Patient-Centric Gun Violence Reform
How to stop bullets from becoming funerals - no bans, no excuses, all common sense
You can’t take all the guns.
Not only because it’s unconstitutional, but because it’s impossible. There are over 400 million civilian firearms in the U.S. - more guns than people. Even with a total ban, they wouldn’t vanish from glove boxes, nightstands, pawn shops, or riverbeds.
So what do we do in the real world - the one where guns are already everywhere?
We treat the wounds.
Guns don’t kill people - gunshot wounds do. Your femoral artery doesn’t care whether you were shot, stabbed, or tossed through a windshield - it just bleeds.
For decades, we’ve argued about “good guns,” “bad guns,” “good guys,” and “bad guys.” But wounds are neutral: stop the bleeding in minutes, and get the victim to a Level I trauma center in tens of minutes, and they live. Fail, and they die.
We can literally map gun-death hotspots straight onto “trauma deserts” - neighborhoods where expert care is too far, too slow, or too broken.
This proposal fixes that - while also cutting response times for car crashes, industrial accidents, and natural disasters. And it does it without banning a single firearm or blowing the budget.
1. Stop the Bleed NOW
| Action | What it Does |
|---|---|
| Free “Stop the Bleed” classes at every fire & police station, every weekend | Trains anyone in 60 minutes to pack wounds, apply pressure, and slap on a tourniquet. |
| $100 refundable tax credit for completing Stop the Bleed, CPR, or First Aid | Pushes mass uptake without new mandates. |
| Trauma kits for every graduate + grant programs to mount kits next to AEDs | Makes the gear as common as fire extinguishers. |
| KPI: 50% of U.S. adults certified within 5 years (county scorecards published quarterly) | Transparent pressure = sustained participation. |
2. Get to Care FASTER
| Action | What it Does |
|---|---|
| No-bill (or capped-bill) ambulance rides for gunshot victims | Nobody hesitates to call 911 because they’re broke. |
| Crime-scene EMT reform – medics can enter “warm” zones with ballistic gear or armed escort | Ends deadly waits while police “secure the scene.” |
| Gunshot-detector → auto-dispatch – 95% confidence alert triggers immediate trauma team deployment | In Camden, NJ, pairing ShotSpotter with EMS cut transport times ~20%. |
| Subsidized EMT certification where responder density is low | Builds a volunteer surge force where it’s needed most. |
3. Guarantee Level I ACCESS
| Action | What it Does |
|---|---|
| 30-Minute Trauma Standard – every American can reach a Level I center in ≤ 30 minutes | Each extra mile raises fatality risk by ~22%, and getting to surgery within the first "Golden Hour" is critical to patient survival. |
| Rural fixes – shared medevac hubs, mobile trauma units, tele-trauma | Delivers equity without building a hospital on every dirt road. |
| Federal Trauma Engineering Corps – 2-year Army Corps-led blitz to map gaps & design solutions | Uses same engineers who already build $969M hospitals overseas - let’s point them home. |
4. Paying for It (and Why It Nets Out to Zero)
[All figures are educated guesses, if someone has real data I'd love to incorporate it]
| Lever | Annual Impact |
|---|---|
| Reallocate <0.02% of DoD discretionary ($150M/yr) to fund the Trauma Corps | Same troops, same shovels, new mission. |
| 2% gun-industry responsibility fee on new handguns & semi-auto rifles (+ ammo); income-based rebate so we don't price the poor out of self-defense | ≈ $300–400M revenue |
| Medicaid trauma-efficiency bonuses tied to lower fatality-and-readmission rates | Saves $200–500M in care annually |
| Avoided long-term care & productivity losses | Even a 10% drop in fatal gunshots saves ≈ $425M in Medicaid |
| Private & philanthropic matches for kits and training | Taps corporate “community benefit” budgets. |
Bottom line: First-year federal outlay ≈ $2B; revenue + savings ≈ $2B. Budget neutral on day one, surplus by year 5.
5. Scorecard for Success
| Metric | Year 1 | Year 5 |
|---|---|---|
| Adults Stop the Bleed-certified | 5% | 50% |
| Median EMS-to-door time (gunshots) | 8 min | 6 min |
| Counties meeting 30-min Level I standard | 40% | 100% |
| Gunshot fatality rate | –5% | –25% |
6. Why This Matters Beyond Bullets
- Car wrecks, farm accidents, chainsaw slips - all get faster, cheaper, smarter care.
- Natural-disaster readiness skyrockets when millions of citizens carry trauma kits and know how to use them.
- Zero new prohibitions, zero culture-war ammo. We treat bleeding as a health problem, not a morals quiz.
If we can spend nearly a billion dollars building a single military hospital in Germany, we can spend a fraction of that making sure every person in Detroit, Dallas, or Des Moines survives the worst day of their life.
Bullets will keep flying no matter how many op-eds we write. But bleeding out in the street? That’s optional. Let’s opt out, and let's guarantee all Americans can get the care they need in the time they need it.