Dr. Jessica Beard answers AHCJ Board President Felice Freyer’s questions during the lunch talk Q&A. (Photo by Erica Tricarico)
If reporters covered gun violence with greater empathy and context — including telling the story from the victims’ perspectives — instead of doing the more typical episodic reporting, it could reduce psychological harms of and potentially affect the prevalence of gun violence, said Jessica Beard, M.D., M.P.H., a trauma surgeon at Temple University Hospital.
Approximately 45,222 Americans died from gun-related injuries in 2020, the highest recorded number in U.S. history, according to recent CDC data. Firearms were involved in 79% of all homicides and 53% of all suicides.
The suicide rate increased most for American Indian/Alaska Native people while the homicide rate grew most for Black people.
In spite of the risk that guns pose to households, one in five American families bought a handgun during the pandemic, according to University of Chicago NORC research.
