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Public Health

Intersection of Surging Firearm Sales and COVID-19, Psychological Distress, and Health Disparities in the US—A Call for Action

Educational Objective
To identify the key insights or developments described in this article

1 Credit CME

JAMA Network Open

Published Online: January 4, 2021

Invited Commentary

Article Information and Disclosures

Katelin Hoskins, PhD, MBE, CRNP¹;

Rinad S. Beidas, PhD^2,3

Author Affiliations

¹Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
²Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
³Penn Implementation Science Center at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

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Mass shooting events (eg, Sandy Hook, San Bernardino) and national elections have historically been associated with increased firearm sales in the US.¹ Against the backdrop of other salient phenomena that have occurred in 2020—the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, rising psychological distress, police violence against minority groups, protests for racial justice, and highly polarized politics—the popular press has reported increased firearm acquisition. In a methodologically rigorous, cross-sectional population-representative, survey of 2870 adults in California, Kravitz-Wirtz and colleagues² analyzed public concern about (1) violence against themselves and others, (2) the prevalence of and reasons for firearm and ammunition acquisition, and (3) firearm storage practices. Their findings demonstrate that concern about violence has increased robustly during the pandemic. Specifically, survey respondents expressed concern that someone they know may intentionally harm another person (12.2%) or themselves (13.1%) owing to experiencing pandemic-related losses. The authors estimated that approximately 110 000 Californians acquired firearms due to the pandemic, including approximately 47 000 new owners who primarily acquired them for self-protection. Nearly 1 in 5 respondents reported storing at least 1 firearm loaded and not locked up, with approximately 7% of these owners reporting this change in storage practice owing to the pandemic. Of owners who stored firearms in this way, half lived in households with children. These findings are highly pertinent with regard to 3 matters that require attention amid the current charged social and political context: (1) implications for safe storage initiatives broadly; (2) safe storage initiatives specific to suicide prevention amid rising psychological distress; and (3) the intersection of these matters within an inequitable society that is rife with health disparities for racial/ethnic minority communities.

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Article Information

Published: January 4, 2021. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.34017

Open Access: This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC-BY License. © 2021 Hoskins K et al. JAMA Network Open.

Corresponding Author: Rinad Beidas, PhD, Department of Psychiatry, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, 3535 Market St. 3rd Floor, Philadelphia, PA 19104 (rbeidas@upenn.edu).

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: Dr Hoskins reported receiving a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (T32MH109433; postdoctoral trainee) during the conduct of the study. Dr Beidas reported receiving a grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01 MH123491 and T32 MH109433) during the conduct of the study; grants from the National Cancer Institute, the National Institute on Aging, the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institute of Nuring Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the National Psoriasis Foundation, Veterans Affairs Quality Enhancement Research Initiative, the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; royalties from Oxford University Press; served as a consultant to Camden Coalition of Healthcare Providers; and receives an honorarium for servind on the Optum Behavioral Health Clinical Scientific Advisory Council.

References

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AMA CME Accreditation Information

Credit Designation Statement: The American Medical Association designates this Journal-based CME activity activity for a maximum of 1.00  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to:

1.00 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;;
1.00 Self-Assessment points in the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery’s (ABOHNS) Continuing Certification program;
1.00 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;
1.00 Lifelong Learning points in the American Board of Pathology’s (ABPath) Continuing Certification program; and
1.00 CME points in the American Board of Surgery’s (ABS) Continuing Certification program

It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting MOC credit.