Background Firearm-related death is the leading cause of mortality for US children and one of the top ten leading causes of death in the US. Despite this toll and the prominence of concerns about firearm violence among Americans, the number of peer-reviewed publications of empirical studies on firearm violence lags far behind other leading US causes of death. Furthermore, no systematic account has examined the academic and public attention for firearm policy literature. The current bibliometric analysis of firearm polices in the health sciences literature provides this context.

Objective To identify policies and study attributes with differing levels of attention and to compare salient topics in public discourse and research by examining metrics including publications, citations, news articles, and Tweets.

Methods We searched PubMed for empirical studies (1/1/2000–9/1/2021) on 18 US firearm policies in three classes: 1) owning, purchasing, or possessing firearms, 2) firearm sales and transfers, or 3) using, storing, or carrying firearms. Data collected included the policy examined, publication year, study design, number of citations (Web of Science), and number of Tweets and news articles (Altmetrics).

Results 124 articles from 53 journals were included; preliminary work found Altmetrics data for 87 articles. Total citations per article ranged from 0–189 (median: 14.5; n=22 had more than 50 citations). Quasi-experimental and cross-sectional studies were the two most common designs; of these, quasi-experimental studies had fewer total citations and Tweets. Background checks (a sales and transfer policy) was the most cited policy (n=31 publications) in the literature and news. Gun free zones and armed staff in K-12 schools (two examples of policies regulating firearm use and carrying) had zero publications, citations, news articles, or Tweets. Assault weapon bans (n=9 publications) ranked first in Tweets, fourth in news coverage, and eighth in citations.

Conclusions The saliency of firearm policies differed depending on our measure of interest (citations, news articles, Tweets), but across all measures, cross-sectional studies predominated despite their more limited ability to identify causal relationships. These findings provide a perspective on the field’s research focus, public interest, and highlight areas that warrant further attention to guide evidence informed policy and practice.