As The Post’s insightful series on the AR-15 has shown, military-grade guns are everywhere. This was clear on my recent visit to Nashville that overlapped with the mass killing at an elementary school. One of the victims was the son of a colleague.
This is not metaphorical. One cry haunts me. One night at a Chicago hospital, I was part of a team that tried to save the life of a young man shot with an assault rifle. I told his mother that we could not save his life. Wracked by grief, the woman’s only response was a piercing scream. I had no words.
How have we come to love guns more than our children, family members and friends? Why can’t we put reasonable limits on guns, just as we do for all of our rights?
The situation is likely to get worse. The Post did a public service by showing the deadly force from a single AR-15 bullet. The truth is that our advanced weaponry is outpacing our advanced medicine. A recent study showed that gunshot victims today are more likely to die from a gunshot at the scene or in the emergency room than 20 years ago. We don’t have the technology or know-how to save people from the AR-15. The damage is too great. Bullets pulverize bones and organs. By the time we have this knowledge, guns likely will have become even more lethal. This is a tragic arms race.
I experience each horrific shooting through the lens of a former Navy commander, a practicing physician and a parent.
As a 10-year U.S. Navy commander deployed to Afghanistan, I was trained and became proficient in the use of an M-4 semiautomatic rifle, the military version of the AR-15. I cared for combat casualties on the front lines, and I saw firsthand the tremendous damage high-velocity rounds inflict on the human body.
When I drop off my children at school, I have a simple expectation that it is a safe place to learn. Yet, I know that firearm-related injuries have become the leading cause of death for American children and teens.
Physicians are united on this issue. The American Medical Association has an extensive common-sense gun policy that is intended to prevent our patients from becoming victims and statistics. We don’t want our hometowns to become part of the grim shorthand. Though it is true that public policy often changes because of shared experiences, we can’t wait until everyone has the shared experience of gun violence.
Jesse Ehrenfeld, Chicago
The writer, an anesthesiologist, is president-elect of the American Medical Association.