For anyone living in Baltimore, it is all too easy to recognize the devastating impact of gun violence, particularly on young Black men from less affluent neighborhoods. We have grown accustomed to the yearly, monthly and even weekly body counts. While the number of homicides and non-fatal shootings has thankfully declined recently — falling to the lowest level in a decade last year — it is staggering to comprehend the broader and lingering impact of guns on our community. From assaults to suicides and from enabling carjackers and rival drug dealers to threaten others with impunity, the proliferation of illegal weapons has been the bane of urban life — a crisis well beyond the capabilities of mere law enforcement agencies. That’s because the grim statistics of the police blotter fail to tell the full story. Not by a long shot.
U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s recent declaration of gun violence in America as a public health epidemic deserving of a broad array of preventive measures not unlike those used in the past against tobacco and to promote traffic safety seems tragically overdue. Not just because gun safety legislation has proven such a contentious, politicized, and polarizing issue in recent years, from “red flag” laws that would deny gun possession and ownership to those shown to be a danger to themselves or others to universal background checks and assault weapons bans. Often lost in the politics is the matter of scale. The number of indirect gun violence victims is nothing short of staggering. They run the gamut from grieving families who have lost a loved one, to businesses shuttered because their neighborhoods became unsafe, to neighborhoods treated as war zones.
But here is perhaps the most easily overlooked element of this crisis is the lingering adverse mental health impact. There are young people who have been traumatized by exposure to gun violence, whether it involved friends and neighbors, parents, siblings or other family members, authority figures, and on and on. Tuesday, July 2, marks the one-year anniversary of the Brooklyn Homes mass shooting, the largest in Baltimore’s history. Despite the 30 victims, including two deaths, nobody has yet been charged with murder. As The Sun’s Cassidy Jensen, Darcy Costello and Alex Mann recently documented, there is little closure for this South Baltimore neighborhood. How many young people there still sleep poorly? How many are having trouble in school? How many are depressed, fearful or withdrawn?
Medical studies have long pointed to the lasting harmful psychological effects of childhood exposure to gun violence, including its unpredictability. Yet Baltimore has never been treated as ground zero in this nation’s continuing firearms disaster, not really. We witness low test scores in city schools and wonder why children aren’t learning. We see juvenile delinquency and fail to make any connection to childhood trauma. We live in a society that celebrates violence in popular culture and then are shocked when schools, churches, parents and others fail to provide an adequate counterbalance. How could the government not be in the business of responding to this gun violence disaster? The only difference between this and a hurricane, earthquake, train wreck, or similar emergency is one of scale: natural disasters eventually pass, gun violence lingers on.
Dr. Murthy must know he has made himself a target. The NRA and other Second Amendment absolutists have already labeled his actions a purely political attempt to rally support for President Joe Biden’s reelection. Yet that’s not how public health campaigns work. They can prove costly and long-lasting — and unpopular. Strategies may not always work. But that doesn’t mean they don’t deserve to be pursued. One important reminder to those who insist that gun violence is not a public health crisis: More than half of gun-related deaths recorded each year are suicides, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. Firearms are the leading cause of death among children (above cancer, drowning, car crashes, heart disease and others). Police may be part of the solution, but they are clearly not the entirety of it. The surgeon general is exactly right in his call for a broader public health response to gun violence like that directed at childhood tobacco use. Too many lives are at stake to not at least try.
Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.
