Suicide is the second leading cause of death for young people in the United States. More children and teens die by suicide than the next eight leading causes of death. Firearm suicide in particular is a growing crisis impacting young people: Every year nearly 3,000 young people die by firearm suicide. The rate of firearm suicide among youth ages 5 to 19 has increased 82% in the last decade. While suicide rates are increasing most among young people ages 10 to 19, researchers are noting a troubling trend of suicide among children as young as 5 years old.
The coronavirus pandemic has upended life as we know it, disrupting normal routines and cutting off access to many support networks.
The 2020 presidential election — which took place near the end of a tumultuous year that featured the rampant spread of a highly lethal pandemic, a disastrous economic recession and a long-overdue nationwide reckoning around systemic racism and police brutality — presented the country with a choice between two candidates with drastically different messages and visions for the nation. The election had historic levels of voter turnout, including among 18- to 29-year-olds and Joe Biden emerged as the clear winner with a victory that exceeded 300 electoral votes and a popular vote margin of victory of nearly 6 million (and growing).
Although public health experts have rightly been focused on the COVID-19 pandemic this year, America has been in the grips of another public health crisis for much longer — a gun violence epidemic that will continue to take lives long after we’re vaccinated unless bold steps are taken to curb the violence and address its underlying causes. Gun violence has continued unabated throughout the other crises of 2020 and acutely impacts Black, Indigenous and other communities of color.
In order to end the gun violence epidemic, the Biden-Harris administration must take a public health approach to solving the issue that not only corrects the harmful policies of the current administration but also goes significantly further to address the root causes of gun violence. Over the last four years, the Trump administration largely turned a blind eye to the issue of gun violence, except to encourage gun ownership and traffic in irrational and often racist fear-mongering. The administration eliminated funds for violence intervention programs in favor of law enforcement suppression and weakened the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell also worked alongside the administration to block common-sense gun legislation, including expanded background checks, closing the Charleston loophole and so-called “red flag laws,” also known as extreme risk protection orders.
Firearm sales have increased exponentially during COVID-19. More guns in the home increase the risk of youth access to firearms. In Michigan alone, a suicide occurs every 13 hours, and access to firearms increases the likelihood of suicide completion by 85%. Unintentional shooting deaths by children increased by 30% nationally March through May of 2020 compared to the same time period averages for 2018 and 2019.
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner this raises grave concerns for mental health and the public health crisis of gun violence. Locally in Washtenaw County, Michigan, I am a survivor fellow with Everytown for Gun Safety working with the local chapter of Moms Demand Action to get out voter information about gun sense candidates who are willing to work toward common-sense gun laws such as red flag laws, which temporarily remove firearms from individuals in crisis, and background checks for all weapons.
After losing my son Jonah to firearm suicide in 2016, I speak with groups (temporarily online) about why safe storage bills, such as Ethan’s Law in Connecticut, are crucial in the fight against teen suicide. In a world where teens are more isolated and having to manage multiple stressors that are new to all of us, in homes that are increasingly saturated with guns, we have an escalation of the public health crisis of suicide as teenage suicides rise nationally.
Gun violence in Maryland disproportionately impacts young Black and brown men and, increasingly, women. It is important that gun violence prevention organizations look beyond traditional efforts to curb gun violence. In light of the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and many other individuals who have experienced police violence, advocates of violence prevention must address the growing concern of police violence and offer alternatives to community policing.
Marylanders to Prevent Gun Violence has led the charge on that front, joining with The Community Justice Action Fund to create The Maryland Violence Prevention Coalition (MVPC).
MVPC is a statewide coalition of organizations with the joint mission of reducing violence and improving living conditions in underserved Maryland communities. Using a community-led approach, we seek to empower the voices often neglected and educate elected officials and the public about urgent community needs. The coalition was initially formed in 2018 to coordinate education and advocacy efforts to support state Delegate Brooke Lierman’s legislation to establish the Maryland Violence Intervention and Prevention Program (VIPP).
I remember when everyone knew a family that had been adversely affected by the loss or serious injury of a loved one in a motor vehicle accident. Initially, there was much hand-wringing and little action about automobile safety. After seat-belt laws were enacted, people railed against them as government interference, spreading fearful predictions that people would be trapped inside their cars. Then, something amazing happened: Seat belts worked. Fewer people died, and a disproportionate number of those who did die were not strapped in.
Automobile manufacturers were not fans of improved safety measures for cars.
