Gun violence is an epidemic. It’s time to treat it like one

‘I am numb, my entire body is shaking,” her voice trembling on the phone. This was my daughter, Katha, calling from NYC — where she lives — to tell me about the gruesome carnage that had just taken place in her state, where nine Black Americans were murdered by a hate-filled gunman. It was evening, she was returning from work.

“Will it stop?” she had asked, her words laced with expletives. “Suffering accumulates yet nothing changes. What the ….” her voice crackled and then broke. “You work to stop coronavirus and other diseases, what about this? This is also a disease, this is also an epidemic.”

“We are living in a culture of desensitization,” she continued, “business as usual. People will stop talking about this in a few days. There is no time for the families to grieve because politics takes over every time it happens.”

“And it happens too often,” somehow I managed to mumble.

A week earlier, she had phoned me about a shooting that had just taken place at the subway station which she uses to commute to and from work.

And this week, we learned about another horror, another mass murder in which 19 of our children were cruelly murdered! It is an epidemic and one that is largely preventable.

Tragically, we all know this isn’t just a Texas or New York problem. It happens in every state and it happens in our own towns and neighborhoods. It is, indeed, an epidemic, a public health crisis.

And it is time we act, act and enact laws to save lives from gun violence. Our communities have had enough with thoughts and prayers; they need concrete steps. This time, one time, let’s work together.

We almost get numb reading and hearing about the data associated with this issue, but there are a few crucial numbers to consider.

• Our nation, with a population of 331 million, possesses nearly 400 million firearms.

• According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2020, there were 45,222 firearm-related deaths in the United States — that’s about 124 people dying each day. More than 50 percent of these deaths were attributed to suicide and more than 4 out of every 10 were homicides.

• Sobering statistics from The Gun Violence Archive reveal that more than 1,500 children and teenagers in the United States were killed in shootings in 2021, an 8 percent increase over 2020.

• In 2020, firearm-related injuries were among the five leading causes of death for people ages 1 to 44 in the United States.

• The firearm violence in economic terms costs the United States tens of billions of dollars each year in medical expenses and lost productivity.

Firearm shootings in our country are ubiquitous: in homes, schools, houses of worship, workplaces, shopping areas, bars and restaurants, on the street or at community events. When it happens, it shakes us up, and then we go on, business as usual, as my daughter says.

If we look at the available worldwide data, we find that gun-related events are rare in countries where gun ownership is tightly regulated. In the United States, however, gun ownership is increasing each year, and costing more lives. How many guns are enough? According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, annual domestic gun production increased from 3.9 million in 2000 to 11.3 million in 2020.

As public health practitioners, we rely on data and evidence. Our work uses certain frameworks to prevent/control a disease or health event. An outbreak or an epidemic exists when there are more cases of a particular disease than expected in a given area, or among a specific group of people, over a particular period of time. By most any measure this is where we find ourselves.

The case to prevent gun violence in our communities is complicated because there are a number of components, including mental health issues, and scarcity of research to identify precise risk and protective factors and preventive measures.

But something must be done in light of the staggering tolls associated with firearm death, disability and economic costs. We cannot continue to stay away from preventing all-too-common bloodbaths because the gun lobby claims that limiting access to firearms violates our Second Amendment rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. Do we really need powerful guns, high capacity magazines and lethal ammunition to protect our constitutional rights?

Whether it takes enhanced background checks and screening, waiting periods, licensing requirements and training, assault weapons bans or industry accountability, something must be done, now.

My question remains: how much blood must we spill in our classrooms and elsewhere before implementing meaningful policies or regulations?

Dr. Pramod Dwivedi is health director for Linn County Public Health. Follow him on twitter @pdwivedi9