A Shared Goal: Keeping our Community Safe
By Avneet Bhullar
On September 4th of this year, a 14-year-old in Georgia used an AR-15 style assault rifle in what was the deadliest school shooting to happen in the United States in 2024. Two teachers and two students were killed, with 9 others injured from bullets shot with a legally purchased rifle gifted to the teenager by his father. Georgia has some of the least restrictive gun laws in our country, with Everytown ranking it #46 in the United States for gun law strength. Washington State on the other hand, is ranked #9 for the most restrictive legislation and has a firearm death rate below the national average. In our study we investigated a Washington State law that made it illegal for a person less than 21-years-old to buy a semiautomatic assault rifle, and for any person to sell or transfer a semiautomatic assault weapon to a person under 21-years-old. This law may have made a gift like that in Georgia, illegal. Importantly, the study found that the Washington State bill correlated with a reduction in overall assault weapon-related incidents, including those committed by someone under 21-years-old.
While our study did not analyze differences by type of incident (assault vs suicide, for example), any reduction in firearm deaths, which is now the number one cause of death among children, should be an important finding for all communities. Our findings are further supported by previous work, which demonstrated that laws restricting sales of handguns to those aged 21 or older were associated with reductions in firearm related suicides among adolescents less than 21 years-old. And in more rural parts of the country, adolescents under 21 have been found more likely to use AR style weapons for suicide. While the use of semi-automatic weapons in mass shootings garners more attention, their role and the role of other types of firearms in suicide often goes overlooked in the media.
I recently attended a Wear Orange Rally with fellow medical students, healthcare professionals and community leaders. There I heard physicians and those personally impacted by firearm violence from both sides of the political spectrum share their hope for a safer future. I spoke with a family medicine practitioner who owned hunting rifles and handguns. He shared with me that his way of ensuring safety within his community is educating his patients on how to properly and safely store firearms, locked and away from children or those who may be apt to harm themselves or others. These are the conversations we need to be having, not ones that throw fire into the political flame; rather ones that allow us to ask thoughtful questions and find common ground in which we can work together to save our communities and children. Indeed, this is a goal that aligns with the oath all physicians have taken, to do no harm.
Our finding of a reduction in firearm-violence incidents in Washington State after the implementation of WA-1639 warrants other states to take notice and to consider trialing similar interventions. Furthermore, this research should remind us that there are ways we can use science and common sense to trial potential solutions to the gun violence epidemic without politicizing an issue that is complex and at times polarizing in nature.
Article details
Washington State Assault Weapon Firearm Violence Before and After Firearm Legislation Reform
Avneet Bhullar, MS, Jonathan Shipley, BS, Leonardo Alaniz, BS, Areg Grigorian, MD, Sigrid Burruss, MD, Lourdes Swentek, MD, Catherine Kuza, MD, and Jeffry Nahmias, MD, MHPE
DOI: 10.1177/00031348241244644
First published: April 5, 2024
The American Surgeon
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