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Las Vegas shooting prompts call for clinicians to fight firearm injury crisis

The deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history recently took place at an open-air concert in Las Vegas on October 1, giving a horrific reminder of the growing health care epidemic of firearm injury and death, and leading many health care professionals to contemplate their role in addressing and preventing such crises.

Editors from Annals of Internal Medicine, JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine and PLOS Medicine provided several ways that health care professionals can fight against the threat of firearms in a joint editorial published in all four publications.

“Here we are again with another editorial about the public health crisis of firearm-related injury and death following what used to be unthinkable, this time a mass murder and casualties at a concert in Las Vegas,” Darren B. Taichman, MD, PhD, executive deputy editor of Annals of Internal Medicine, and colleagues wrote. “We’ve written it all before. The staggering numbers killed annually. The numbers left permanently disabled. The families left to cope with the loss of loved ones or to care for those broken but not killed by a bullet. As health care professionals, we seem powerless. This public health crisis seems beyond the reach of our tools.”

However, Taichman and colleagues argue that there are many things health care professionals can do to address the problem. Physicians can start by educating themselves on sensible firearm legislation proposed by professional health care organizations, according to the authors. The authors urged physicians to attend public meetings with local, state and federal legislators and use their voice as health care professionals to demand answers, commitments and follow-up, as well as funding to investigate the issue and solutions. Making phone calls and writing letters to these officials are also helpful, according to the authors.

Taichman and colleagues also advised health care professionals to meet with the leaders of their institutions to plan strategies to reduce the risks for firearm-related injuries in their communities and ways to leverage plans with local, state and federal governments. Physicians should inform their community on their institution’s proposals.

“Don’t let concerns for perceived political consequences get in the way of advocating for the well-being of your patients and the public,” they wrote.

In addition, it is imperative for physicians to educate themselves on gun safety, according to the authors. Health care professionals should ask their patients if they have guns at home and if they do, how the guns are stored and if there are children or others in the home that may be at risk for harming themselves or others, they wrote. Furthermore, physicians should identify if patients believe that having firearms in the home keeps them safe and relay evidence that guns increase the risk for homicide, suicide and accidents, they wrote. Patients who do store firearms at home should be given resources to lower the risk of injury, according to the authors.

“Don’t be silent,” Taichman and colleagues wrote. “We don’t need more moments of silence to honor the memory of those who have been killed. We need to honor their memory by preventing a need for such moments. As health care professionals, we don’t throw up our hands in defeat because a disease seems to be incurable. We work to incrementally and continuously reduce its burden. That’s our job.

“Will yet another commentary about the ravages of firearm-related harm change anything? Probably not — our journals have published far too many following prior firearm-enabled catastrophes,” they continued. “The only thing that will change the world for the better is a group of people who believe that they can change the world. With regard to firearm-related injury and death, let's each be part of that group.” – by Alaina Tedesco

Disclosures: Taichman reports being a paid employee of the Annals of Internal Medicine and the American College of Physicians. Please see the editorial for all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.