The Surgeon General of the United States is responsible for overseeing the nation’s public health. In an advisory released last week, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy identified a threat we’ve long talked about in these pages: gun violence. Murthy noted that guns have been the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the United States for several years, surpassing even motor vehicles. Tens of thousands of people are killed every year.
The surgeon general also highlighted an impact that is often overlooked in conversations about guns: the heavy toll that extends beyond the violence itself. You don’t have to have directly experienced gun violence in America for it to have colored your life, whether you’re sitting in a movie theater watching the exits or considering what shoes to run in on your way to a concert or parade.
In primary and postsecondary education in the United States, school shootings are rare, but there is virtually no student, regardless of age, who has not wondered if it would be their next turn, or who hasn’t spent the days after an activity… shooters are unable to concentrate on their duties.
All of this is a choice we made, not all at once but over time, as gun manufacturers moved from selling guns as tools to selling them as representations of independence and of masculinity, weapons formerly reserved for military use being slightly modified to be sold by the shovel to civilian consumers.
It’s a choice made by right-wing politicians who have decided that no amount of carnage will dislodge their desire to use gun bigotry as a political pressure point and to pressure groups like the NRA, which has at this point abandoned its support for even mild gun restrictions. And it’s a choice made by justices, including those on the Supreme Court, who have invoked an individual right to guns that wasn’t actually spelled out in the Constitution and have eroded democratically enacted limitations.
The opinion alone cannot change public perceptions or policy, but it does help tip the balance of the nation’s top public health official in favor of one side, something that cannot be easily dismissed as purely political. Such opinions have moved the needle on all sorts of other issues that were once considered major public controversies and have since been mostly settled, from the dangers of cigarettes to the benefits of seat belts.
For maximum impact, strong political will is needed, followed by concrete actions. These actions must not be simply a reaction to the next major public tragedy that will make headlines, even if that is unfortunately likely to happen soon. They must be motivated by an affirmative demonstration that it is in the interest of all – including responsible gun owners and law enforcement – to have much more concrete regulation of firearms.
Despite its various missteps on this issue, the Supreme Court has at least left the door open for lawmakers to keep guns out of the hands of clearly dangerous people, with its recent decision upholding a federal law blocking sales to people convicted of domestic violence. Let’s have more of that—more gun bans in certain hot spots, more red-flag processes, more delays and background checks, fewer guns in fewer hands. This is a public health issue, after all.
