The director of Medicine and Health of the United States Government, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared this Tuesday that violence with firearms is a public health crisis and recommended a series of preventive measures that he compared to previous campaigns against smoking and road safety.
Don’t miss | Destination America: get to know the 14 cities in the United States where the most exciting matches of the Copa América will be played ↓
Murthy released a 32-page report warning why gun violence is causing national trauma and should be seen as a public health problem.
“People want to be able to walk around their neighborhoods and be safe,” Murthy told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Murthy called on the United States to ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for gun purchases, regulate the industry, pass laws restricting their use in public spaces and penalize people who do not store their weapons safely.
“America should be a place where we can all go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that it will put our lives at risk,” he stressed.
In addition, has issued a series of warnings about worrying health trends in American life, including social media use and loneliness.
“In 2022, 48,204 people died from firearm-related injuries, including suicides, homicides and unintentional deaths,” he stated.
The Surgeon General had not issued a similar notice since 2014 after Republicans objected to his previous statements on firearms.
Murthy ended by promising the Senate that he “had no intention of using his office as a pulpit on gun control.”
In 2017 he was impeached by Donald Trump, but Joe Biden nominated him again for the position in 2021.
At his second confirmation hearing, he told senators that declaring guns a public health crisis would not be his focus during a new term.
“The time has come to take this issue out of the realm of politics and into the realm of public health, like we did with smoking more than half a century ago,” Murthy said.
