No. 1 killer of kids is preventable
“Doctor, is my daughter going to die?” As an inpatient pediatrician, I get asked some variation of that question from parents frequently. I struggled with what to say less than 24 hours after an 18-year-old with an assault-style rifle killed 19 children and two teachers, and injured another 17 people May 24 at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The patient in question was, thankfully, doing very well and in the hospital for an asthma attack, which is a manageable condition. It was easy for me to listen to the mother’s concerns and reassure her that her daughter would get to go home and that she’d be OK.
My heart breaks when I think of the conversations doctors had to have with parents in Uvalde and so many other places across the country because of gun violence.
Talking to parents about the health of their children is part of the job of a pediatrician. Sometimes these conversations are fairly easy, like with my asthma patient. But often times, they are not.
I have watched children die during “code blue” emergencies despite heroic effort and the best modern medicine has to offer. I have attended deliveries of babies born so prematurely their eyelids are still fused, with airways too small to accommodate even the tiniest breathing tube. I have sat with parents and held their hands as I explained devastating diagnoses and cried with them when their child took their last breath.
As doctors, we are given both the training and the tools to evaluate, diagnose and manage disease. Often the problem is not something I can cure, but I can offer some treatment, some comfort and rarely is it the case that I know what the problem is, what treatment to provide, but am prevented from doing so.
This is why, as a pediatrician, a mom and a longtime gun violence prevention advocate, I’m struggling today, more than ever. Gun violence is a disease. It is a public health epidemic, and just like many other public health issues, we know the cause — in this case, unrestricted access to guns by many who should not have them — and the solution — common sense gun safety legislation.
Yet here we are again, collectively mourning the killing of elementary school children when we have the means to prevent it.
In 2021, guns surpassed motor vehicle collisions as the leading cause of death of American children. Not COVID, not cancer, not birth defects or anything else. Guns.
In other words, the No. 1 killer of kids today is something that is 100% preventable but there is no reason to think the violence will stop.
According to Gun Violence Archive, there have been at least 20 mass shootings since the May 24 shooting in Texas.
That count doesn’t include the two shootings Thursday in Iowa and Wisconsin or the dozens more that will certainly happen throughout the rest of the year.
We’re often told that gun violence prevention is a political issue. But that’s not true. In reality, the country is ready for reform.
According to a May 25 survey from Morning Consult and Politico, 88% of Americans support background checks on every gun sale, 67% support an assault weapons ban, 79% support banning the purchase of firearms by people on the federal no-fly or watch list and 65% of people support stronger gun laws overall.
Yet, pro-gun lobby groups, most notably the National Rifle Association, spend millions of dollars supporting politicians who do their bidding by shouting about threats to the Second Amendment and the right to bear arms.
Undoubtedly, there are some who would call for a full ban on gun ownership. But by repeatedly focusing their talking points on that perspective, pro-gun lobby groups and the politicians they fund conveniently ignore the fact that a majority of Americans want stricter gun safety laws than we have today.
In the 1980s, there was strong resistance to seat belt safety — much of it stemming from resistance to a perceived government infringement on individual choice. One politician at the time argued levying a fine on people who didn’t buckle up was just the start and soon the government would outlaw smoking.
Obviously, that never happened. But the country eventually did pass seat belt safety laws, saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
While some Republican lawmakers in Texas have signaled an openness to some gun restrictions in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, there’s little reason to think they’ll follow through.
In 2021, Texas legislators loosened gun laws by passing permitless carry, less than two years after mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa.
To expect any different outcome without the country collectively standing up and saying “enough” through the vote is asinine. Nothing will change.
As pediatricians, emergency room doctors and trauma surgeons, our mission is to save lives. Let us go back to treating the things we can actually fix. Let us be telling the truth when we tell parents that their babies aren’t going to die. That we aren’t just fixing them up to send them off to school to be slaughtered by bullets from an AR-15.
No matter our differences, let’s at least agree on that.