As the 2020 coronavirus pandemic swept through the U.S. and quickly became the greatest public-health emergency of our time, another public-health crisis simultaneously infected the nation—the gun-violence epidemic.
In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that gun violence increased 35% as more than 45,000 people fell victim to gun deaths, meaning approximately 124 people died from firearm-related causes per day. Academic research suggests that if left untreated, gun violence is detrimental to the overall mental, emotional and neurological development of the most vulnerable population exposed to it—our children.
Witnessing gun violence, including just hearing distant gunshots, can change a child’s brain chemistry and developmental progress, and can adversely cause anger, stress, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, withdrawal, post-traumatic stress and desensitization to violence. It can even encourage children to feel that the only way to ensure self-protection is to carry a gun themselves. It can even encourage children to feel that the only way to ensure self-preservation is to carry a gun themselves. But juveniles carrying guns blatantly disregards the law and can place them at greater risk for violent injury and/or death.
Harvard Medical research estimates that the economic impact of gun violence costs the U.S. approximately $557 billion a year, which is mostly attributed to the loss of quality of life that victims and their loved ones suffer through. Moreover, gun violence disproportionately and overwhelmingly affects underserved communities of color that already suffer from systemic racism and lack of funding and resources. Thus, gun violence is not only a public-health issue, it is a racial-justice issue.
In 2020, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 79% of all homicides and 53% of all suicides involved firearms. The substantial increase in the firearm homicide rate during the COVID-19 pandemic, along with significant increases in firearm suicide rates for some groups, has exacerbated racial, ethnic and other disparities. Screenshot CDC
The U.S. is exceptional in its political, geographic and sociodemographic polarization over gun culture. While Americans may be divided over the issue of gun control and the interpretation of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms,