Surgeon General Vivek Murthy Declares Gun Violence a Public Health Crisis, Recommends Gun Control

Last updated on August 7th, 2024 at 04:28 pm

U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a new advisory on Tuesday, June 25, declaring gun violence to be a public health crisis. He used the advisory to recommend multiple gun control policies.

The surgeon general’s office published the 40-page public health advisory along with a video message from Murthy, explaining his decision.

“As a doctor, I’ve seen the consequences of firearm violence up close and the lives of the patients that cared for over the years,” Murthy said. “These are moms and dads, sons and daughters, all of whom were robbed of their physical and mental health by senseless acts of violence. Unfortunately, the problem has continued to grow.”

Murthy went on to state 54 percent of respondents in a “recent” national representative survey have experienced or know someone who has experienced gun violence. The 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation survey he cited used a definition of gun violence that includes those who have felt threatened by a firearm; those injured or killed by a gun, including by suicide; those who have witnessed someone else being shot, and those who have used a firearm in their own self-defense.

The advisory also cites a statistical claim that firearm‑related injury has been the leading cause of death for U.S. children and adolescents since 2020. That claim itself is misleading, as it includes individuals between the ages of 1 and 19. The Washington Post’s fact-checking team has noted the decision to exclude those under one years of age from this statistic, while including adults aged 18 and 19 years old skews the data away from perinatal deaths and congenital anomalies that are common in children under one, while including a greater share of young adults with which gun violence-related deaths are more common.

The surgeon general’s 40-page advisory includes policy recommendations to address this declared public health crisis. Those recommendations include passage of new laws mandating firearms to be stored when not in use, and mandating ammunition to be stored separately from firearms. The recommendations also include a ban on civilian access to so-called “assault weapons” and “large capacity magazines,” defined in the advisory as “semiautomatic weapons that may include military‑style features that make the firearm more lethal” and magazines with a “capacity to hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition” respectively.

The surgeon general’s recommendations further include expanding background check requirements for gun purchases to include private transfers, and purchaser license laws. He also recommended more states pass laws and regulations allowing the removal of an individuals firearms through Extreme Risk Protection Orders—sometimes referred to as “Red Flag Laws”—and other domestic violence restraining orders. He further recommended laws restricting who can carry firearms in public.

This new public health advisory marks the first time the surgeon general’s office has issued such an advisory to address gun violence. Still, the idea is not an altogether new one. Gun control advocates have repeatedly floated the idea of treating gun violence as a public health emergency in recent years.

Democrat New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared gun violence to be a public health emergency last fall, and her administration issued an order to temporarily bar people from carrying their firearms in many public places. That move faced numerous legal challenges, and some law enforcement officials in the state refused to enforce the order.

Gun control advocates cheered Murthy’s new advisory on Tuesday.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) said the advisory is important because the surgeon general’s office is known for being “selective and careful” when it declares these types of emergencies, and these declarations “tend to break through the political conversation in the country.”

Today as ~1,000 leaders in the violence intervention field gather in LA, the @Surgeon_General issued a historic advisory declaring gun violence a public health crisis.

Our Executive Director @Emma_S_Brown & Sen. @ChrisMurphyCT break down why this advisory is so important—and why… pic.twitter.com/MOfAf762Tn

— GIFFORDS (@GIFFORDS_org) June 25, 2024

Emma Brown, the executive director for the Giffords Center for Violence Intervention—a gun control advocacy group—also said the public health declaration is something her group and others “across the gun safety movement” have been seeking for years.

“Ultimately we know this is a public health problem, not a political problem,” Brown said.

The gun rights advocacy group Gun Owners of America touted its opposition to Murthy’s Senate confirmation in 2021 and used the occasion of his gun violence emergency order to criticize those Senators who supported his confirmation.

“Gun Owners of America warned the U.S. Senate that Vivek Murthy would abuse his public health authority as [surgeon general] to advance gun control. 7 Republicans voted to confirm [Murthy]
anyway. How did your Senators vote?” Gun Owners of America said.

Firearms Policy Coalition, another gun rights advocacy group posted a more succinct “fuck you, no” meme in response to Murthy’s public health emergency advisory on guns.

No further comment needed… pic.twitter.com/nbPRxt2QEU

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) June 25, 2024