A new coalition of Pennsylvania health care professionals is gearing up to press lawmakers and other officials to further reduce shootings across the state, even as gun violence in Philadelphia and elsewhere has declined dramatically this year.
Eight leaders of the Pennsylvania Health Professionals to End Gun Violence fielded questions on October 8, at a news conference inside Philadelphia’s City Hall. They said their fledgling coalition has garnered the support of several hundred colleagues statewide who are not impressed with the recent dips in violence, as suicides, homicides, and unintentional shootings claimed 1,800 lives and twice as many injury victims last year.
They plan to advocate for stronger gun laws, because, they said, the root of the problem is unfettered access to guns. The laws they support include requiring the safe storage of guns in homes, the reporting of lost and stolen guns, the closing of loopholes in background check laws, and the passage of extreme risk protection orders to take guns from domestic abusers.
“Even with all the great programs working to end the violence in our city, it is still easier for our young adults to get a gun than it is for them to get the resources to prevent them from picking it up,” said Sunny Jackson, a coalition member, nurse, and injury prevention coordinator at Penn Medicine Trauma Center.
Dr. Elinore Kaufman, a University of Pennsylvania trauma surgeon, said solving the problem requires going outside the health care system. “We want to go beyond our day-to-day, life-saving work in the clinic, in the hospital, to advocate for preventive policy changes that can fix the system that creates all of this gun violence in the first place,” she said.
Currently, 62 bills related to firearm safety have been introduced in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives with just five having been approved and sent to the state Senate, according to CeaseFirePA, a statewide gun safety organization.
They include bills that would ban ghost gun parts, require conflict resolution be taught in schools, establish safe community grants, enhance background checks for gun purchases, and green light extreme risk protection orders, also known as red flag laws.
None of those bills are seen as likely to be approved by the Senate before the session ends in January, said Adam Garber, CeaseFirePA’s executive director. “The Pennsylvania Senate can move fast when they want to. This is not a problem of time, this is a problem of political will,” he said. “I think, unfortunately, we’re going to have to lose a lot more lives in Pennsylvania before they become law.”
The new coalition’s agenda echoes that of U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, who in June declared a gun violence public health crisis. He noted that in 2022, 48,204 people died from firearm‑related injuries — 8,000 more lives lost than in 2019 and over 16,000 more lives lost than in 2010.
Dr. Vivek Ashok, a pediatrician and injury prevention researcher at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said legislative action could save lives — as well as tax dollars. “Just one hospitalization for a survivor of gun violence can cost up to $35,000,” said Ashok, a coalition member. “In fact, in 2020 alone, the total cost of firearm related injuries and deaths in the U.S. was estimated to be $493.2 billion,” he said. “If we are serious about providing economic stability for our most vulnerable patients and cutting health-care costs, we need to address gun violence.”
While acknowledging that the number of shooting victims in Philadelphia is down about 40 percent compared to the same time last year, Kaufman said many people still feel unsafe, for good reason. The city is still on track to have about 1,000 shooting victims by the end of the year, she said. There were 10 homicides in September — the lowest count since 2015. But that’s not impressive when compared to Boston, which has had just 13 homicides all year, Kaufman said.
“The city doesn’t feel any safer because people can still be shot, are still getting shot on their doorsteps, on their porches, in their cars, on their way through the park or on their way out of the corner store,” she said.
Jackson, the nurse, said it is often her job to comfort families through a loved one’s death, adding that she felt the same pain when her nephew died from gun violence. “We’ve reached a point of saturation in our city where everyone has been affected by gun violence, or knows someone who has.”
Coalition member Brett Biebelberg, a fourth-year medical student at Thomas Jefferson University and a founder of Students Against the Gun Violence Epidemic, noted that medical professionals are not immune from the gun violence that keeps them so busy. He recalled a morning last year when a walk to the hospital was punctuated by gunfire that caused him to duck for cover at 15th and Market Streets, near City Hall.
“Our respiratory therapists, our clerical workers, cafeteria staff, and custodians, have told us about their siblings, their children, their cousins that they, too, have lost to gun violence in Philadelphia, and the silent grief that they struggle with coming to work at a hospital every day bearing witness to the cycle of violence as it continues,” Biebelberg said. “Enough is enough. It must end.”
Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the spelling of Brett Biebelberg’s name and his year in medical school. The story has also been updated with regard to Jackson’s role in comforting the bereaved.
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