US Surgeon General says gun crime in US is now a national emergency

Gun crime in the US is a national emergency, the Surgeon General has said.

Dr Vivek Murthy, the nation’s top doctor, made the declaration amid the fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the US.

“People want to be able to walk through their neighborhoods and be safe,” Murthy told The Associated Pressin a phone interview. “America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that’s going to put our life at risk.”

The number of mass shootings in the US has been growing steadily each year since 2018, reaching 656 in 2023. That is compared to 335 in 2018.

As the number of mass shootings has grown, so has the number of gun related deaths, with 18,854 in 2023 compared to 14,943 in 2018.

So far in 2024 there has been 249 mass shootings, with 8,115 deaths, according to the national gun archive.

Just this weekend, mass shootings left dozens dead or wounded at a party in Alabama, an entertainment district in Ohio and a grocery store in Arkansas.

To drive down gun deaths, Murthy says the US should ban automatic rifles, introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons.

None of those suggestions can be implemented nationwide without legislation passed by Congress, which typically recoils at gun control measures. However, some states have enacted or may consider some of the surgeon general’s proposals.

Murthy has previously battled with GOP members of Congress over gun control, with Republican lawmakers opposing his confirmation twice over his statements on gun