Book excerpt: Guns and Crime: The Data Don’t Lie investigates the ways in which the current data on guns and crime are inadequate and inaccurate. Although the majority of murders in the United States are committed with guns, research on gun ownership, the supply of guns, and the relationship between guns and crime is less thorough than studies done for many other aspects of public safety policy. This book explores the weaknesses in current findings, and extrapolates the implications of policymaking based on these faulty foundations. As the gun debate continues to rage in North America, this text offers a cautionary voice to the discourse—before practitioners and policy makers can create a solution to gun violence, they must first improve the quality of the facts they use to make their case. Intended for criminology, statistics, sociology, and economics students, Guns and Crime is also suitable for interested laypersons and practitioners hoping to better understand the mythos surrounding guns in America.