John, [[link removed]]
My name is Joe Sakran – I’m a trauma surgeon, Chair of the Brady Board, and a gun violence survivor.
As a trauma surgeon, I've stood over too many bodies broken by bullets. I've delivered the news no parent ever wants to hear. As a survivor of gun violence myself, I carry the seen and unseen scars that far too many other Americans share.
I was shot in the neck. And seeing the heinous video of Charlie Kirk's fatal shooting was not only retraumatizing, it shows the danger of normalizing violence. I wrote this Op-Ed in USA Today and I hope you’ll take the time to read it.
All of us, working together, have the ability to change our country for the better – to free America from gun violence and protect those we still can. Thank you for being in this fight, even when it’s the hardest.
–Dr. Joe Sakran
Gun Violence Survivor
Brady Board Chair and Chief Medical Officer
Trauma Surgeon
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I’ve been shot in the neck. I know how your head jerks back from the force of a bullet. I know how quickly blood flows from your carotid artery. I know the initial stunned silence that cloaks the world around you, and the thunderous sound of chaos that follows.
Now, America knows all that, too.
The recent fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk is yet another tragic example of how our country is veering toward a dangerous and unacceptable normalization of violence. In July, elected officials in Minnesota were shot in a targeted political attack. Not long after, children were slain while attending mass at a Catholic school in Minneapolis.
In all, more than 40,000 people are killed annually by gun-related injury in America.
We are witnessing a deadly pattern: Individuals driven by hate, fear or ideology turning to firearms as a means of expression. In a nation not at war, violence has nonetheless become a language too many are speaking – and too many are dying from.
What’s unique about this moment is how the public experienced the shooting. Videos circulated almost immediately online, stripped of context, raw in their violence and triggering for so many. You could see, in real time, the destruction bullets do to human bodies.
My job is to fix bodies broken by bullets. I know the damage guns can do.
I confront that destruction every day in my mind as my own shooting replays when I close my eyes. I also confront that destruction with my hands, because 19 years after I was shot, I became a trauma surgeon tasked with putting bodies back together that have been broken by bullets.
In those moments, I’m reminded of our own vulnerability – of how quickly a life can be taken. And when Kirk was shot, I think Americans were reminded, too. The reactions across social media weren’t just horror – they were deeply human. People gasped. They screamed. They ran. You didn’t need to share Kirk’s politics to feel the fear.
The question is: Will this moment shift us? Will the nation pause and reflect – not just on this individual act, but also on the broader environment that allowed it to happen? Or will we descend further into the predictable cycle of blame and deflection, each side accusing the other of incitement, while refusing to confront the violence growing in plain sight?
Kirk was no ordinary figure. The cofounder of Turning Point USA was a luminary of the MAGA movement, deeply aligned with the president, and an outspoken voice in America’s cultural and political divide. And perhaps that’s precisely why this moment matters so much. If we can all agree – without hesitation – that someone as polarizing as Kirk should not be shot when speaking on a college campus, why can’t we also agree that a student shouldn’t be shot while learning on a similar campus?
As a trauma surgeon, I’ve stood over too many bodies broken by bullets. I’ve delivered the news no parent ever wants to hear. As a survivor of gun violence myself, I carry the scars – visible and invisible – of what happens when someone picks up a gun instead of using their voice. And I know that for every high-profile shooting that dominates headlines, there are dozens more that don’t. Each just as painful. Each just as preventable.
Guns make political violence inevitable.
After every tragedy, we hear calls to harden schools, arm more people, fortify homes. I understand the instinct. But I’ve seen where that road leads. More guns don’t make us safer. They make anger more lethal. They make every hateful word more dangerous. They make political violence not just possible – but inevitable.
Gun violence doesn’t care about party lines. It threatens Democrats and Republicans alike. It touches every race, religion and region. It’s not a red state or blue state problem – it’s an American crisis. And political violence, in particular, strikes at the very foundation of our democracy. When we allow ideology to justify violence, when we turn political rivals into enemies, we lose not just lives – we lose the very idea of a shared national future.
This is a moment for moral clarity. We must name all violence for what it is: unacceptable and un-American. And we must act – not just with thoughts and prayers, but with policies that prevent access to firearms by those who seek to do harm, investments in violence prevention and a cultural recommitment to empathy over escalation.
Kirk should not have been shot and killed for his beliefs. Melissa Hortman and her husband should not have been slain in their home. No public servant, no political figure, no child in a pew should have to fear for their life because of what they believe, how they vote or where they pray.
The danger is here. But maybe – just maybe – this moment can remind us of something deeper: that behind every ideology is a human being. That no belief is worth a bullet. And that the future of our country depends on our ability to reject hate, before more lives are lost to it.
[[link removed]] John, thank you for supporting Brady. [[link removed]]
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