Citation

Steinbrook R, Stern RJ, Redberg RF. JAMA Intern. Med. 2016; 177(1): 19-20.

Affiliation

Department of Medicine, UCSF School of Medicine, University of California-San Francisco5Editor, JAMA Internal Medicine.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.7180

PMID

27842170

Abstract

n this issue of JAMA Internal Medicine, we launch a series on firearm violence. Since we announced the series, firearm violence in the United States has continued unabated. In June 2016, a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killed 49 people and wounded 53 others. As of October 15, 2016, Chicago had recorded more than 570 homicides this year, levels not seen since the 1990s. Shootings in which 4 or more people are injured or killed (including shooters) occur almost daily.

The series follows from the belief that if the United States were to implement a coordinated and sustained public health, research, and law-enforcement commitment to prevent firearm violence, many lives would be saved. In 2014, firearm injuries were responsible for about the same number of deaths in the United States as motor vehicle crashes (Table). Although deaths from motor vehicle crashes have substantially decreased since 2000, deaths from firearm injuries have substantially increased, mostly from suicides....

Language: en