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Forests and trees in firearm injury research

Pediatrics and Preventive Medicine, Northwestern University Medical School, Medical Director, The Handgun Epidemic Lowering Plan (HELP) Network, 2300 Children's Plaza, #208, Chicago, IL 60614, USA

Correspondence to:
Professor Christoffel

Keywords: firearms; emergency department; surveillance; violence

In this issue of Injury Prevention, Hootman and colleagues present the latest information on non-fatal, non-gunshot injuries related to guns in the United States.¹ The report is the latest in a series of snapshots that investigators at the United States Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have added to the ever-so-slowly evolving panoramic picture of our country's unique burden of gun injury (see http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc). The paper is of interest both for what it says and what it does not say.

What is said
The authors set the stage by reminding readers of the large, albeit recently falling, number of gunshot deaths and injuries in the United States each year. Then, using carefully constructed emergency department based estimates, they focus on the 16% of all medically treated gun related injuries due to mechanisms other than gunshot wounds. The authors observe that the risk for these injuries parallels that of gunshot wounds (males, youth, . . . [Full text of this article]