Here is a draft of a letter I will be sending to Vice President Joe Biden, on the occasion of his being named as head of the presidential task-force on gun violence in America
Sir:
I am writing to speak to you of a matter of national importance
The shooting of 20 school-children and seven adults in Newtown CT on Fri., Dec. 14, 2012 has brought the matter of gun violence to the attention of the public. I thank you for your eloquent and moving words on the shootings. I applaud your resolve to work to prevent such tragedies from occurring in the future. I am writing you because I believe there is a relatively quick and easy change to government policy that can have meaningful and lasting impact on the safety of our citizens. I hope you will consider this change.
In 2007, the last year for which complete statistics are available, over 101,000 Americans suffered a gunshot injury, and over 31,000 Americans died as a result of their gunshot injuries. This means on average, over 80 Americans die every day due to gunshot injury. Overall, injuries and deaths due to gunshot wounds in America have increased every year since 1999. It has been estimated that we as a nation spend between $2.1 and 2.5 billion every year on the direct medical costs associated with firearm injuries (Source: Center for Disease Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System: http://www.cdc.gov/... Cook, PJ. JAMA. 1999; 282:447-454).
Few other American activities extract such a health toll on so many Americans. Clearly, guns and gunshot injuries are a grave threat to the public health of our citizens.
Yet, today, the Centers for Disease Control, our premier national institute for public health and disease surveillance, is barred from studying and reporting on the phenomenon of gunshot injury, as it has been since 1996.
Back in 1996, alarmed by a peer-reviewed study published in a public health journal that demonstrated an increased risk of gunshot injury for people living in a residence where there is a gun, the gun industry lobbied Congress to do something about this kind of research. Congress obliged, and removed funding for CDC research into gun injuries. To this day, the CDC is barred by Congress from doing research on gunshot injuries and gun violence. Though the CDC continues to collect statistics on deaths and injuries caused by guns, there have been no studies on the causes or consequences of gunshot injuries. (Source; Department of Labor, Health, and Human Services, and Education and Related Agencies Appropriations Act 1997. Congressional Record – House. July 11, 1996. HR7280-HR7287; Kellerman AJ. Am J Public Health. 1997; 87(6):910-913).
The CDC has a great deal of expertise and experience on matters of public health. The CDC studies a diverse range of health problems, from automobile and bicycle injuries, to health risks from X-rays. Yet, strangely enough, gunshot injury and gun violence is the only public health phenomenon the CDC is barred from studying. And clearly, gunshot injuries are a serious health problem for our citizens. On this matter of importance to our national health, the CDC should be allowed to use its resources to research and understand this problem.
A change in CDC funding policy to allow the CDC to study and research public health aspects of gun injury and violence is a relatively quick and easy change to make, and should be acceptable to the majority of the American people and to their Congressional representatives. Such a change would require no modification of existing laws regarding gun ownership and use, and would not infringe in any way on civil liberties, nor involve matters of constitutional law. Changing the funding policy of the CDC to allow research into gunshot injuries is the “low-hanging fruit” in our national efforts to reduce gunshot injuries. Harvesting this fruit is likely to yield significant and long-lasting positive results
A public health approach to the problem of gunshot injury emphasizes systemic data collection and analysis to understand the risks to the public's well-being, and to suggest evidence-based strategies to reduce injuries. The scope of such research includes the gun itself, the gun owners and users, the circumstances of the individuals injured, and the larger environment in which a gunshot injury occurs. The work of the CDC has been instrumental in reducing the health threats to Americans from tobacco use, automobile travel, and sports-related injuries. It is a profound waste, that we should gather together talented and accomplished doctors and scientists to provide expertise on matters of public health, and then not use them on an important matter of public health. It makes sense that we should use the expertise of the CDC to better understand the rising toll of gunshot injuries, and work to prevent such injuries in the future..
Thank you for your time and attention to this matter. Thank you as well for your many years of service to our country. I hope and pray that you and your loved ones can enjoy good health and happiness for the coming new year.
With gratitude: