Far too often, Dr. Debra Houry found herself covered in blood.As an emergency physician in the United States for about 20 years, Houry said, it was a “frequent occurrence” to treat young men in the emergency room for gunshot wounds. They often would “bleed out” on her as she was resuscitating them.Then she would search the hospital for a clean white coat to wear “so that I’d look respectable and presentable to talk to their families — or to somebody that did survive but then was paralyzed or had traumatic stress as a result of it,” Houry said.

“That was heartbreaking.”

The rate of gun-related deaths in the US appears to be getting worse.

The US firearm homicide rate in 2020 was the highest recorded since 1994, according to data published Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Houry serves as acting principal deputy director and head of the National Center for Injury Prevention.

Between 2019 and 2020, the overall firearm homicide rate increased about 35%, according to the new data in the CDC’s […]