Three Things Thursday highlights three things I am paying attention to as an epidemiologist each week.
Tomorrow is National Gun Violence Awareness Day.
Talking about guns may make you uncomfortable. And conversations about gun violence, domestic violence, and suicide may make you even more uncomfortable.
I get it — we live in a country where 2nd Amendment rights are valued by some over the safety and health of our communities. Many would rather our children be forced to walk through active shooter drills than have a discussion about gun control.
We live in a country where gun violence is the leading cause of premature death.
But today — I am begging you to sit with whatever level of uncomfortableness you have and listen to me talk about gun violence.
Conversations about preventing gun violence are essential.
And acknowledging (as individuals and as a community) National Gun Violence Awareness Day tomorrow is imperative.
Hoping this post helps to educate and empower you
to be healthy and create healthy communities.
Below are three things you need to know about gun violence. These facts are oh-so-important. We must talk about GUNS. And recognize that our communities are not healthy or safe because gun violence is so prevalent.
I want to remind each of you that (in the words of Will McAvoy from The Newsroom, which I have quoted often) —
“The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one.”
First — gun violence is an epidemic in the United States.
There have been 263 mass shootings so are in 2023. And nearly 18,000 gun violence deaths.
According to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 1 in 5 American adults have had a family member killed by a gun. And 1 in 6 have witnessed a shooting. The vast majority of American adults reported that they worry that they or a loved one will be a victim of gun violence.
Second — the science of public health, epidemiology, can be used to conduct surveillance and research related to gun violence in the United States. With data and results from research studies, we can craft policies, programs, and interventions to do what public health does best —
PREVENTION.
“Time and time again, a public health approach to solving health threats is a proven, evidencebased approach to improving health and preventing injury… Health epidemics don’t end unless we intervene taking the best science about what does and does not work and using it. The epidemic of intentional gun violence can be reversed with a science-based approach. It happened with Ebola, it worked for automobile crashes and it can absolutely reduce gun violence.”
~Dr. Georges Benjamin, Executive Director of the American Public Health Association
We need to prevent gun violence before it happens (primary prevention). We must put an end to secondary prevention of gun violence — where teachers and students are tasked with responding to violent situations in their classrooms by locking doors, hiding under desks, and barricading themselves in safe spaces.
Secondary prevention is unacceptable when it comes to gun violence.
Primary prevention — ensuring that gunmen do not enter school buildings, ensuring semi-automatic guns cannot be purchased, ensuring that background checks and gun safety are par for the course across the country — must be our goal. Public health is declaring gun violence to be an epidemic. We want new policies and change. And we stand behind Vice President Harris, who recently said —
“As a nation, we must have the courage to stand up to the gun lobby and fight for sensible gun safety laws to ensure nothing like this happens again.”
Primary prevention must be our goal.
Third — We all need to take action…
If you own a gun, storing it safely in your home must be a priority. Gun (unloaded) and ammunition should ALWAYS be stored separately.
As parents, we have to be comfortable talking about guns with other parents. When our kids are invited to a friend’s house, we MUST ask the other family if there are guns in the house. And if there are, I would ask if they are stored loaded; if they are stored in a locked container. I’d ask who has access to the gun. And how the other family addresses gun safety in their home.
We must have these conversations. We must make it clear to everyone that gun safety in the home is a priority for us - as individuals and as a community.We can stop the flow of misinformation — 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
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).
And tomorrow — wear ORANGE.
We wear orange for a future free from gun violence.
Do you have questions about guns or gun violence? Ask them. We need to destigmatize talking about just how scary it is to live in America right now where more than one mass shooting occurs each day. Let’s talk…
And please share this with others.
Thank you for your courage and I'm sorry that it even takes courage to post this.
THANK YOU!