The gun violence crisis in the US should be treated as a public-health emergency.
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Please note: The newsletter discussed in this issue is gun violence. It’s a tragic and raw topic that has been affecting America. On Wednesday, a shooting at Evergreen High School was taking place in Colorado. Charlie Kirk had been shot at Utah Valley University.
The Make America Healthy Again campaign of the Trump Administration released earlier this week a plan to improve the health and wellbeing of American children. This report, titled-you’ve guessed-it–Make Our Children Healthy Again.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his team, led by the Department of Health and Human Services’ Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
These priorities are not surprising to anyone who has been following RFK Jr.’s health and wellbeing speeches. The first two priorities are fairly obvious. Overall, American children need to eat healthier. They should also be more active.
There’s one glaring oversight. It’s not ultraprocessed foods or chemical exposure that is the leading cause of deaths for American teenagers and children. Gun violence is the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers.
The news yesterday of more shootings in schools, this time with high profile victims, brings the disconnect even further into focus. Gun violence is a serious public health issue in the US, according to experts.
My husband and I reside in London with our two children. Our area is not particularly glamorous. In a recent list of London’s boroughs, ranked from the most posh to the least posh ones, we came 30th. Ich am worried about crime. Gun violence is not something I worry about.
This changed when my family temporarily relocated to the US two years ago. The apartment was on the first floor of a gorgeous home in Cambridge Massachusetts, a place with great schools, pastel colored houses and lots of fluffy bunnies. My landlord didn’t tell me about the guns until we had moved in.
We took my daughter’s younger sister to a music-specialist local kindergarten, where the children sang songs about friendship. The whole scene was heartwarming, until we saw the security guard at the front of the school with a weapon.
A few months later, the Superintendent of Cambridge Public Schools sent me an alert via email. The message stated that a Cambridge Police Department youth officer assigned to Cambridge Rindge and Latin School discharged his firearm accidentally at approximately 1:45 pm this afternoon while in a school staff restroom. The school day wasn’t disrupted.
The cultural differences between the US, the UK, and most other countries (including mine) regarding firearms was made clear to me by these experiences. First time I was concerned about the exposure of my children to firearms. My children were not allowed to enter certain parts of my house. I was ashamed that my 4-year-old daughter had to be taught what to do in the event of a shooter entering her school.
The statistics are what is most shocking.
According to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, a June report, 46 728 Americans will die from gun violence by 2023. This includes both suicides and homicides. It comes out to be 128. per day, on average. Most of the people who are killed by gun violence in America are adults. The figures are also shocking for children. 2 566 youths will die from gun violence in 2023. Two hundred and thirty-four of those deaths were caused by gun violence.
Since 2013, the number of children killed by firearms has more than doubled. More children die from firearms than car accidents or cancer.
Many other children survive gun violence with nonfatal–but often life-changing–injuries. The effects of gun violence extend beyond the physical injuries. Hearing or seeing gunshots, as well as witnessing violence, can cause distress, fear and sadness.
It’s important to remember that since Columbine, there have been at least 434 shootings in US schools. It’s worth remembering that there have been 434 school shootings in the US since Columbine, 1999. Washington Post Estimates suggest that 397,00 students experienced school violence during that time. On Wednesday, another school shooting occurred at Evergreen High School.
Daniel Webster is the Bloomberg Professor of American Health and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
MAHA’s report says that the “American Youth Face a Mental Health Crisis.” It goes on to say that suicide deaths for 10-to-24-year-olds have increased 62% between 2007 and 2021, that it is “now the leading cause death among teens aged 15-19” but does not mention that half of those suicides involved guns.
When you add up all the dimensions, [gun violence is] “Public health is a huge problem,” Webster says.
Since years, researchers who have studied gun violence say the same thing. In 2024, the then US Surgeon-General Vivek murthy called it a crisis of public health. Murthy stated in a press release at that time, “We do not have to expose our children to America’s ongoing gun violence.” He argued that we should instead tackle the issue using a health-oriented approach.
Webster says that part of this approach is to identify who’s at greatest risk, and then offer support in order to reduce that risk. He says that young men living in poverty and those experiencing crisis are at the greatest risk for gun violence. He says that limiting access to guns or mediating conflicts can reduce gun violence.
Webster adds that there’s also a social element to it. More shooting is a result of more shooting. Likening it to an outbreak of a disease, he says. He says that when more people are vaccinated, infection rates drop. Gun violence is almost the exact same.
Existing efforts are under attack. Grants worth hundreds of millions have been cut by the Trump administration for groups working to curb gun violence.
Webster believes that the MAHA Report has “missed” the mark when it comes the the health and wellbeing of US children. He says that the document “is almost the opposite of what many public health professionals think.” We must acknowledge that firearm injuries and fatalities pose a serious threat to children’s and teens’ health and safety.
The Checkup published this article originally. MIT Technology Review’s Weekly biotech newsletter Receive it every Thursday and get articles such as this one first. Sign up for our newsletter .