The 2025 ILJ Symposium: The Normalized Tragedy: Addressing Legal Responses to Gun Violence in the United States and Abroad.

For decades, the United States has faced an epidemic of gun violence, with guns altering the way American citizens go about their lives. However, gun violence in the United States has reached a point where nowhere is safe, and places that should be safe spaces such as local schools, places of worship, and university campuses have become frequent targets for individuals committing these violent crimes. Recent school shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Winder, Georgia; and Oxford, Michigan are just a small sampling of the tragedies that have become a monthly occurrence. Looking beyond the United States, it is difficult to find another similarly situated country with comparable resources, GDP, educational institutions, and democratization that faces similar levels of gun violence as the United States. The 2nd Amendment right to bear arms is one of the obstacles to clamping down on gun violence; however, special interest groups and a pro- gun culture in the United States present unique challenges that complicate the issue. Despite these challenges, the United States can learn lessons from how other developed countries have responded to gun violence and prevented future incidents. The International Law Journal will host a symposium grappling with these issues that will give the BU Law community the opportunity to learn more about a topic that has become a fixture of modern American life.