Handgun violence, public health, and the law.

Firearms were used to kill 30,143 people in the United States in 2005, the most recent year with complete data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 1 A total of 17,002 of these were suicides, 12,352 homicides, and 789 accidental firearm deaths. Nearly half of these deaths occurred in people under the age of 35. When we consider that there were also nearly 70,000 non-fatal injuries from firearms, we are left with the staggering fact that 100,000 men, women, and children were killed or wounded by firearms in the span of just one year. This translates into one death from firearms every 17 minutes and one death or nonfatal injury every 5 minutes. By any standard, this constitutes a serious public health issue that demands a response not only from law enforcement and the courts, but also from the medical community. In this issue of the Journal, 2 Wintemute provides an analysis of the important public health implications of gun violence in America. which questions the constitutionality of the Dis-trict's 1976 statutes banning or otherwise controlling handguns. A lower federal court struck down the statutes, ruling that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to keep and bear arms. The District of Columbia then appealed to the Supreme Court. The Court's decision in this case is likely to have major impact on handgun-control laws throughout the country. As noted by Wintemute, a court decision that broadened gun rights " could weaken the framework of ordered liberty. " The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that " A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. " These 27 words have been the focus of endless analysis. Do they protect an individual right to arms? Or only the collective right of a state militia? Gun-rights advocates staunchly adhere to the first interpretation, and proponents of gun control favor the second. As noted by Tush-net, 4 a distinguished legal scholar, in this issue of the Journal, the language of the Second Amendment can be interpreted to provide substantial support for both points of view. Whether the right to keep and bear arms is individual or collective, there has been overwhelming agreement for more than two centuries that government has a legitimate interest in regulating the kinds of arms that are protected. …