The Make America Healthy Again movement’s report, titled Make Our Children Healthy Again and led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Department of Health and Human Services, focuses on four priorities for child well-being: diet, exercise, chemical exposure and overmedicalization. The article argues that the report has a glaring omission. It does not treat gun violence as a core child health issue despite evidence that firearms are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the United States.
The piece combines national statistics with personal observation to underline the scale and cultural difference of the problem. A Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health report cited in the article found 46,728 people died from gun violence in the US in 2023, an average of 128 deaths per day. Among those were 2,566 young people, including 234 under the age of 10. Gun death rates among children have more than doubled since 2013, and firearms now contribute to more child deaths than cancer or car crashes. The article also notes 434 school shootings since Columbine in 1999 and a Washington Post estimate that 397,000 students have experienced gun violence at school in that period, with a recent shooting at Evergreen High School in Colorado adding to that total.
The author recounts living in the United States with young children and encountering armed school security, a landlord who stored guns at home, and a school police officer who accidentally discharged a firearm on school property. Experts quoted in the article, including Daniel Webster at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, urge treating gun violence as a public health crisis and using interventions that identify high-risk individuals, mediate conflicts, limit access to firearms when appropriate, and interrupt cycles of violence. The article also notes that then US surgeon general Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis in 2024 and that recent funding cuts by the Trump administration have reduced grants for organizations working to reduce gun violence. The piece concludes that without addressing firearms and their impacts, efforts to make American children healthier will be incomplete.
