The presentation will describe the burden of gun violence on certain urban communities in the US and around the world. The WHO and US Centers for Disease Control have called gun violence an epidemic. Gun violence is a public health issue as it contributes to mortality and chronic trauma and ‘toxic stress,’ or the kind of anxiety and fear that adversely impacts our brains and bodies. Communities living with violence also fail to have a public sphere, as people are afraid to go outside, use parks and streets and civic life can break-down entirely.