[Vision2020] Guns Kill an American Child Every Three Hours

[Nicholas Gier]

Good Morning Visionaries:


Let me make two points before you read this article.  First, I'm not
anti-firearms, but I believe that there should be restrictions on buying
them and using them. I'm not anti-cars for very similar reasons.


Second, right absolutists will say that most of these dead children are
male and many of them are gang members. They have guns because of the easy
availability of getting them, primarily by stealing them or second hand
trading.  It is the same reason that drug runners in Mexico have guns.  The
Right Wings made a big deal out of Fast and Furious, but ignore the fact
that most of the guns used to kill upwards of 30,000 Mexicans were provided
by American gun shops.


Yours for Gun Sense in America (lifted from the authors),


Nick

*
*

*Gun Violence Is a Public Health Crisis*

Posted: 02/21/2013 9:07 am  Huff Post



Heidi Román and Michelle Sandberg are pediatricians in San Jose, CA and
members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in
America<http://momsdemandaction.org/in-the-news/group-is-fighting-for-gun-control-but-dropping-use-of-the-term/>
.



America is facing a public health crisis. One child dies every three
hours<http://www.childrensdefense.org/child-research-data-publications/data/protect-children-not-guns-2012.pdf>
from
gun violence in the United States (see attached PDF). This is an epidemic.
We, as pediatricians and mothers, refuse to be silent. Our collective
horror when six-and seven-year-olds were gunned down in their elementary
school in Newtown compels us to demand change now.

Americans must set aside political agendas and tackle this as we do other
public health issues, using research to guide our actions. Even before the
tragedy in Newtown, the American Academy of Pediatrics released a policy
statement<http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/10/15/peds.2012-2481.full.pdf>
that
recommended a ban on semiautomatic assault weapons and universal background
checks. Study<http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/hicrc/firearms-research/gun-carrying/>
 afterstudy<http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/01/the-geography-of-gun-deaths/69354/>
has
shown that states and countries with stricter gun legislation have fewer
deaths from firearms.

To fight other causes of childhood mortality, physicians and public health
experts have made recommendations based on research, and when these have
been implemented, death rates have decreased significantly. One of many
examples is sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). When studies showed that
placing infants to sleep on their backs reduced the risk of SIDS, the Back
to Sleep campaign was launched in 1994 and overall SIDS
rates<http://wonder.cdc.gov/mortSQL.html> declined
by more than 50%. We have similarly been able to reduce death rates from motor
vehicle accidents, fires, and
drowning<http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html> by
between 31% and 52% over the last 20 years.

But guns are different. Physicians and public health experts had
recommended universal background checks, a ban on assault weapons, and
limitations on high-capacity ammunition magazines well before Newtown. They
understood that we can reduce childhood gun injuries and death just as we
have reduced pediatric deaths from other leading causes. Tragically,
because of political infighting, we as a nation have ignored these
recommendations. As a result guns continue to claim more than 30,000 lives
each year <http://webappa.cdc.gov/sasweb/ncipc/dataRestriction_inj.html>.

For this to change we must all come together to demand action - moms and
dads, sons and daughters, Republicans and Democrats. People across the
nation must insist on commonsense gun legislation from our elected
representatives and refuse to accept a status quo that makes even our
elementary schools unsafe.

It is time for us all to recognize gun violence as the public health crisis
it is. It is time to demand action from our legislators. The Children's
Defense Fund <http://www.childrensdefense.org/> estimates that 2,391
children have been shot by guns since the 113th Congress convened on
January 3, 2013. Every day that we continue to tolerate inaction from our
representatives more children die.

Heidi Román and Michelle Sandberg are pediatricians in San Jose, CA and
members of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in
America<http://momsdemandaction.org/in-the-news/group-is-fighting-for-gun-control-but-dropping-use-of-the-term/>
.
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