Once again, we are sickened by another school shooting and the loss of children and teachers who tried to protect them from being mowed down by an assault weapon in the hands of an 18-year-old boy. This time Uvalde, Texas, is grieving for 19 children and two teachers, and it’s less than two weeks since a shooting in a Buffalo grocery store left 10 dead. Of course, we immediately see the messages from legislators offering their condolences and thoughts and prayers, but no promises to change anything. If not them, then who can?

I remember the awfulness of treating the occasional pediatric gunshot victim when I worked in the ER—usually an unintended target who was caught in crossfire. It was gut-wrenching, the kind of thing that should be a “never-event.” Today, ER nurses, paramedics, and physicians see young gunshot victims far too often. I don’t know how they can do it day after day, trying to comfort parents while dealing with their own trauma.

The leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents.

Firearm deaths are now the leading cause of mortality in children and adolescents (ages 1 to 19 years) in this country, according to a recent analysis by researchers at the University of Michigan reported in the New England Journal of […]