Reducing firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States: Executive summary of a policy position paper from the American College of Physicians

摘要

In 1995, the American College of Physicians (ACP) is-I sued its first statement that raised concern about the epidemic of firearm violence in the United States and advocated for policies to reduce the rate of firearm injuries and deaths (1). Nineteen years later, although rates of firearm-related death, injury, and disability have decreased, firearm-related mortality rates in the United States remain the highest among industrialized countries (2). The mass shooting that occurred in December 2012 at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which left 6 adults and 20 children dead, and other mass shootings have brought firearm violence to the forefront of national discussion. It is critical that strategies are developed to prevent massacres like those that occurred in Newtown; in Tucson, Arizona; at Virginia Tech University; in Aurora, Colorado; at Columbine High School; and at the Washington Navy Yard. Yet, the ACP is equally concerned about the deaths and injuries that affect our nation on a daily basis when persons are injured or killed or commit suicide with firearms. Each year, firearms kill more than 32 000 persons in the United States, or approximately 88 per day (3).