Tennessee Black clergy, mothers, doctors call to reframe gun violence in terms public health
[ad_1]
A Tennessee group including family of gun violence victims, doctors and Black clergy Wednesday called for lawmakers and the public to understand gun violence as a public health crisis and respond accordingly with robust research, community investment and evidence-based safety measures.
“There’s nothing like meeting the mother or grandmother of a child who has been the victim of gun violence and hugging them and telling them their child is not going home today,” said Dave Bhattacharya, a pediatric surgeon at Children’s Hospital at Erlanger, at a news conference Wednesday in Chattanooga’s Miller Park.
The event was one of several put on by the African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee and other groups in cities across the state in the launch of a new campaign ahead of the Tennessee General Assembly’s special session on gun violence in August. In 2021, the most recent year for which Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data is available, more than 1,500 Tennesseans died by firearm — a disproportionate number of whom were Black.
Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee called the August session after a shooter at private Christian school in Nashville killed six people, including three 9-year-old children, in March.
(READ MORE: Tennessee Gov. Lee’s red flag proposal narrower, slower than other states)
Lee has called for a narrow version of what is known as a red flag law, a mechanism employed by other states to temporarily take weapons from people deemed to be in immediate danger of committing violence.
The Tennessee Firearms Association has opposed Lee’s effort as a knee-jerk emotional response.
John Harris, the group’s executive director, did not respond to a voicemail left Wednesday. But he previously told the Chattanooga Time Free Press that Lee’s proposal mistakenly targets guns instead of mental health and is constitutionally dubious.
Three out of 4 Tennesseans in a Vanderbilt University poll said they support reg flag laws, and still more support Lee’s April 11 executive order strengthening background checks for gun buyers. At Miller Park on Wednesday, the Rev. William Terry Ladd III, of the First Baptist Church of Chattanooga, voiced support for a red flag law.
“This special session in August must address the crisis of gun violence in Tennessee and pass common sense reform, such as repealing permitless carry, to ensure comprehensive background checks and to ensure that those who are danger to themselves or others do not have access to firearms,” Ladd said.
Mass shootings in schools and other public places horrify the public, but the resulting dead constitute a fraction of the tens of thousands of firearm victims recorded every year in the U.S., according the CDC. Like mass shootings, drive-by shootings, suicides and domestic violence have wide ripple effects, African American Clergy Collective of Tennessee Executive Director Shirley Bondon said by phone Wednesday.
The shootings instill fear in communities, draw resources from the health care system, leave generational legacies and undermine local businesses and economies, she said.
“That’s why it’s considered a public health crisis,” she said, adding that framing could justify money for comprehensive research or draw funding into communities beset by gun violence.
“We want to get to the root cause of the gun violence and not just the symptoms,” she said.
Demographic factors have a dramatic effect on someone’s likelihood to die by firearm. Tennesseans are more likely to die by firearm than people in most other states, according to the CDC. Age is a factor, too. After poisoning, firearms are the second-leading cause of death in the U.S. among people up to their 40s, according to CDC data. Men, in Tennessee, and beyond in the U.S., are far more likely to die by firearm than women.
And Black Americans in 2021 were more than twice as likely to die from guns than the rest of the population, a statistic that holds true in Tennessee, CDC data shows. Black people make up about 17% of the Tennessee population. But in 2021, they made up about 37% of firearm deaths in the state, CDC data shows.
Among the Black community, firearms deaths are overwhelmingly homicides, according to CDC data. Among white people, firearm deaths are mostly suicides.
At the news conference Wednesday, Bhattacharya noted how motor vehicles, which remain a top killer of young people, used to top the charts for causes of death in the U.S. He said in recent decades, the rate of mortality per miles driven has plummeted, which he said correlates with public policy around things such as seat belt usage and speed limits.
Those policies emerged, he said, when lawmakers and the public began to see car deaths as a public health issue.
(READ MORE: Hamilton County leaders dedicate new victims memorial park alongside grieving families)
Earlier this year, Shannon Westmoreland, whose grandson, Deric Pool, was shot and killed in October 2019, helped establish a victims memorial wall in Chattanooga for gun violence victims. At Miller Park on Wednesday, she declared a “magic moment” of new definitions, new ways of understanding a persistent problem — and a new direction she said could change the destiny of Hamilton County youth.
Contact Andrew Schwartz at aschwartz@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.
[ad_2]
Source link
