(WXIN/WTTV) — A report from the US Surgeon General titled "Firearm Violence: A Public Health Crisis in America" finds that injuries from gunfire are a leading cause of death and declining public health in the United States.
"Over a hundred people a day are dying from guns. That’s a fact. Are we happy with that?” asked Paul Helmke, former Fort Wayne mayor and President of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. "Do we want to do something about that? The public health approach says, ‘This is a problem. We can do something about it. Let's look to see what works. What doesn’t work and then let's try to implement the things that will reduce the number of people dying from guns each day, each year in this country."
The report cites studies that show 48,204 people died of firearms-related injuries in the U.S. in 2022. Firearms injuries are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents under the age of nineteen. 54% of adults surveyed report they or a family member has experienced a firearms injury or threat. From the years 2012 through 2022, the rate of gun suicides among children 10-14 years old increased by 68% while the number of gun suicides of children and young adults between the ages of 15- and 34 years old went up by 43-45%.
”If we had a product readily available to people that was being used to help sixty people commit suicide every day and kill another forty people accidentally or intentionally every day, certainly we’d want to regulate that product or do something to educate the population that it’s a dangerous product,” said Helmke, a professor at IU Bloomington. ”The Surgeon General’s report makes it clear we have a problem and once we are aware of the scope of the problem, we need to look at what causes the problem and then look at options to reduce the damages that come from that and then try to get some of those options implemented.”
Recently in Indianapolis, local officials have stepped up their response to youth gun violence.
In late April, Marion County Public Health Director Doctor Virginia Caine announced she was dedicating $2 million in her 2025 departmental budget to addressing youth violence.
Last month, Mayor Joe Hogsett announced the appointment of a Chief Violence Prevent Officer to focus on violence among juveniles.
IMPD reports that gun homicides and non-fatal shootings are both down by more than ten percent this year compared to 2023 and the number of children killed by gunfire has dropped significantly in the last year.
Helmke said that the Surgeon General’s report should give cover and momentum to public and private health providers and the politicians and foundations that fund them to research the issues of gun violence and then develop programs to combat it.
”I hope our local and state health officials in Indiana and across the country pick up this report and pay attention to this report and publicize this report,” he said. ”We need to study this more. We need to determine what is causing the problem, where the problem is worse, why its worse in some areas than others, what are some options that have been tried to reduce the problem and reduce the gun violence, what works, what doesn’t work, and its saying we need to have money allocated for that kind of research.”
Jon Macy, Associate Professor at the IU School of Public Health and in the process of launching the Otto Meisenheimer Center for the Prevention of Gun Violence spent the day dissecting the Surgeon General’s report.
“It's what we do in public health,” he said. “It's time for a public health approach to this problem. We look at what the data tell us and identify when there’s a problem and we clearly have that.
”After we look at the data we need to invest some money in research to figure out the right solutions to the problem then implement some evidence-based solutions that are based on the research and then evaluate to make sure we’re on the right track,” said Macy, “and then evaluating them to make sure we’re on the right track and then not getting bogged down in politics.”
The report also found that family members and friends of gun violence victims experienced more frequent issues of anxiety, depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress as a result of their exposure to firearms injuries and deaths.