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Emmy Betz, MD, MPH, professor of emergency medicine and director of the “Firearm Injury Prevention Initiative,” University of Colorado School of Medicine, speaks on firearm related injury and suicide. In the interview, Dr. Betz shared the following for families concerned about loved ones with dementia and access to firearms:

For caregivers—once you get to the point where the older adult firearm owner perhaps is impaired and can’t make that decision themselves, for caregivers, I think it’s important to recognize a couple of things. So first, it’s the disease, not the person, that’s the problem. And emotionally, I think it can be hard, but it’s important for people to come to terms that dad or mom is not who they used to be.

And then second, really, as in suicide prevention, it’s about reducing access. There are lots of ways to do that. And we encourage caregivers to find the thing that works for them and their family, whether that’s locking firearms up, moving them out of the home, selling them or so forth, depending on what the family wants. But it’s really about making sure that impaired person doesn’t have access.

Included in this AMA Update are the following free resources for healthcare professionals and families concerned about a loved one who may be considering suicide:

 

Brent Larkin writes in an opinion piece: “Daily gun deaths have turned the United States into a killing field, a country far more dangerous than many of the planet’s more civilized places. Elected officials who live in mortal fear of the gun lobby and its followers have made a conscious decision to tolerate the slaughter of children and the mass shootings that have become an almost everyday presence in our daily lives.”

As National Gun Violence Survivor’s Awareness Week 2023 comes to a close today, sadly the trauma doesn’t end. Learn more about how to reduce trauma in survivors, victims and witnesses; coping with mass shootings; understanding gun violence and more. Dr. Susan B. Sorenson Professor and Senior Fellow in Public Health at the University of Pennsylvania states, “Shootings, even when no one is injured, reverberate throughout a community, increasing fear and mistrust, which motivate more people to obtain guns,” Dr. Sorenson says. “It’s a loop we need to break.”

Brian H. Williams, MD, states stand your ground laws “must be repealed.” He cites a report updated and published in 2023, The Science of Gun Policy, by Rand Corporation which concludes that stand your ground laws increase firearm-related homicides. Key findings in this report also address evidence that shows child-access prevention laws, concealed carry laws, background checks, waiting period regulations and more can prevent and reduce gun violence — and deaths.

“We sat in our cafeteria crying, wondering what is happening to our community, what is happening to our students and what’s happening to us.”

There were a number of news stories and opinion pieces this past weekend on the impact of gun violence on others. The statement above was made in an article in which Cleveland teachers shared their concerns about gun violence and school safety. A teacher at Glenville High School said staff did not feel supported by the administration after 16-year-old Devonte Johnson was shot and killed outside her building.

A staff editorial in the Kenyon Collegian at  Kenyon College’s in Gambier, Ohio opines “Recent gun violence highlights need for advocacy.” The authors advise their fellow students to be attuned to the need for more gun control legislation as “the Ohio state government becomes increasingly pro-gun.”

In a commentary about the recent mass shootings in California in the Ohio Capital  Journal, the author writes about those who lost their lives, stating “They were victims, both of the cruel murderers who cut them down too soon, and of America’s pathological obsession with guns that are all too easy to obtain, and all too easy to use as instruments of mass carnage.

“The solution — making guns harder to get, and keeping them out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them — has been staring us in the face for years,” the author also stated

In an article in the Columbus Free Press, Rev. Dr. Jack Sullivan Jr. with the Ohio Council of Churches commented on the actions that the city of Columbus is taking to reduce gun violence — and the roadblocks Ohio’s Attorney General is trying to put up. An article shared the following:

I think it was a courageous and responsible step that the Columbus City Council and the Mayor did take to pass that legislation,” said Rev. Sullivan Jr. of Canal Winchester. “It is unfortunate and upsetting that the laws they passed are being challenged by none other than the State of Ohio, which also should be applauding Columbus and providing solutions to gun violence.”

 

A new video has been released, explaining the dangers of Permitless Carry. GVPedia says “States that pass a Permitless Carry law suffer from a 22% increase in gun homicide for the three years after the law’s passage, more than doubling the 10% increase for the country overall.” The organization also states it is a myth that permitless carry laws reduce violent crime. You can read the summary here.

Just months after the mass shooting which killed seven people at a 4th of July parade in a Chicago suburb, the state’s Governor J.B. Pritzker signed legislation passed by both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly to make “getting the most dangerous weapons” off state streets a priority. He called this legislation “one of the strongest assault weapons bans in the nation.”

Source: Gun Violence Archive

An article by The Trace, Gun Violence in 2022, By The Numbers, further explores the reduction in firearm deaths (excluding suicides) across the country in 2022.

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