Seven national medical specialty and physician organizations joined the American Bar Association and the American Public Health Association in declaring gun-related injuries a "public health crisis" in a recent editorial published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
According to the editorial, guns were responsible for more than 84,000 injuries and more than 33,000 deaths in the U.S. in 2013 alone. In 2010, gun-related injuries accounted for more than $174 billion in various costs, including $3 billion in direct healthcare costs.
"These numbers do not include the rippling physical and emotional burdens gun-related incidents leave on those who are nonfatally wounded and the communities who lose or support injured colleagues, friends, and family," wrote the editorial authors. "It does not matter whether we believe that guns kill people or that people kill people with guns — the result is the same: a public health crisis."
The organizations cited "political forces" and lack of funding as a few of the drivers behind the barriers on researching gun-related violence. They also issued a call to action, pressing for increased research, unfettered access to research findings, universal background checks and restrictions on the manufacture and civilian sale of military-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Eliminating laws that restrict physicians' and patients' rights to discuss health and safety issues related to guns was also pressed for in the editorial.
The medical specialty and physician organizations involved in the editorial include the following:
- American Academy of Family Physicians
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- American College of Emergency Physicians
- American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists
- American College of Physicians
- American College of Surgeons
- American Psychiatric Association
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