Gun violence is a wicked problem. Wicked problems are difficult, maybe impossible, to solve. This is because wicked problems are complex, dynamic, and generally symptoms of other problems. Wicked problems are characterized by different stakeholders representing radically different perspectives and wicked problems are dynamic, not stable or static. In this episode Dr. Carole R. Myers and Dr. Katrina Green, a board-certified emergency physician, discuss approaches to addressing gun violence.
WUOT’s Carole Myers: Let me set things up for us. Deaths from gunfire are a major public health problem across the country and in Tennessee. According to the Sycamore Institute, the rate of gunfire deaths in Tennessee is 53% higher than the national rate and the rate is rising. Gunfire is the number one cause of death among Tennesseans age 1 to 18. Too often when we talk about gun violence the conversation quickly turns to a political discussion about gun control or second amendment rights. Is there any positive movement on prevention as it relates to gunfire deaths?
Katrina Green: There actually is. There is some legislation on the federal level that has been proposed and is heavily supported by folks on the left side of the aisle. We are still hoping to get some republicans to sign onto these bills. But, the main law that we support as physicians, especially the pediatricians that care deeply about gun deaths in their patients, is something called Ethan’s Law and that is a law that requires gun owners to safely store their firearms, locked up, out of the way of young hands that could find these weapons and it has devastating consequences. We just saw on the news last month that a two-year-old, I believe in Virginia, found an unlocked, loaded firearm and accidentally shot themselves. Those are the types of injuries that safe storage laws work to prevent and that doesn’t take a gun away from anybody. Ethan’s Law hasn’t been hashed out completely on the federal level. They are still trying to work out whether there will be criminal penalties for not safely storing your weapon. We just want it to be a discussion. Let’s bring the bill to the committee where it will be discussed and hashed out and get this law in the books. If you have a law that forces people to think about safety, more people will be likely to safely store their firearms.
What’s your perspective on the session and the law passed? What else can they do?
So, I was glad that that law came out. Distributing gun locks for free is great. It’s a great way to get more folks to store their firearms safely. But, where is the public outreach to educate folks that that is available to them? Where do I get that gun lock and how many gun locks are available? We have a lot of firearms in this state. Is there enough gun locks for every single person who wants one? Is there one for every household that has firearms? None of that was included in that bill so it is very vague and I am not sure that that bill will change a whole lot of things. There are a number of other bills that we were hopeful would have come out of session, but the bills that we saw proposed were actually the opposite of things that would keep us safe. I saw a bill proposed that would allow teachers to bring firearms into their classrooms.
Dr. Green, where do you find hope in the quest for reducing deaths from gunfire?
So, I find the hope in the number of people becoming vocal about this.
This transcript has been lightly edited for content.
