(This message represents the opinion of our Executive Medical Director.)
This was not supposed to be my column for June, but with the mass slaughter of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, immediately followed by the massacre of four medical professionals in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that column will have to wait.
In the U.S., three children a day are murdered with guns while one child a day dies from asthma. Think about it. We do everything we can to prevent any death from asthma, yet three times as many children are killed by guns. No child should die from asthma; no child should be slain by gunfire. If schools are not a safe place for a child, then where are they ever safe?
I trained as a pediatrician, and to continue to see innocent children die in this country from gun violence is gut wrenching. As of 2020, gun deaths have become the number one cause of pediatric deaths, overtaking automobile accidents. I know that this deeply affects not only every pediatrician, but every member of the College who has children or treats children.
About three million children a year witness all types of gun violence. Think about the emotional scars that this imprints on them for the rest of their lives.
According to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, there have been 2,054 school shootings with 681 fatalities and 1,923 injuries since 1970. School shootings have returned to pre-COVID levels and by some accounts have even increased, according to the Sandy Hook Promise report. From the Washington Post, more than 311,000 students have experienced gun violence at school since Columbine in 1999. There were 500 children in Robb Elementary in Uvalde on May 24 when the rampage began.
What about other countries? Don’t they have mass shootings? The answer is yes. Mass shootings have occurred in the past in Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and Norway. But, you may be saying, I have not heard about these recently, That is because all of these countries increased restrictions on gun ownership. And what do we do in the U.S.? We keep making it easier to get guns. In my home state of Georgia, a bill was signed in April allowing permitless carry of a concealed handgun in public, while this state has the ninth highest rate of gun violence in the US. How does this make sense?
In 1994, Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Federal Assault Weapons Ban for 10 years. It prohibited the manufacture for civilian use of certain semi-automatic firearms that were defined as assault weapons along with large capacity ammunition magazines. After 2004, the ban expired. What happened to mass shooting in the U.S. then? Data from the Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery in 2018 found that from 1994 to 2004, mass shooting related homicides dropped in the U.S. compared to the 10 years before the ban. What happened after the ban was lifted? Mass shooting deaths were fewer than 50 during the ban but rose to 180 from 2005 to 2015. Just think about it. If this common-sense law were still on the books, then an 18-year-old could not have legally bought two assault weapons and rounds of ammunition. These 19 children and two adults would still be alive and ready for summer vacation.
I have heard all the arguments about the Second Amendment and how it has been distorted to block any policy to restricting gun ownership. If people want to hunt or fire at shooting ranges, be my guest. But we need to demand that our leaders act to prevent senseless mass killings. Yes, I know that many of the perpetrators have mental illness and criminals can always get a gun. We have been told that all schools should have armed guards and that would prevent mass shootings, even though that completely failed in Uvalde, Texas. No, we can’t stop all the killing at once, but we have to start somewhere, and banning assault weapons is a good start. It is a public health problem. We lobby Congress for more funds for pediatric asthma. We should be demanding that our Congress do more to protect the lives of our children from mass shootings. By all means, pray for the victims and their loved ones. But prayers won’t prevent the next school shooting in the U.S. – only action will.
