Tiahrt Amendment – The Tiahrt Amendment was a rider in a 2003 congressional appropriations bill. The amendment, named for its sponsor, U.S. Rep.…
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  • Universal background checks – Universal background checks would require background checks for all firearm sales. Federal law requires background checks only on sales from…
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  • Violence interrupter – A violence interrupter is a person who can help de-escalate situations that could turn violent. Also called “credible messengers.”
  • Violence intervention and prevention  – Violence interventions, also called community violence interventions, are programs that focus on people who are most at risk of being…

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