Since COVID-19 hit, communities like New York City's East Harlem have been dealing with multiple diseases: a deadly virus, the ongoing effects of systemic racism and gun violence.
Stand Against Violence East Harlem (SAVE), a Cure Violence program run by Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), has worked to address gun violence in its East Harlem neighborhood for many years. We have viewed gun violence as a public health issue, one that must be treated in order to change community norms.
When you look beyond the headlines about gun violence in New York City and actually spend some time in neighborhoods like East Harlem, it is clear that what our community doesn’t need is increased policing and incarceration — what we need is more basic resources and opportunities.
According to a recent study by the Center for Court Innovation — and as we see at GOSO — an overwhelming number of 16- to 24-year-olds who carry guns have been subject to trauma and violence themselves. This history, along with arrests for minor, nonviolent offenses, far too many of which lead to needless incarceration, can start a cycle that eventually escalates. This is why we must focus on treatment and investment, not just law enforcement. The Cure Violence model works to change attitudes and connect at-risk individuals to resources, with staff living in the communities where they work.
More than 115,000 Americans will be shot and 40,000 will die from gun violence this year alone — just like the year before and the year before that one. Gun violence in our country is considered one of the greatest public health crises of our lifetime, disproportionately impacting and traumatizing communities and people of color.
Far too often we see the disproportionate rates at which marginalized people in our country are the targets of hate, violence and injustice. COVID-19 and the recent peaceful protests are bringing to light the inequities that exist in our broken systems — but it shouldn’t take a pandemic and a nine-minute video of a man being murdered by police for systemic change. The data on these inequities has existed for decades.
As the only state-based donor collaborative investing in gun violence prevention in California, Hope and Heal Fund takes a public health, community-based approach through a racial equity framework to end gun violence. It harnesses the collective power of philanthropy, government, advocates, experts, researchers, community partners and individuals to invest in proven solutions and emerging strategies to intervene, interrupt and prevent trauma, injuries and deaths as a result of gun violence in the homes and communities in California.
We don’t just look at the gun violence making national headlines, like mass shootings.
September usually marks the return to school, with teachers setting up classrooms and youth headed off on a new year of learning and growth. But 2020 has been anything but usual. In many parts of the country, learning has moved online as teachers set up virtual classrooms and youth engage from their bedrooms, kitchens and living rooms.
Parents are faced with balancing work and oversight of home learning; for some, this means new child care demands, while teleworking parents struggle with divided attention. Outside the home, other stressors include coronavirus, the upcoming election, economic uncertainty and protests for racial justice; Americans are grieving, frustrated and frightened.
For more information on Youth Gun Violence Prevention, go to JJIE Resource Hub | Youth Gun Violence Prevention
Add the 2020 surge in gun sales — with an estimated 40% being first-time owners — and there’s the perfect recipe for a spike in youth firearm injuries and deaths.
The national debate about gun violence in the United States generally falls into familiar patterns. We express shock and horror at acts of unspeakable violence, grieve for victims and their families and ask questions about the individual who pulled the trigger and what could have been done to intervene with them to prevent the tragedy. But there is one crucial actor who is largely absent from these conversations: the industry responsible for putting guns into our communities in the first place. For more information on Youth Gun Violence Prevention, go to JJIE Resource Hub | Youth Gun Violence Prevention
The gun industry in this country is massive. From 2014 to 2018, nearly 47 million guns were manufactured domestically and another 21 million were imported, totaling 68 million new guns for sale in American communities.
The U.S. Department of Justice recently released two statistical reports that appear to stand in contrast. A report released in June of this year states that in 2018, law enforcement agencies made the fewest number of arrests of juveniles in almost 40 years. But a different report, released in April, shows that juvenile homicide cases spiked by 35% between 2014 and 2018, which overlaps with the period of the June report.
The ostensible discrepancy between these two reports, if viewed without sufficient context, can potentially lead to some misinterpretations and misunderstandings. In particular, given what is occurring currently with regards to the Black Lives Matter movement and heightened tensions surrounding police-community relations, caution should be used when these statistics are directly cited in relation to cases involving Black residents in urban communities.
Criminologist Richard Rosenfeld has previously pointed out the problematic nature of centering the statistical rise in homicides around a narrative about tensions between the police and Black communities. This idea, pushed by some commentators in the popular media, that the increase in homicides was attributed to law enforcement agencies reducing their policing in Black neighborhoods as a result of police-community tensions, is often referred to as the Ferguson Effect.
