Trump administration removes surgeon general's warning of gun violence as health emergency--47,000 died from firearms in 2023

 The Trump administration has removed the former surgeon general Vivek Murthy’s advisory on gun violence as a public health issue from the US Department of Health and Human Services’ website. This move was made to comply with Donald Trump’s executive order to protect second amendment rights, a White House official told the Guardian.

The “firearm violence in America” page, where the advisory had been posted, was filled with data and information about the ripple effects of shootings, the prevalence of firearm suicides and the number of American children and adolescents who have been shot and killed. Now, when someone reaches the site they will be met with a “page not found” message.

When it was originally released last summer, Murthy’s advisory was met with praise from violence prevention and research groups, and was lambasted by second amendment law centers and advocacy groups that argued the Biden administration was using public health as a cloak to push forward more gun control.

“This is an extension of the Biden Administration’s war on law-abiding gun owners. America has a crime problem caused by criminals,” the National Rifle Association (NRA) said in a statement posted to X on 25 July 2024.

But Daniel Semenza, a firearm violence researcher with Rutgers University, argues that talking about gun violence through a public health lens is meant to “bring the heat down” about a deeply politicized issue and broaden what prevention can look like.

In 2023, nearly 47,000 people died by firearms, most of them suicides.

“When people read gun violence is a public health problem, they read guns are a public health problem,” Semenza said. “This idea actually removes the politics from the issue and is an engine to get us on the same page. [The removal] feels like an unnecessary and mean-spirited way to politicize something that people have actively been trying to bring people together on.”

The removal of Murthy’s advisory and the rest of the information on the page is one of the thousands of pieces of health information and research removed from federal websites. They include information about vaccines, health risks among youth and gender-based violence, the New York Times reported.

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