Katherine Hoops, MD, JD, MPH, FAAP, and Regan Williams, MD, MS, FACS, FAAP

“I felt like a rock.”

Those were the words of nine-year-old Odai Shanah in a news interview that gained viral attention on social media. Odai was a witness to the horrific shooting that took place at the largest mosque in San Diego last month.

In the video, we can all see a young boy recounting his experience with stunning composure, recalling seeing and hearing what his innocent mind can only process as “bad stuff.” While he speaks with the same calmness of how we imagine he might also share the day’s lessons or playground antics, he speaks of hearing gunshots and how his legs were shaking.

Hearing Odai talk about this traumatic experience in the mosque where he attended school broke our hearts.

As we observe National Gun Violence Awareness Month, our message is clear: No child should ever have to experience that fear – all children should be safe from violence in all the places where they live, play, learn, and pray.

However, the sad reality is that exposure to gun violence is routine for children across our country. For several years now the statistics have painted a grim picture: firearm-related injuries continue to be the leading cause of death for children after overtaking car crashes in 2020.

As we think of Odai, we hold close these simple truths: This must not be our norm as Americans. Experiencing gun violence cannot be a routine part of childhood. And no child should be afraid to enter their place of worship.

As pediatricians and researchers in the firearm safety field, we know we can do better. We cannot become numb to this preventable trauma; we must keep speaking up for Odai and for all children. It is imperative that we turn our words into action and pursue evidence-based solutions to ensure our children do not grow up in a country where daily firearm violence is the status quo.

There is no single solution to the scourge of firearm violence our children face. Like so many public health issues, solving this crisis will take a multifaceted approach and require all of us — pediatricians, parents, policymakers, and all of our communities — to work together.

We have policy solutions that we know can make a difference to keep children safe, and it is critical that we continue to invest in understanding ways to protect communities. From incentivizing secure storage efforts that prevent children from having unsupervised access to firearms to licensing strategies to ensure that anyone who purchases a firearm has had the training and responsibility to do so safely, we can work together to decrease gun deaths in this country.

As a pediatric intensive care physician and a pediatric surgeon, we too often see young children who are accidentally injured or adolescents who die by suicide because they have access to an unsecured weapon. And all of our colleagues who care for children can tell similar stories.

We must also continue to fund life-saving research that helps us to understand the root causes of firearm injuries and deaths. In recent years and in a bipartisan manner, Congress has passed federal funding for firearm research projects that seek to better understand how we can prevent these tragedies. This funding is a critical piece of the puzzle and, recently, over 400 national, state, and local medical, public health, and research organizations urged lawmakers to continue and expand their commitment to this non-biased, evidence-based work.

The heartbreaking video of Odai is just one glimpse into the impact that gun violence is having on children and families across our country. Odai is one of thousands of children who have experienced acts of violence this year. His is one of too many stories. As we stand in awe of Odai’s composure, let us resolve to be a society in which children are not asked to have that kind of resilience and let us resolve to implement the solutions that keep our children safe and healthy.

Katherine Hoops, MD, JD, MPH, FAAP, is a pediatric intensive care physician. Regan Williams, MD, MS, FACS, FAAP, is a pediatric surgeon. Hoops and Williams are the co-chairs of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ (AAP) Firearm Injury Prevention Special Interest Group.