A week after saying that social media platforms should contain a warning about their effect on adolescents’ mental health, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy has declared gun violence a public health crisis. In a 39-page advisory Murthy called for measures including more funding for research, better data collection, universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons. Speaking to The New York Times, he said the pronouncement offers an opportunity to take gun violence “out of the realm of politics” and “into the realm of public health.”
Such a repositioning of the issue is desirable, but is unlikely to happen under the leadership of a physician who, while highly regarded among his medical peers, is closely aligned with Democrats. Murthy was first appointed surgeon general by Barack Obama, he was removed from the post after Donald Trump took office in 2017, and was later reappointed by Joe Biden. Although Murthy has largely remained outside of politics, a speech he made to the Democratic National Convention in 2020 was called “uncharacteristically political” in an analysis published by ABC News.
Not surprisingly, news of Murthy’s announcement regarding gun violence was met with derision by many conservatives on social media, with some saying the action amounts to a gun grab.
It’s unfortunate that the surgeon general of the United States does not stand above the political fray, and perhaps Murthy bears the blame for that because of his decision to speak at the Democrats’ nominating convention. Americans also have reason to be skeptical about official proclamations that urge more spending on study committees.
Nevertheless, there are sound reasons to consider firearm deaths and injuries a matter of public health, and this move is consistent with efforts to recognize other damaging forces in society that, directly or indirectly, affect life expectancy or quality of life.
Murthy has, for example, sounded an alarm about loneliness and isolation and their effects; multiple states, following Utah’s lead, have declared pornography a public health crisis; and almost everyone concedes that overuse of social media is wrecking mental health. No wonder many Americans see firearms as TNT tossed in a caldron that is already smoking. We have a crisis of crises, each getting oxygen from the others.
We have reason to hear Murthy out, given that firearm-related injuries have been the leading cause of death for children and adolescents in America since 2020, surpassing car accidents, cancer, poisoning and drowning.
In the report, Murthy cites a 2023 study that found 54% of American adults said they or a family member have experienced a firearm-related incident, with 21% saying they had been threatened with a firearm, 19% saying a family member had been killed or committed suicide via firearm, and 17% saying they had witnessed someone being shot. Four percent reported having shot a firearm in self-defense, and another 4% said they themselves had been injured by a firearm.
While mass shootings comprise just 1% of firearm-related deaths, more than three-quarters of adults report feeling stress about the possibility of a mass shooting.
Statistically speaking, most of us will never be the victim of a mass shooting. But the fact that so many of these horrific events have occurred at the most ordinary of places — schools, churches, a bowling alley, a Walmart, a movie theatre — makes it difficult to keep such fears in perspective, especially the young adults who grew up practicing active-shooter drills at school. The threat of gun violence is part and parcel of the American psyche in ways it hasn’t been in generations past, and it has surely contributed to the mental health struggles of some young Americans.
Critics of Murthy’s action reasonably point out that mental health issues and gun violence are often connected. Acton Institute research fellow Anthony Bradley wrote on X, “Nearly 60% of gun deaths are suicide. About 80% of a suicides are men. This is not even mentioned here. Why is that? It seems like the actual ‘public health’ crisis is men struggling with impulse control, depression, and anxiety.”
That’s a fair point. The term “firearm violence” encompasses much more than crime. According to Murthy’s report, “Across all firearm‑related deaths in 2022, more than half (56.1%) were from suicide, 40.8% were from homicide, and the remaining were from legal intervention, unintentional injuries, and injuries of unknown intent.”
But the bigger point is that while many things we call crises do not merit that term, no actual crisis stays neatly contained. Instead, crises often lock hands with other volatile and dangerous trends, and associated harms spiral and cascade.
There are some who say that a “public health crisis” should involve diseases only. Others expand the definition further, calling racism a public health crisis or public health threat.
While thoughtful people can disagree on what should be called a crisis, it’s clear that there are many things that affect a population’s life expectancy other than disease and poor health. American life expectancy has declined in recent years, for a number of disturbing factors, including rising rates of obesity and deaths of despair (alcohol-related disease, drug overdose and suicide). It doesn’t take a surgeon general to see this is a serious problem, and it should be something we can all talk about without partisan rancor.
But physicians, paramedics and other health care officials do have a unique role to play in talking about gun violence since so many of them see the effects firsthand, hence their hashtag #ThisIsOurLane. And as long as the average American lifespan is on a downward trend, it’s not hyperbole to call the many factors involved — gun violence included — a crisis.