Gun violence declared public health crisis

US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued a landmark advisory on Tuesday, declaring firearm violence in the United States a "public health crisis".

"Our failure to address it is a moral crisis. To protect the health and well-being of Americans, especially our children, we must now act with the clarity, courage and urgency that this moment demands," Murthy said in a video announcement posted on YouTube.

The advisory marked the first time the nation's leading voice on public health — the same office that in the 1960s highlighted the lethal consequences of cigarette smoking — has issued an urgent pronouncement on deaths related to firearms.

Murthy said the impetus for the advisory stems from the increase in gun violence, especially mass shootings since 2020, which he said exact a profound toll on the nation's well-being.

Murthy said in an interview with The Washington Post: "I know it's been polarizing, and I know it's been politicized, but if we can see it as a public health issue, we can come together and implement a public health solution."

While many applauded the advisory, gun rights groups and individuals attacked it with profanities in their social media posts.

The Firearm Policy Coalition also used profanities and called the advisory "a joke" under the headline "Second Amendment alert".

States continued to diverge on gun policy this year, with intense debate in the swing states that will decide the upcoming US presidential election.

According to a report released this month by the Pew Research Center, voters overall are divided over whether the increasing number of guns in the United States is good or bad for society: 52 percent say it is very or somewhat bad, while 22 percent say it is good.

Perhaps no topic divides voters more deeply than the role that firearms have in US citizens' life, the report said.

Experts said mass shootings happening near election times often influence the nation's views on guns.

"If there are any particularly horrendous shootings in the months to come, that has a way of pushing the issue back to the forefront of the agenda," Robert Spitzer, a gun policy expert, was quoted as saying by Stateline.

In a fresh shooting, five people were killed and a teenage girl was critically injured in a shooting spree on Monday night in North Las Vegas, Nevada, and the suspect was arrested on Tuesday morning after a manhunt, local media reported, citing police.

Collective trauma, fear

Mass shootings and school shootings create collective trauma and fear, the advisory said.

It cited data from the Gun Violence Archive that the US experienced more than 600 mass shooting incidents each year between 2020 and 2023, up from an average of less than 400 annual mass shootings between 2015 and 2018. A mass shooting is defined as an incident in which four or more victims are shot or killed.

As a result, 51 percent of US teens aged 14-17 said they worry about a shooting happening at school, and 79 percent of adults said they experienced stress from a possible mass shooting, while a third said the fear of a mass shooting kept them from going to certain public places or events.

Murthy said that firearm-related trauma and fear are contributing to mental health challenges. "Nearly 6 in 10 US adults say they worry about a loved one being a victim of firearm violence," he said.

The advisory compared US firearm violence with 28 other high-income nations and said that in 2015, the overall firearm-related death rate in age groups across the 29 countries was 11.4 times higher in the US.

Of all firearm-related incidents, active shootings result in a large number of deaths and injuries in one incident.

According to the FBI, such incidents are also on a sharp rise based on data from the past decade.

Agencies and Xinhua contributed to this story.