KPHD Board receives national firearm fatalities report

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, May 13, 2026

The Kitsap Health District Board received an update about firearms safety as part of its May 5 meeting.

“There’s lots of potential factors that go into firearm injury, whether we talk about things like substance use, mental health, lots of social situations that are significant risk factors, but there is a common lethality and an availability of firearms,” KPHD health officer Dr. Herbie Duber said.

Duber said firearms are a leading cause of death in the U.S. for those between the ages of 1 and 19. In 2024, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported approximately 44,000 people died of gun-related injuries nationwide.

“The good news, it’s the third year in a row that we’ve seen a decline. The bad news, if you look over time since 1968, when this data was captured, this is the fifth highest number ever recorded. So we’re still quite high in terms of the absolute number of firearm deaths in this country,” he said.

Regarding local efforts, Duber said KPHD had a table at the Bremerton Gun and Knife show April 18 and 19 and distributed roughly 45 lock boxes and 22 trigger locks before running out on the first afternoon.

“It’s really important that we continue to be in these spaces where, traditionally, people might think, ‘oh, public health is kind of not part of this space,’ but this is the space that we’re in, because, again, we have a common foundation of health and well-being for our community,” Duber said. “Our goal is to reduce morbidity and mortality from whatever cause you can think of, and that includes firearm-related deaths. We want to focus on things that keep people safe and healthy.”