Gun Violence Is an Epidemic

Pt 2: A public health approach to prevention & addressing questions about mental health

Gun violence is public health emergency (be sure to read my first post about gun violence). And it is threatening the lives of our children, as well as their mental and emotional health.

Change is needed.

So when I shared this in my last post —

I firmly believe that action is needed. Continuing to offer thoughts and prayers after every mass shooting is NOT ENOUGH. We think and pray — knowing that there will be another mass shooting. I send my kids to school every day with the knowledge that their classroom/school could be next. I also recognize that my classroom could be the site of the next mass shooting. We cannot continue to think and pray for the victims.

We need to prevent gun violence before it occurs.

We need to support organizations that are working to reduce injuries and deaths from gun violence (again, it is time to lift up and support the work of Everytown for Gun Safety and the JHU Center for Gun Violence Prevention & Policy, among others).

We need to advocate for policy & changes to reduce deaths and injuries from guns.

And to those who are tempted to scream, “but the Constitution guarantees my right to bear arms,” please read on…

This is about reducing deaths and injuries from gun violence.

This is NOT about the guns. This is about prevention. This is about human lives.

To better understand what I am talking about, let’s talk about car crashes (there is so much to learn about public health from car crashes)… Since the 1970s the number of car crashes has decreased by 70% and the number of deaths from car crashes has steadily declined. And we have NOT taken away the cars. Instead, we make cars that are safer, we require everyone in a car to wear a seatbelt, we require new drivers to take a test and train with a licensed driver (for months), we restrict when young/new drivers can be on the roads (home by 10 pm), we require car seats for babies, we teach new parents how to install car seats properly, and we have laws to prevent people from driving drunk or texting while driving.

A public health approach to preventing gun violence means we put policies and programs in place to reduce injuries and deaths caused by gun violence.

This is NOT about the guns. This is about background checks, education, making guns safer, and more.

This is about preventing gun violence.

And while we are talking about preventing gun violence, we need to debunk one of the biggest myths tied to gun violence —

MYTH: mental illness is tied to mass shooting events (meaning the gunman’s mental illness is the cause of the shooting).

TRUTH: mental illness alone is NOT a predictor of gun violence. In fact, persons with serious mental illness are significantly more likely to be victims of violence than to perpetrate it.

“Framing the conversation about gun violence solely in the context of mental illness goes against scientific evidence.” ~American Psychological Association

Mental illnesses are NOT the cause of gun violence. The United States has similar rates of mental illness to other countries, but much higher rates of gun violence.

The United States has a gun violence problem.

EFSGV

We must all strongly discourage the use of inaccurate and harmful rhetoric that blame’s America’s gun violence problem on mental illness.