Opinion: Restrict Firearm Sales In Dedham

DEDHAM, MA — The following is a letter to the editor from Dedham Resident Mary Burket regarding J&J Arms getting the approval to open in town:

On Monday, September 23 the Dedham Board of Health issued a statement regarding their progress toward meeting the Board of Selectmen’s request for input on the proposed gun store at 224 Bussey Street in East Dedham. In summary, the board has declined to take a stand on the issue and states they are "… conducting appropriately diligent and thorough research … to satisfy itself that the matter constitutes a public health issue."

While I appreciate their diligence, the public health community has done this work and come to a common conclusion: Gun violence is an epidemic in America. It is a threat to our health and safety and must be addressed through public health interventions.

In 2015, the American College of Physicians was joined by 60 other leading professional organizations, including the American College of Surgeons, the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the American Academy of Pediatrics in a call to action to address gun violence as a threat to public health threat. Researchers at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health have undertaken multiple literature reviews and cross-sectional analyses of decades worth of gun violence data. The full analyses and summaries available on the Chan web site all boil down to this point: Areas with higher levels of household gun ownership have higher rates of both gun-related and overall causes of homicide and suicide. These relationships hold after accounting for rates of unemployment, urbanization, alcohol consumption, and poverty and in the case of homicide, aggravated assault and robbery.

Furthermore, the Chan school reports that the increased risk of suicide among gun-owning families cannot be explained by differences in mental health. Gun ownership is highly correlated with suicide, even after controlling for lifetime major depression and serious suicidal thoughts. Guns alone explain the gun-suicide connection and therefore reducing access to firearms can successfully reduce rates of suicide.

Earlier this month, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of a study that directly linked the presence of gun shops in counties across the US with an increased risk of suicide. The risk grows as the number of gun shops increases and the association was strongest within large metropolitan areas, such as ours. The authors identified the highest rates of suicide in counties where gun shops were present along with high rates of unemployment, single-person households, unmarried households, poverty, and renter-occupied housing. Dedham’s 2017 census data show that compared to the town’s other five census tracts, the tract that includes 224 Bussey Street is by far the most densely populated, has the lowest percentage of married households and largest percent of single parent-headed households. It has the lowest average household income and the highest number and percent of households categorized as “poor” or “struggling” financially. Clearly, the area surrounding 224 Bussey Street is the least suitable place for a gun shop in Dedham.

So what can Dedham do about such an overwhelming public health issue?

The American Public Health Association has developed a comprehensive set of tools and guidelines on this issue. Many recommendations are straightforward, feasible, and apropos to our situation. The APHA urgently calls for a reduction in access to lethal means as a way to prevent suicide and supports “the enactment of federal, state, and local laws designed to limit access to handguns … limit handgun purchases … and limit access to high-powered assault pistols.”

Monday’s statement said that neither the Board of Health nor Town Counsel is aware of any other community that has regulated firearms businesses using a Board of Health regulation. I urge the board to see this not as an obstacle, but as an opportunity to lead by example. The Second Amendment does not protect a right to sell guns. Restricting firearm sales, especially within a vulnerable area such as the one surrounding 224 Bussey, is a viable option to protect public health.