Private Guns, Public Health is a 2004 policy opinion book by David Hemenway, an economist who has served as Professor of Health Policy at the Harvard School of Public Health as well as the Director of Harvard's . He argues that the widespread ownership of firearms in private hands in the U.S. promotes the spread of the "disease" of gun violence, and he takes a collective interpretation of the Second Amendment while stating that increased regulations are absolutely necessary in the purposes of public safety. Hemenway makes the central case that "more guns in a community lead to more homicide". He published the book through the University of Michigan Press in 2004. A new edition was released, also by the University of Michigan Press, in 2017.