Arizona’s health leaders are telling residents loud and clear: guns have no place in the family home.
That’s according to a set of new policy recommendations in a report from the Arizona Department of Health Services. Their latest Child Fatality Review Program (CFRP) report, released annually, advised the governor and state legislature to prevent firearm-related deaths by getting guns out of family homes.
“CFRP believes that the most effective way to prevent firearm-related deaths in children is to remove all firearms in households with children because the presence of firearms in a household increases the risk of suicide among adolescents,” said the agency’s report.
The department bolstered their case for the removal of guns from family homes by citing data correlating increased risks of youth suicide with the presence of guns, though the same report showed that firearms weren’t the leading cause of child fatalities. Rather, motor vehicle crashes were a far greater cause of preventable deaths among children last year: 20 percent, compared to 16 percent of deaths caused by a firearm injury.
The removal of firearms from households wasn’t the only gun safety measure recommended by the Arizona Department of Health Services. The department advocated for the mandating of mental health screening and gun safety training before anyone could purchase firearms, parents or no. The health experts also expressed a desire for the state to begin licensing and tracking all firearms, in addition to punishing those who fail to report any stolen firearms.
The leading voice on these recommendations is CFRP chair Mary Rimsza, a Tucson-based pediatrician who has held a series of other leadership positions. She had led the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Pediatric Workforce. Rimsza also taught at the University of Arizona College of Medicine.
Rimsza was an early advocate of embedding certain progressive ideals into pediatrics. Rimsza has co-authored several medical papers published with the American Academy of Pediatrics advocating for diversity and inclusion policies for race and sexuality as “essential” in the pediatric academic workforce.
In last year’s report, all recommendations were compiled together on a level basis. Rimsza’s opening letter didn’t focus on firearm injuries as much as other causes of preventable deaths, such as sleep deaths and infectious diseases. Instead, Rimsza made room for addressing COVID-19 vaccinations, and attributed the decline in child deaths from COVID-19 between 2021 to 2022 (a drop from 32 to 17) to COVID vaccines.
In this year’s report, Rimsza’s opening letter put out a clearer call to action on stricter controls over firearm ownership. Even for those Arizonans without children, Rimsza recommended rendering the firearms nearly useless in the home: unloaded and locked away in a safe totally separate from ammunition.
Parents of all adolescents should remove all guns from their homes, especially if there is a history of mental health issues or substance use issues. In addition, CFRP recommends that all gun owners should practice safe storage of their firearms by keeping guns unloaded and locked in a safe separate from the ammunition.
