Title
A RULE AND REGULATION relating to disclosure of information on health risks related to firearms; adding a new chapter to Title 23 to the BOH Code and prescribing penalties; enacted pursuant to RCW 70.05.060, including the latest amendments or revisions thereto.
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BE IT ADOPTED BY THE KING COUNTY BOARD OF HEALTH:
SECTION 1. Findings:
A. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Wide-ranging Online Data for Epidemiologic Research, also known as WONDER, in the United States, thirty-six thousand two hundred forty-seven people died in 2015 as a result of firearms. That is just fewer than the thirty-eight thousand eight hundred eighteen deaths resulting from motor vehicle incidents. Of these firearm deaths, sixty-one percent were suicides and thirty-six percent were homicides.
B. The Washington state Department of Health data show that in 2015, firearms were the third leading cause of injury-related death in Washington state, killing approximately seven hundred fourteen Washington residents. Of those firearm deaths, seventy-five percent were suicides and firearm suicides accounted for forty-seven percent of all suicides in Washington state in 2015. In King County, firearms caused the death of one hundred forty-six King County residents. King County residents comprised twenty percent of the firearm deaths statewide.
C. According to the 2015 Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs Annual Report, sixty-two percent of homicides in Washington State were committed with firearms.
D. The Washington state Department of Health data show that in 2015, in King County, six youth, age seventeen and younger, died as a result of firearms and nine other youth were hospitalized. Statewide, thirty-nine youth died as a result of firearms in 2015 and an additional thirty youth were hospitalized. That is the equivalent of a youth being killed by gunfire every nine days. King County youth represent fifteen of all youth killed an...
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