Content area
Abstract
“There are 400 million guns in a country of 330 million”, says Shannon Watts, the dynamic founder of Moms Demand Action, a grass-roots network in the USA that advocates for public safety measures to prevent gun violence. Since 2020, guns are now the leading cause of death among children aged 1–19 years in America”, she explains. “Shannon is a remarkable embodiment of focus, vision, and courage around firearm safety”, says Mark Shapiro, a hospitalist at Santa Rosa Memorial Hospital, CA, who now talks about “the public health crisis of firearms” including on medical grand rounds and his popular podcast Explore the Space. The group also helped score a victory for gun safety in 2022, when the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act was passed in Congress; it includes enhanced background checks for gun buyers as well as funding for community violence prevention and to improve school safety.