mass shootings
'Pivotal Moment': US Surgeon General Declares Gun Violence a Public Health Crisis
"To protect the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children, we must now act with the clarity, courage, and urgency that this moment demands," the surgeon general said.
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a Surgeon General's Advisory on firearm violence on Tuesday, calling it a "public health crisis."
The advisory marks the first time that the nation's leading physician has published a warning on gun violence, which now joins the ranks of tobacco, skin cancer, and opioids as the subject of a surgeon general's publication.
"Firearm violence is a public health crisis," Murthy said in a video message announcing the report. "Our failure to address it is a moral crisis. To protect the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children, we must now act with the clarity, courage, and urgency that this moment demands."
The report comes after gun violence deaths in the U.S. reached their highest level in 30 years in 2021. According to the report, 54% of U.S. adults have either experienced a firearm-related incident directly or have a family member who has. Of those impacted, 21% were threatened with a firearm; 19% lost a family member to guns, including by suicide; 17% saw someone being shot; 4% used a gun to defend themselves; and 4% were injured by one.
Gun violence has been especially devastating for children. As of 2020, firearm injury overtook car accidents, cancer, drug overdoses, and poisoning as the leading cause of death for young people ages 1 to 19.
The U.S. stands out among similar nations for its level of gun violence. In 2015, the U.S. had 11.4 times the rate of gun-related deaths compared with 28 other high-income countries, and more than 90% of the children who died due to gun violence in those countries died in the U.S.
"I know it's been polarizing and I know it's been politicized, but if we can see it as a public health issue, we can come together and implement a public health solution."
While mass shootings grab headline attention and are on the rise, they only account for around 1% of gun-related deaths. The rise in gun-related deaths is in large part fueled by an increase in gun homicides over the past 10 years and gun suicides over the past 20. Still, mass-shootings take a disproportionate toll on the nation's mental health, with more than three quarters of U.S. adults reporting stress due to worries about experiencing one.
"Our children should not have to live in fear that they are going to get shot if they go to school. None of us should have to worry that going to the mall or concert, or house of worship means putting our lives at risk, or that we'll get a call that a loved one in a moment of crisis has taken their own life with a firearm," Murthy said. "All of us, regardless of our background or beliefs, want to live in a world that is safe for us and our children."
The issue of gun violence has been heavily politicized in recent years, something Murthy has both acknowledged and experienced. After comments he made about gun violence, the firearm lobby and some Senate Republicans opposed Murthy's confirmation as former U.S. President Barack Obama's surgeon general in 2014, The Associated Press explained. He was confirmed after promising not to use his office as a "bully pulpit on gun control."
Trump dismissed him as surgeon general in 2017 and, when President Joe Biden reappointed him, he again assured the Senate that gun violence would not be a priority during his tenure. However, Murthy also received counter-pressure to take up the issue from Democratic groups and other public health professionals, including four former surgeon generals.
"I want people to understand the full impact of firearm violence in our country, and I want them to see it as a public health issue," Murthy toldThe Washington Post. "I know it's been polarizing and I know it's been politicized, but if we can see it as a public health issue, we can come together and implement a public health solution."
Murthy toldKFF News that this approach helped the U.S. tackle other major killers, such as tobacco after the surgeon general's landmark warning in 1964 that smoking caused cancer and other ailments.
"We saved so many lives, and that's what we can do here, too," Murthy said.
"There are many powerful forces who downplay the threat of gun violence because the status quo benefits them financially or politically, and I'm grateful that Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy had the courage to do what he knows is best for our nation's health."
That said, the report does include recommendations that will require a political compromise in Congress, including a ban on automatic rifles and large-capacity magazines, universal background checks, more restrictions on firearms in public spaces, more penalties for improper safeguarding of firearms, and regulating firearms like any other consumer product.
The report also calls for measures such as community violence prevention programs, improved access to mental health services, and additional research into the best ways to reduce gun violence.
The advisory was welcomed by members of the public health community as well as gun violence prevention advocates.
"Today marks a pivotal moment in public health as the surgeon general has issued a new advisory declaring gun violence a public health crisis. As a pediatric surgeon and advocate for safer communities, I am deeply moved and resolute in supporting this call to action," Dr. Chethan Sathya, vice president of strategic initiatives and director of gun violence at Northwell Health, wrote on social media.
Joseph Sakran, executive vice chair of surgery at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore and chief medical officer for Brady United Against Gun Violence, told KFF Health News that the advisory was a "historic moment that sounds the alarm for all Americans."
