Finding Common Ground on Gun Violence Prevention

Gun violence is a pressing issue that continues to impact communities across the country by threatening safety, straining health care organizations and leaving families with lasting trauma. In a one-week period earlier this month, Columbus witnessed a surge of shootings, with 20 percent of the 2026 shootings happening over that time period. As this violence continues to rise in Columbus, OhioHealth stays at the forefront of providing critical care while educating the community on gun safety.

Since last year, OhioHealth has been proud to partner with Agree to Agree, an initiative with the National Ad Council and a coalition of other health systems, that aims to reduce gun violence on children and teens by encouraging conversation, integrating safe gun storage and providing critical resources. Gun violence prevention begins with having conversations about the risks and implications of using a firearm. Agree to Agree hopes to open this discussion to more people across the United States.

Firearms are currently the leading cause of death among children and teens, second to car accidents. In 2025, OhioHealth treated 423 gunshot wounds, including children. Michal Radomski, MD, trauma surgeon at OhioHealth Grant Medical Center told Anna Hoffman at NBC4 that his team gets at least one gunshot victim every 36 hours.

“Once the person pulls that trigger that, you know, events happen that are irreversible,” said Dr. Radomski.

The impact of gun violence goes beyond the victim, effecting family members and health care workers.

“There’s this thought process also of the second victim phenomenon, where it’s not just the person that was medically injured, but it’s also the caretakers of that person, family members, nursing staff, the EMS crews, everybody else that’s working so hard and trying to take care of oftentimes these young patients that are coming in who were previously healthy and now have this devastating this devastating event happened to their life that oftentimes is life changing,” Dr. Radomski said.

Agree to Agree focuses on finding common ground in these discussions—we can all agree that gun violence should not be the leading cause of death for children. Safe storage, keeping guns away from children and educating people on safe gun usage are simple ways to prevent these deaths. Beyond these individual efforts is a community effort from health care workers, schools and other community groups.

The goal of Agree to Agree is not for everyone to agree on every policy or solution, but to agree that action is needed to prevent these deaths. To find more resources and information, click here.