Citation

Bauchner H, Rivara FP, Bonow RO, Bressler NM, Disis MLN, Heckers S, Josephson SA, Kibbe MR, Piccirillo JF, Redberg RF, Rhee JS, Robinson JK. JAMA Intern. Med. 2017; 177(12): 1724-1725.

Affiliation

Editor.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017, American Medical Association)

DOI

10.1001/jamainternmed.2017.6917

PMID

29052733

Abstract

The shooting in Las Vegas, Nevada, that left 59 people dead, 10 times that number wounded, and thousands of people with the psychological distress from being present at the scene during and after the massacre has once again raised the issue of what we as a nation can and should do about guns. The solution lies in not just focusing on Las Vegas and the hundreds of other mass shootings that have occurred in the United States in the last 14 months, but rather to underscore that on average almost 100 people die each day in the United States from gun violence. The 36 252 deaths from firearms in the United States in 20151 exceeded the number of deaths from motor vehicle traffic crashes that year (36 161). That same year, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 5 people died from terrorism. Since 1968, more individuals in the United States have died from gun violence than in battle during all the wars the country has fought since its inception.

Guns do not make individuals, their families, or homes safer and they result in far more deaths to loved ones than to an intruder intending to cause harm. Often forgotten is that 60.7% of the gun deaths in 2015 in the United States were suicides. Means used to attempt suicide matter; guns will result in suicidal deaths well over 90% of the time, whereas ingestion of pills or wrist cutting will be unsuccessful more than 90% of the time. The majority of people who try to commit suicide but survive the attempt will not go on to die from suicide; if the attempt is with a gun, there will be no second chance at life.

The journals of the JAMA Network are dedicated to improving the health of people across the globe. We do so by addressing the most important public health problems harming people and publishing the best science that can be done. The journals have published important work on gun violence...

Language: en