Citation

Goldstein EV, Prater LC. Health affairs forefront 2023; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2023, Healath Affairs)

DOI

10.1377/forefront.20230222.464267

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Finding effective approaches to reducing the national public health problem of firearm violence will require that the country not only become more politically unified in its willingness to recognize the scope and nature of our firearm violence problem but also remain motivated to address it civically. Unfortunately, the onslaught of firearm violence in the US and the endless stream of media coverage about firearm violence may be fatiguing the US public and undermining motivation to remain politically activated in the struggle over the idea of firearm violence.

Firearm violence in the United States is a tragic public health and public policy problem. We rarely go a week without experiencing a mass shooting in the US. School shootings such as those at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, are particularly pernicious. Tragically, by some accounts, school shootings reached a record high in 2022.

Mass shootings represent just the tip of the iceberg, accounting for only a small percentage of the US's annual firearm deaths--about 672 deaths in 2022. In 2020, more than 45,000 firearm deaths happened in communities across the US, more than half of which were suicides. More than 10,000 firearm deaths in 2020 were among persons younger than the age of 24, costing an estimated 463,345 years of potential life lost among our next generation....

Language: en