Expert: City homicides show need for stricter firearm control

Homicide is the leading cause of death among Bostonians 1024 years old, according to a new report out this month — and public health researchers say the numbers are yet another call to action for stricter gun control nationwide.

“Mass shootings are only the tip of a much larger iceberg,” said Charles Branas, chairman of epidemiology at Columbia University, who researches factors behind gun violence. “For cities, the challenge really is gun homicide. The shootings day-today.”

He added, “It’s just heartbreaking that we have to continue with this year after year.”

The startling stats are detailed in the Health of Boston report from the Boston Public Health Commission released earlier this month. From 2011-15, homicide was the biggest killer of local people in the age groups 10-17 and 18-24 — topping opioid overdoses and suicide.

The leading cause of death for people 10-24 in the United States was unintentional injury in 2015. Homicide ranked fourth for ages 10-14 and third for ages 15-24.

Massachusetts has some of the lowest gun death rates, along with strict gun laws. But guns from neighboring states with more lax regulations make their way across the border, said David Hemenway, professor of public health at Harvard University.

“We don’t do as well as we want,” Hemenway said. “Whose guns are being used? A whole lot are brought in from New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine. The fact that other states have weak gun laws is not good for us.”

Hemenway commended students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School who, after the fatal shooting in Parkland, Fla., are demanding action from Congress.

And, he said, they are not the only high school students who want more stringent gun laws.

Hemenway and his peers have been surveying inner-city students in Boston and various other locations nationwide for 25 years. The consensus?

“They say it’s very easy to get a gun,” Hemenway said. “And the overwhelming majority say they’d like to live in a world where it’s impossible to get lethal weapons.”

That Boston regards this as a public health issue — rather than just through the lens of criminal justice — is commendable, said Dr. John A. Rich, former medical director for the Boston Public Health Commission and professor at Drexler University.

“People are engaged and thinking in a preventive way, and that’s powerful,” Rich said. “This is a preventable and solvable problem.”