National Youth Violence Prevention Week | Firearm Violence

National Youth Violence Prevention Week is April 24 to 28 so I wanted to focus our attention on this uniquely American problem of Firearm violence. Each day 12 children die from gun violence in America and another 32 are shot and injured. These children had their whole life ahead of them and were robbed of their future. Unfortunately, this problem has only gotten worse over the years, as guns are the leading cause of death in American children and teens with 1 out of 10 gun deaths being aged 19 or younger. Moreover, since Columbine in 1999, more than 338,000 students in the United States have experienced gun violence at school. This alarming data has led most medical organizations to call firearm deaths a public health emergency. The Columbus Medical Association (CMA) had its annual Emerging Trends lecture series on Firearm Diseases in Central Ohio this year.

Nationally, Firearm diseases continue to kill and injure Americans through homicides, suicides, accidental shootings, intimate partner violence, and mass shootings. According to the CDC in 2020 there were about 45,000 firearm related deaths in the U.S. Of these 24,245 were suicides and 19,350 were homicides. In Ohio we had 1,764 firearm related deaths in 2020. Physician’s and other healthcare workers have firsthand experience with the devastating consequences of firearm-related injury, disability, and death. Whether that’s in the emergency department, operating room, hospital floor, or rehab facility. We have a special responsibility and obligation to our patients to speak out on prevention of firearm-related injuries and deaths, just like we did with other critical public health issues.

More recently it seems like we can’t even go through a news cycle without having another mass shooting, school shooting, or homicide. Sadly, we can’t even ring a neighbor’s doorbell or pull up in someone’s driveway without getting shot. Mental health is a common excuse by lawmakers for inaction on guns. But the United States doesn’t have more mental health disorders than other countries in the world, what it has is more guns than any other country. We have 450 million guns in this country under the guise of keeping us safe. But in fact having a gun in the home increases the risk of homicide. The solutions are not difficult but require leadership and courage. No solution will totally fix the problem, but we shouldn’t let the pursuit of perfection paralyze us from implementing safety measures that will save thousands of lives. We should gather data on the disease and implement targeted safety measures based on data.