I was chairing a committee for the County Medical Society called the Child's Fatality Review Committee, which looks at ways to prevent death in children. I saw that there were groups dealing with problems like premature birth, birth defects and automobile fatalities, but no one was working specifically to prevent gun deaths and injuries among children. I put together a forum in September of 1998 that addressed the issue of children and gun-related violence that was attended by around 100 people. The task force evolved out of that forum. The incident at Columbine last year dramatically underscored the need for this kind of effort.
Members hold a wide range of views on guns.
We share the common goal, though, of reducing the numbers of gun deaths and injuries to children. We make presentations to the public to advance that goal. Well over 5 million civilians died from gunshot wounds between 1938 and 1988, more than the combined U.S. war dead from every war since 1776. Over 38,000 people die every year in this country from gunshot wounds, and over 1,000 children are killed unintentionally by guns every year in this country. One out of every four households in El Paso County has a gun in it, the majority of them loaded and unlocked.