Editorial: Tackle gun violence like other public health problems

San Bernardino, Calif., Colorado Springs, Colo., Roseburg, Ore., Charleston, S.C., Watertown, Conn., Aurora, Colo., Blacksburg, Va. The routinization of mass murder in the U.S. continues apace.

The overall statistics may not show an increase in the number of Americans killed by firearms each year. But the horrific nature of recent mass slaughters reveals a tragic truth: The proliferation of guns in our society has been, and continues to be, one of the nation's leading threats to public health.

About the same number of people die each year from gunshot wounds—over 32,000—as die in car accidents. That's an average of 88 deaths a day from homicides, suicides and unintentional gunshots. It's the equivalent of an airplane falling out of the sky every day. No other country in the industrialized world even comes close to that level of preventable carnage.

The societal costs are staggering—$174 billion a year for medical and mental healthcare, criminal justice costs, wage losses and the price of pain, suffering and lost quality of life, according to a recent study by the Children's Safety Network. That works out to $645 every year for every gun in America.

You can add to that the immeasurable costs of surviving family members' pain and suffering; the post-traumatic stress suffered by healthcare workers; and the paralyzing dread that parents everywhere must face when contemplating the fact that their kids' school might be next.

Yet we do nothing. The National Rifle Association's minions in Congress span the political spectrum. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the most left-wing candidate to run for president in nearly a century, joins the naysayers when it comes to many gun-control measures. The Republican-controlled Congress remains ideologically opposed to any form of government regulation on firearms.

This isn't about limiting individuals' cherished Second Amendment rights. We didn't take away people's right to drive when outrage over skyrocketing highway deaths forced legislators to act. We passed laws forcing auto manufacturers to install seatbelts, airbags and safer designs.

Earlier this year, eight professional groups, ranging from the American Academy of Family Physicians to the American Bar Association, demanded more extensive firearm regulations as a first step toward reducing gun violence in our society. They called for extending background checks on the purchase of firearms to gun shows and individual transfers; banning individual ownership of assault weapons and their high-volume ammunition magazines; and ending gag laws that prevent physicians from discussing gun safety with patients.

That last request could help prevent some of the more than 60% of gunshot deaths by suicide. And pediatricians might be able to make gun owners more aware of the fact that accidental shooting deaths among pre-school-age children playing with unsecured guns outnumber the number of police officers killed on the job each year by a 3-to-1 margin.

In the wake of previous mass shootings, the gun lobby and its supporters in Congress have focused public attention on mental illness, which does help explain some of the mass killings. But most people with temporary or chronic mental-health problems are nonviolent, and attempting to reduce gun violence by improving those people's care—worthy as that is—will never get at the root of the epidemic.

The problem is easy access to the guns and ammunition that can be used for mass slaughter. It is the proliferation of guns that are poorly designed, improperly cared for, or serve no useful social or sporting purpose.

The least we can do is require registration and background checks for all gun purchases; require gun owners to carry liability insurance (as we do for drivers); and force gun manufacturers to install digital technologies such as thumbprints for access and bullet tracing. “We've been very successful in bringing down death and disability from cars,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association. “We can do the exact same thing for firearms.”

The pseudo-scientific idea, propounded by many gun enthusiasts—that there will be less violence when everyone is packing heat—defies common sense. If permanently enshrined in public policy, that idea will signal to the world that America has not only lost its ability to address pressing social problems, it has lost its moral compass.