We interrupt this summer recipe post for news about yet another mass shooting…

Guys, I just want to write about diet and lifestyle stuff. I am so goddamned tired of critically important medically relevant events that keep hijacking the news cycle. I can’t post a recipe when everyone’s talking about a deadly attack. So let’s cut it out with the mass shootings already, okay??

Alright, that was sarcasm. Although it is true that I am goddamned tired of mass shootings and I would rather show off my fresh tomatoes recipes, we’re dealing with a major public health problem that has killed scores of human beings and threatens more, and I have some things to say about it.

How can we address this issue? As a health issue that poses a great risk to the public. Like, a public health issue.

Even before the most recent two mass shootings, the LA Times published this piece: How Do We Reduce Gun Violence? By Treating It Like a Disease, which highlights successful yet under-funded and under-utilized methods such as evidence-based conflict diffusion and career training for at-risk youth.

And kudos to CBS NEWS for their informative piece Guns and Public Health: Applying Preventive Medicine to a National Epidemic. The piece features a panel of physicians and discusses how over 40 medical organizations are all unified in their calls for implementing evidence-based solutions as well as conducting more research in order to prevent ongoing gun violence.

Meantime the ignorant NRA tells physicians and researchers to Stay In Your Lane:

Welp, since then the NRA has been bombarded with physicians reminding them #ThisIsOurLane:

So while it’s true that I would rather be writing a post about summer tomatoes, I also strongly feel it’s very much within my lane as a physician and researcher to stand up and call for action (and more research!) towards reducing gun violence in the US.

Of course, there’s also apparently tomato guns, and I could not resist this image to bring it all together: