U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy declared gun violence a public health crisis Tuesday and called on the nation to address it with the same vigor used to reduce deaths and injuries from tobacco and motor vehicle crashes. The surgeon general’s advisory marked the first time the nation’s leading voice on public health — the same office that in the 1960s highlighted the lethal consequences of cigarette smoking — had issued an urgent pronouncement on deaths related to firearms.