In a statement, Sakran continued: "Historically, we have seen how the release of surgeon general reports on public health issues such as the dangers of smoking ignited a wave of policy, legal, and public health initiatives that saved countless American lives and in this case led to deprogramming our nation from the tobacco industry's lies. We hope this report will have the same resounding impact on the gun violence epidemic."
Former U.S. Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), founder of gun control organization GIFFORDS, said: "I have seen firsthand how shootings are a major threat to Americans' lives and well-being, and our leaders must view the problem as the public health crisis it is. There are many powerful forces who downplay the threat of gun violence because the status quo benefits them financially or politically, and I'm grateful that Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy had the courage to do what he knows is best for our nation's health. Policymakers at every level of government have a responsibility to heed the declaration and take urgent action to protect their communities."
March For Our Lives noted on social media that the advisory came after "years of activist pressure."
"The gun lobby fought hard, but data doesn't lie," the group wrote. "Our push for more research and tighter laws is paying off, and we're starting to win BIG."
Both Sakran and Sathya argued that the report was not an end in itself, but a gateway to more effective prevention efforts.
"Let's heed this advisory not as a mere recommendation, but as a clarion call to action," Sathya concluded. "Together, we can turn the tide on gun violence and create a healthier, safer environment for all."
The Sword May Be Mightier, But the Pen Has the Power to Ask Deeper Questions
The mass atrocity may be over, but our meditations on such violence do not end and perhaps still we have much to learn.
Here’s an anniversary no one wants to celebrate: The Columbine school shooting — April 20, 1999 — just passed its 25th anniversary. Fifteen dead (including the two shooters), twenty-one injured. A new era begins . . .
Why, why, why bring up such a horrific event? Perhaps because it hasn’t stopped.
Even though I sit here in the comfort of my study, feeling perfectly safe, I can’t emotionally disentangle myself from the news, which is always, in one way or another, about the human need to kill itself — or rather, the human assumption that it’s divided from itself, and “the other,” whoever that other is, either needs to be killed or is, at best, expendable. For instance:
“The Senate has passed $95 billion in war aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, sending the legislation to President Joe Biden after months of delays and contentious debate over how involved the United States should be in foreign wars.”
So AP informs us, and immediately scenarios of screaming children, bombed aid workers, home and hospitals reduced to rubble, flash before me. No, these are not abstract scenarios! Part of me and part of you lie trapped in that rubble, or stunned and grieving over the sudden loss of your whole family. And all we seem to do is continue funding the process that makes this happen, as though a larger understanding of our existence is not available — certainly not at the level of global politics.
What is power? Is it simply and sheerly us vs. them, good vs. evil? Every war on Planet Earth is sold with this advertising slogan. Perhaps this is why I find myself thinking about the Columbine shootings — and all the mass shootings since then. Define an enemy, then kill it. This is what we learn in history class — but would-be mass shooters, caged in their own isolation, cross a line. They take this lesson personally.
And there’s a world of possibility that welcomes them, oh so ironically. In this world, the sword is mightier than the pen (or anything else). Power means power over. . . something. So if you’re a lost or wounded soul, imagining an enemy that needs to be destroyed is probably enormously tempting. If the world is going on without you, maybe you should do something to stop it. And the “world of possibility” — by which I mean far more than merely the “gun culture,” but the entirety of our culture of scripted violence, from global politics to the media to the entertainment industry — makes the loner’s imagined and insane solution, defining and killing an enemy, an actual possibility.
At the time of the Columbine shootings, I had begun writing poetry. This was in the wake of my wife’s death, in 1998, from pancreatic cancer. Poetry allowed me to deal with the shattered narrative of my life, and pretty soon I had expanded the terrain of my poetry beyond my personal grief to, well, life itself, including the horrific strangeness of the news. And I happened to read, after Columbine, a news account of President Clinton visiting the school and meeting with students in the gymnasium. And outside the school, gun-rights advocates held what they called a vigil, holding signs that declared “Gun Control Kills Kids” and “We Will Never Give Up Our Guns.”
What struck me about it the most was the idea that this was a “vigil,” which implied something more than simply a protest — an expression of anger and disagreement. A vigil dug deeper, seemingly entering the soul. Guns were a source of power and power was the source of one’s humanity, so stripping away the right to own one had a deep, spiritual impact.
I wrote a poem in response to the vigil — I called it “Vigil” (I quoted part of it in an earlier column) — attempting to address my feelings about the total scenario: the shooting itself, Americans’ deeply desired availability of guns, the impact of that availability on society’s lost souls. Here’s part of the poem, focusing on the lost souls:
. . . The violent seed
in a boy’s soul
must sprout.
It is meant to ripen
into courage,
endurance and grace.
But when it bursts open
in another dream —
the dream of permanent armament
and the grandeur of self-defense —
what happens to the boy?
