The American Medical Association has a new answer to the staggering costs of gun violence: Send the bill to the companies that made the guns.
The group’s House of Delegates adopted a policy this week calling for firearm manufacturers to share the financial burden of gun deaths and injuries. The money could help pay for violence prevention and services in hard-hit communities. Those are worthwhile goals. The AMA’s explanation for why the manufacturer should get the bill is considerably less convincing.
There’s a straightforward case for holding a company accountable when it sells a defective product or breaks the law. But the AMA’s proposal, as described, goes much further. It asks manufacturers to pay for harm that may have resulted from someone else’s deliberate crime, reckless handling or unsafe storage. What did the manufacturer do wrong in those cases? Making the product is an answer to who made it. It doesn’t tell you who caused the harm.
Dr. Melissa Garretson, a member of the AMA’s board of trustees, said the costs fall on patients, families, communities and taxpayers. She argued that requiring manufacturers to contribute could fund prevention and encourage investment in firearm safety. Everytown for Gun Safety, an advocacy group, estimates that firearm injuries and deaths cost taxpayers about $12.6 billion a year. Even if you accept every dollar of that estimate, it tells you how big the bill is. It doesn’t tell you whose name belongs on it.
Supporters compared the idea to cases involving tobacco and opioid companies. But the analogy skips the question that makes those cases relevant: What did the companies themselves do? If the claim is that a particular gun maker acted wrongfully, make that case and show the evidence. If the claim is that every manufacturer owes money whenever somebody misuses a gun, say that plainly and explain why the same reasoning shouldn’t apply to a carmaker after a drunk-driving crash.
The AMA vote establishes an advocacy position. It doesn’t impose a fee, create a compensation fund or settle how liability would be assigned. Those details would determine whether the proposal targets misconduct or simply raises money from an industry because it’s politically easier than deciding who should pay.
Doctors see the consequences of gun violence firsthand, and their experience belongs in the debate. But treating gun injuries as a public health problem doesn’t require pretending that manufacturing a firearm and misusing one are the same act.
