The Door Is Open to Firearm Safety

A year ago at a Peninsula School District School Board meeting, I asked board members a simple question: Why aren’t our high school students being taught about firearm injury prevention?

As a physician and epidemiologist, I have seen firearm injury firsthand. I’ve cared for victims, worked with affected families, and conducted research. And, for the past decade, with a team of University of Washington medical students, I have taught more than 17,000 high school students throughout Washington State, including more than 6,000 this past school year, how they can reduce firearm injury risk.

I believe our local students deserve the same opportunity.

I asked, but I never heard back.

Now, a year later, something important has changed. District administrators have reviewed the program and determined that it is appropriate for high school health classes. However, the district is not requiring schools to offer the program, so the decision now rests with high school administrators and educators. 

That means the next step is up to our local schools — and our community.

The reason I keep pushing for this is simple. Firearm injury is the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the United States.

Think about that for a moment.

We teach health classes about substance use, mental health, nutrition, sexual health, and infectious disease because we want young people to understand threats to their health and how they can protect themselves.

How can we teach health and leave out the leading cause of death for our young people?

As it stands now, young people form ideas about firearms from Hollywood action movies, video games, and social media, where firearms are often portrayed as symbols of power, excitement, and control. These images rarely show the consequences of firearm injury, the risk of suicide, the importance of secure storage, or the ways firearms can turn a moment of crisis into a tragedy.

Wouldn’t you rather your child have the opportunity to learn what the evidence tells us about firearms, risk, and safety from a trained health educator who provides accurate, evidence-based information about firearm injury, suicide, safe storage, and prevention?

For me, that’s an easy choice.

This isn’t about telling students whether or not they should own firearms, and I don’t tell them what political position to take. I teach them about risk.

We talk about the fact that most firearm deaths are not mass shootings. We talk about suicide, which accounts for the majority of firearm deaths in our country. We talk about secure firearm storage and why it matters. And we talk about recognizing when someone may be at risk of harming themselves or someone else — and what to do when that happens.

One of the most important things we can teach students is what to do when a friend is in trouble. One in six adolescents between the ages of 12 and 17 seriously considers suicide, and in our country there are more than 5,000 suicide attempts in this age group on an average day. A peer — a friend, teammate, or classmate — may be among the first to recognize that something is wrong.

We can’t expect students to solve those situations themselves. But we can teach them to recognize when something is wrong, take it seriously, and know when and how to get an adult involved. Sometimes the safest thing a young person can do for a friend is to say, “I'm worried about you,” and then tell someone who can help.

If our goal is to keep young people as safe as possible, we need to give them the knowledge and skills to recognize danger and help connect their friends with the adults and resources that can keep them safe.

There is growing support for this approach here in Washington. Twenty-five state legislators, several health-care professional organizations, prominent educators, and community leaders have affirmed the importance of providing age-appropriate, public-health-informed firearm injury prevention education to high school students. The Washington State Medical Association, Seattle Children’s, and education leaders and superintendents from school districts on both sides of the Cascades are among those who support the idea.

And the list continues to grow.

I have watched our community struggle with several devastating firearm-related tragedies over the past year. I know that the effects of these tragedies extend far beyond the families directly involved, affecting the broader community as well.

And I keep thinking about how to prevent future tragedies.

No single intervention will prevent every firearm injury. But giving young people accurate information and practical tools is one thing we can do, and we can do it without entering the endless political argument over the Second Amendment and gun control.

After teaching more than 1,000 classes, I have never received a complaint from a parent, student, teacher, or administrator that the presentation was “pro-gun” or “anti-gun.”

Because this isn’t about politics: It’s about health.

What will it take to get this information to our students? We need the go-ahead from teachers and principals. And they need to hear from parents and other members of the community who support it.

Our children are already getting an education about firearms.

Let’s make sure they get some of it from us.

Gregory Engel, MD, MPH, is the vice president for education of Ceasefire Northwest. He lives in Lakebay.