What happens when soft,
immature fingers
find their way
around the deadly toys
of grown men, and
the desperate possible
co-opts the reverie?
The unimaginable
is suddenly commonplace:
burst lesson plans,
bookbags abandoned
in terrified heaps
and young lives frozen
in their yearbook photos.
This is our nightmare.
I acknowledge that the sword is probably mightier than the poem, but a poem can ask questions that the sword can’t: Why? Where are we headed? What world comes next? Does armed defense — whether of home or country — ever go wrong, ever turn into poison? All humans have a dark side; is killing it in the other guy our only option, and what are the consequences of doing so? Can power be with others, even those with whom we are in serious conflict, rather than simply over them? And if so, how can we begin reorganizing the world’s relationship with itself? What’s stopping us?
25 Years After Columbine, We Need to Talk About Who Commits Mass Shootings: Men
Until we’re willing to say, men’s gun violence, we’ll continue to miss the mark, falling short of any campaign to prevent these massacres.
Maybe there won’t be a copycat mass shooting to grotesquely mark the 25th anniversary of the Columbine massacre on April 20, 1999. But just as we can be certain there will be another solar eclipse, it’s only a matter of time before a hail of bullets will block out the sun for another community somewhere in America. What’s also true? Expect the shooter to be male, probably white.
In an effort to prevent mass shooters from attaining posthumous fame, today the media rarely reveals their names. Back in 1999, after high school seniors Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris murdered 12 classmates and a teacher in Littleton, Colorado, their names were widely broadcast and published.
A quarter century later, despite substantive actions to prevent mass shootings by a number of states—and, with vice president Kamala Harris now overseeing the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention—we still lead the world in this particular brand of murder. USA! USA! USA! (As horrific as the April 13 murder of six by an Australian man at a mall outside of Sydney was, he was only wielding a knife. I shudder to think of the level of carnage if he had been brandishing an AR-15, the weapon of choice in most mass shootings.)
Sure, there are rare occasions when women pull the trigger, but as certain as I am that we’ll never hear a news report begin with the words, “A gunwoman opened fire today…,” I believe that to minimize mass shootings, we must move the question of the gender of the shooter from the periphery to the center of a long overdue national conversation.
Australia, you might recall, banned automatic and semi-automatic weapons after a mass shooting in Port Arthur, Tasmania, on April 28, 1996. There a gunman opened fire in a cafe, slaughtering 35 and wounding 23. Then-prime minister John Howard, a conservative politician in office for just six weeks, was able to push through sweeping gun control legislation12 days after the shooting.
The legislative package he shepherded through banned selling and importing semi-automatic and automatic rifles, and shotguns, and required gun purchasers to explain the reason—and wait 28 days—before buying a firearm. Most significantly, the Australian law required a mandatory gun buyback. The government confiscated and destroyed nearly 700,000 firearms, cutting in half the number of households that possessed guns.
Prime Minister Howard said at the time, “People used to say to me, ‘You violated my human rights by taking away my gun.’ I’d tell them, ‘I understand that. Will you please understand the argument [that] the greatest human right of all is to live a safe life without fear of random murder?’”
Why, in 2024—a quarter century after Columbine, 12 years after Sandy Hook, eight years after Orlando, six years after Las Vegas, two years after Uvalde, and six months after Lewiston—is it so hard for U.S. legislators and gun owners to understand that?
In a world where leaders of all stripes use the term “a just war” with a straight face, working to prevent mass shootings feels more within our grasp then say, ending the war in Gaza. What to do first? Change how we talk about the issue. That means refusing to speak out against generic “gun violence.” Until we’re willing to say, men’s gun violence, we’ll continue to miss the mark, falling short of any campaign to prevent mass shootings.
This is not a condemnation of men. The vast majority of men are not mass shooters. For decades, I worked at a men’s center, published a magazine promoting a new definition of manhood, and championed revisiting how we socialize boys, as early as preschool. More and more men are rejecting conventional masculinity.
The weakened, shell-of-itself National Rifle Association coined the oft cited cliché, “Guns don’t kill people. People do” more than a century ago. Variations have long been used to thwart gun control legislation. It’s astonishing how little pushback there’s been.
“People kill people?” Really? Sure, there are rare occasions when women pull the trigger, but as certain as I am that we’ll never hear a news report begin with the words, “A gunwoman opened fire today…,” I believe that to minimize mass shootings, we must move the question of the gender of the shooter from the periphery to the center of a long overdue national conversation.
Now is a good time to listen again to entertainers Martin Mull and Steve Martin. They had it right when they penned the satirical sea shanty, “Men” with its one word chorus: Men, men, men, men.