Guns, smoking and serious vehicle crashes have one thing in common: They can kill.
And U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy said Tuesday that he believes gun violence prevention is just as much a public health crisis as the other two were before the nation passed laws and launched campaigns to reduce their impact.
Murthy on Tuesday declared gun violence in the United States a public health crisis and said he believes that efforts to end gun violence can be patterned after the successful campaigns to raise awareness to the dangers of smoking and of not wearing seatbelts.
His 32-page advisory calls for research into prevention, a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines for civilian use, education on safe gun storage aided by laws with teeth, background checks for all gun purchases and “red flag” laws that make firearm removal more effective, among other recommendations.
Murthy also requests that firearms be treated like other consumer products, so that safety testing is conducted and tools like warning labels can be used.
“Taking a public health approach to firearm violence prevention has the potential to curb the alarming trends of firearm-related injury and death in America and the resulting health impacts,” according to the advisory, which notes that preventing firearm violence “is dependent on a strong foundation of research.”
The advisory reports that in 2020, injuries from being shot were the leading cause of death for children and adolescents, outpacing all vehicle crashes, cancer, drug overdose and poisoning deaths. “In 2022, 48,204 total people died from firearm‑related injuries, including suicides, homicides and unintentional deaths,” per the notice. “This is over 8,000 more lives lost than in 2019 and over 16,000 more lives lost than in 2010.”
According to the advisory, suicides accounted for more than half of all gun deaths in 2022, while 40% were homicides.
The report said that more than half of U.S. adults or one of their family members have experienced a firearm-related incident, including mass shootings.
In fact, this weekend there were three headline-grabbing mass shootings: in Ohio’s entertainment district, in an Arkansas grocery store, and at a party in Alabama, as The Independent noted.
Mental health concerns
The advisory is being seen as a continuation of Murthy’s concern over mental health. He’s previously issued advisories about youth mental health, loneliness and the impact of social media on adolescent mental health.
The new advisory directly calls out the interplay of mental health and gun violence. “The mental health burden and trauma for those exposed to firearm violence warrants greater attention and action through increased mental health supports and trauma-informed resources,” the advisory said.
It calls for prioritizing better access to affordable, high-quality mental health care, substance use treatment and other trauma-informed resources. It also asks for “enhanced safety measures and mental health resources” in schools and other education settings for children and adolescents. One option noted is expansion of mental health services within schools.
According to The Washington Post, “Health insurance claims from 2007 to 2021 revealed that youths from birth to 19 who were injured by a gun experienced a 117% increase in pain disorders and a 68% increase in psychiatric disorders compared with youths not injured by gun violence.”
Murthy told Politico that a “deep sense of fear” is pervasive in the United States as a result of mass shootings. “We think about where many of these mass shootings are taking place — in schools, at parades, at concerts, in houses of worship — these are part of the fundamental components of our day-to-day life.”
He also noted that while mass shooting deaths are just 1% of gun-related deaths, they loom large in Americans’ safety concerns, per Politico.
“I’ve long believed this is a public health issue,” Murthy told The New York Times. “This issue has been politicized, has been polarized over time. But I think when we understand that this is a public health issue, we have the opportunity to take it out of the realm of politics and put it into the realm of public health.”
He added that “as a country, we are actually more united than I believe we understand.”
The report suggests that safe gun storage could become a topic that health care providers tackle, just as they ask about seat belt use or smoking.
Still polarized
Not everyone hails the surgeon general’s stand as good public policy. National Review senior editor Charles C. W. Cooke, for instance, immediately responded that the advisory was less about the public’s health than it was about gun control.
And in a statement that was also posted on X, the NRA’s executive director, Randy Kozuch, wrote, “This is an extension of the Biden Administration’s war on law-abiding gun owners. America has a crime problem caused by criminals. The reluctance to prosecute and punish criminals on the part of President Biden and many of his allies is the primary cause of that. That’s a simple fact.”