Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have launched a free online gun violence prevention course. Elizabeth Fernandez/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Elizabeth Fernandez/Getty Images Researchers at Johns Hopkins University have launched a free online gun violence prevention course. Elizabeth Fernandez/Getty Images Researchers at Johns Hopkins University are hoping to capitalize on the student-led gun safety movement by offering a free online course[1], which begins Monday, to teach the academic research and strategies they say are the best weapon to curb gun violence. Gun violence experts put the course together after hundreds of thousands of people – many of them students – rallied at the March For Our Lives last year calling for tighter gun laws. "Following the shooting in Parkland and the youth advocacy that we saw, we noticed there was a gap in knowledge," said Cassandra Crifasi the deputy director of the Center for Gun Policy and Research and one of the core lecturers for the online course. It's called Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence For Change. "There are different information sources," she said, "but sometimes they conflict and we wanted to create one resource that would be freely available to anyone." The course is aimed at high school and college-aged people, but it's open to anyone. Coursera, the online platform hosting the course, says this is the first class related to gun violence that the company has offered. The hope is to get participants up to speed on "relevant legal issues and effectively use data" central to the nation's policy debate on guns. Researchers want young activists to lean on decades of public health research when working with policy makers and candidates seeking elective office. "And sort of push back against some of the claims you hear like 'oh you know the only thing that stops

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