BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Indiana University’s Students Demand Action may have a proactive name and a dedicated mission, but it was seeking guidance on how to get its message across during a panel discussion Sunday.
Paul Helmke, a former Fort Wayne Mayor and Ex-President & CEO of the Brady Center/Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, led the panel exploring the potential of approaching gun violence reduction as a public health issue like attacking COVID or influenza outbreaks.
”We try to analyze ‘why is this happening? What are the causes of it? What are some of the solutions?’ We don’t look at gun violence that way,” Helmke said. “Usually, we say there is nothing we can do about it, so we step away. But if we started to treat gun violence like a public health issue, ‘What are the causes, what are the possible solutions,’ there’s no way we’re gonna end it all, but there are things we can do to make the problem less. That’s the approach we should be taking.”
IU Associate Professor in the School of Public Health Jon Macy recently co-authored a study on the lack of comprehensive data that hampers researchers and policymakers trying to wrap their arms around the subject.
”Gun violence is clearly a public health issue,” Macy said. ”Whether you think about it at the local level in Indianapolis, for example, the quality of the data are not very good and data systems don’t talk to each other very well. So, for example, the hospital data system doesn’t communicate well or doesn’t link well with the law enforcement data systems, so we don’t really have a great comprehensive picture of the gun violence problem in Marion County.”
IMPD reported two dozen juvenile gunshot wound deaths last year while more than 60 children survived firearms injuries.
”No one wants to see young people find a gun at home and use it against themselves because they’re depressed,” Helmke said. “No one wants to see a young person find a gun and accidentally shoot their younger brother. If we treat this as an issue of how do we keep our young people safer, how do we keep them healthier, we do that in every other place with every other issue but with guns we seem to want to step away, so I think focusing on the public health aspect should hopefully make us find common ground. Nobody wants to see young people hurt.”
Statistics from Macy’s recent study, which was led by Lauren Magee of IU’s O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis, found that 59% of child gunshot victims in Indianapolis last year were 16-17 years old, not much younger than the IU students at the panel discussion.
”We’re having to reinforce school safety and shooter drills in classrooms in K-12,” said Meredith Kuhl, who will be leading a handful of IU students to the Indiana Statehouse on Tuesday to meet with lawmakers and talk gun legislation. “We’re really going to try to emphasize this isn’t about one side being right, this isn’t about one side being wrong, but it’s about being proactive about the problems that our communities are facing, and not just kind of accepting instances of violence as the norm.
“That’s kind of what we’re gonna highlight there that it’s a public health issue, and there’s something to be done about it from a legislative perspective.”
Both Marion County Public Health Director Dr. Virginia Caine and Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett have said their staffs are developing programs to specifically address Indy youth violence.
”This isn’t a Second Amendment issue,” said Kuhl. ”We’re talking about public safety issues here that are disproportionately affecting youth and youth of color.”
Macy said a generous donation from an IU alumnus will permit the university to establish a center for gun violence prevention.
