Artwork in Malmo, Sweden, via Unsplash.
By Jack Bernard, contributing columnist
PEACHTREE CITY, Ga. | Four Georgia high school students were recently murdered by a teen gunman in Winder. Yes, it is a tragedy. But this situation is not new… and all the praying has failed to solve the firearm problem.
Our national rate of children dying due to guns is six times that of neighboring Canada.
Praying is just a cop out, an excuse not to take any action. Our most religious states are also the ones with the most per capita gun deaths. Five of America’s top ten most religious states are in the top ten states for gun deaths. Four of the remaining five most religious states are in the top twenty states for gun deaths.
Primarily due to politicians opposing gun regulation, firearm use in the U.S. has been out of control for decades. Back in July 2016, American Medical Association (AMA) President Steven J. Stack, M.D., made the following revolutionary statement:”With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence.”
Dr. Stack went on to state that unregulated/poorly regulated possession of handguns and rifles is- “a serious threat to the public’s health.” Back in June, , Surgeon General Vivek Hallegere Murthy (stated that the gun violence epidemic is getting worse and “is the leading cause of death among kids and teens.”
Bullying clearly has increased because of electronic communications. Schools have been raising red flags regarding cyber-bullying and deteriorating student mental health. However, no other developed nation has shown our lack of concern for mental health services more than the United States.
Three million American adolescents have seriously thought about suicide. That’s 19 percent of our teens. Almost half of them (nine percent) have already attempted suicide And many students are being arrested for gun possession, often stealing them from oblivious parents, who do not even bother to lock firearms away.
The United States had 48,000 gun deaths just last year, over 130 per day. Half were suicides, made easy by guns. The rest were almost all homicides. Plus, there were even more gun incidents whereby the injured lived. Nearly three-fourths of these were firearm assaults.
It has been nearly a decade since the conservative AMA made the statement above and provided recommendations (addressed below). In just eight years, US gun deaths are up 60 percent! The National Rifle Association “everyone get a gun” approach is just plain counterproductive. The more guns we have, the more firearm deaths-a fact.
There are an estimated 400 million guns in our country, only 15 percent of which are registered (AMMO.com). One-third of adults now own a gun.
There are reasonable solutions. AMA policy has advocated- a waiting period before purchasing, background checks for all gun purchasers, stronger enforcement of existing firearm laws, plus mandatory penalties for illegal firearm possession and gun crimes.
Many American Congressmen and Senators, and out state legislators, continue to lament the deaths from handguns. But these lamentations do little. Doing the same thing over and over is obviously not working. It is one definition of insanity.
Our Congress and state legislature should stop making excuses and act.
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