Violence in America: Time to Bite the Bullet Back

To the Editor.  —It is ironic that with the editorial call by JAMA for registration and licensing for gun owners and their guns,¹ not one of over 70 articles, reprints, editorials, letters, reports, abstracts, book reviews, commentaries, or other communications in 10 American Medical Association (AMA) publications provided any data that treating guns like motor vehicles—for which registration and licensing are generally not required for possession and use exclusively on private property—would reduce firearms-related violence. Indeed, while editorially crediting registration and licensing for the recent reduction in motor vehicle accidents, the key article touching on that issue listed seven factors but not registration or licensing.² And undercutting the argument that public health initiatives reduced unintentional motor vehicle deaths and therefore can reduce intentional firearm deaths is the fact that the motor vehicle death rate declined less than that for other public accidents, work accidents, home accidents, or firearms