By Jen Christensen | CNN
Gun violence in the United States is an urgent public health crisis that demands the “collective commitment of the nation” to stop it, Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says in a new advisory released Tuesday.
It’s the first time a publication from the Office of the Surgeon General has focused on firearm violence and its “profound consequences” on survivors, communities, and mental health. A surgeon general’s advisory is typically used to draw attention to significant public health challenges, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. Typically, advisories are shorter than surgeon general reports, such as a well-known 1964 report about the dangers of smoking, which include a comprehensive scientific review documents.
Tuesday’s advisory spells out how devastating gun violence has been in the United States and details how public health strategies can help.
In 2022 alone, more than 48,000 people in the US died from firearm-related injuries, according to provisional data. That number included homicides, suicides and unintentional deaths.
The rate of firearm-related deaths in the US has been rising, according to the advisory, reaching a three-decade high in 2021. Since then, data has shown a decrease in gun-related homicides, while the number of gun-related suicides have stayed about the same, the advisory says.
While mass shootings are still rare, making up just about 1% of gun deaths, the number of mass shooting incidents has been rising, according to the advisory.
A KFF poll in April last year also showed that gun violence is all too common in the lives of Americans. More than half of adults that live in the US report that they or their loved ones have experienced a firearm-related incident. One in five adults say they have personally been threatened with a gun, and nearly the same number said that a family member was killed by a gun. That last number included those who used a gun in a suicide.
People of color are disproportionately impacted by gun violence, the surgeon general’s advisory says. In 2022, Black people saw the highest rates of firearm-related homicides across all ages.
That same year, Black children and adolescents made up half of all firearm deaths, despite being only 14% of this demographic, the advisory says. The violence isn’t just a direct physical threat: It can threaten an entire communities’ sense of well-being and can lead to elevated levels of stress and mental health problems.
Children ages 1 to 19 die from guns more than anything else in the US, studies show.
Children, in general, faced the highest gun violence mortality rate among peer countries by far. In the US, there were 36.4 deaths per million people ages 1 to 19; in Canada, its 6.2 per million, in Australia, it’s 1.6 per million and in the UK, it’s 0.5 per million.
An analysis of unintentional firearm deaths among children and adolescents found that 56% of these incidents happened in the child’s own home. Part of the problem is the way firearms are kept: Among the incidents where the details were known, 74% of the firearms were stored loaded and 76% were stored unlocked. Most commonly, guns were found in sleeping areas, such as in nightstands, under a pillow or …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
