We live in a country where firearms have become the leading cause of death for children and teens. Where there are more guns than people. Where the sound of gunshots echo from classrooms, churches and city streets day after day and year after year. This year alone there have been more than 300 mass shootings in America so far.
This isn’t normal. It isn’t inevitable. It’s a preventable public health crisis – and we can and must do something about it.
As a medical doctor and governor of Hawaii, I’ve seen how gun violence shatters lives, destroys families and takes children from their parents. I also know that most Americans – gun owners and non-owners alike – support commonsense action to prevent gun violence.
Let me be clear: I am not against gun ownership. I know many responsible gun owners – veterans, hunters, collectors and everyday citizens who take safety seriously. In Hawaii, we have among the lowest gun death rates in the country, in part because we balance rights with safety. That model can work elsewhere, too.
But we keep running into the same barrier: political paralysis, fueled by fear, misinformation and a powerful minority more committed to extreme ideology than to saving lives.
America is not uniquely violent. But we have unique access to deadly firearms – and we are uniquely unwilling, at the national level, to regulate guns in ways that keep us safer, save lives and match the will of the people. That must change.
Why Does America Have So Much Gun Violence?
The United States suffers dramatically higher rates of gun violence than any other developed nation. In 2023, more than 46,000 Americans died from gun-related injuries – equivalent to a gun death every 11 minutes. More than half of these deaths were suicides. Others were homicides, often involving young men and handguns. Mass shootings, though a small fraction of overall gun deaths, are rising in frequency.
Why us?
The short answer: unregulated access to guns.
The U.S. has about 120 guns per 100 people – more than twice the rate of the next closest country, Yemen, which has about 53 per 100. We also have a patchwork of laws with gaping loopholes, weak enforcement and enormous variation between states. In some places, background checks are universal, and red-flag laws protect those at risk. In others, a person can buy an AR-15 in less time than it takes to register to vote.
Other countries act when gun violence surges. After a 1996 mass shooting, Australia enacted sweeping gun reforms, and that nation’s rates of mass shootings and suicides fell dramatically. Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada all regulate guns with far more consistency – and suffer a fraction of our gun-related deaths.
We often hear that these nations lack our constitutional protections. But the Second Amendment doesn’t prohibit safety. It demands responsibility. The Supreme Court has ruled repeatedly that regulation is compatible with the right to bear arms.
Changes the Majority of Americans Support
We are not as divided on this issue as some would have us believe. About 60% of Americans believe it is too easy to legally obtain a gun, and favor stricter gun laws.
Poll after poll shows overwhelming support for licensing laws. A majority of Americans also support red-flag laws, safe storage laws, waiting periods, raising the minimum age to buy semiautomatic rifles, and limits on high-capacity magazines and military-style weapons. These aren’t radical ideas. They are mainstream, and they save lives – states with stronger gun laws consistently have fewer gun deaths.