A Vivid Portrayal of Gun Violence : Education: On anniversary of the King assassination, medical students hold ‘Die-In/Heal-In’ to dramatize rampant deaths from firearms in U.S.

Shots rang out in Willowbrook on Tuesday, and six medical students slumped to the ground amid blood-red splotches to raise awareness of what they called a growing nationwide public health hazard: gun-related violence.

The gunfire was only from caps. But organizers of the “Die-In/Heal-In” at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science said they underscored the serious message about the proliferation of guns, delivered on the 27th anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.

Dr. Robert Wesley, co-president of the Los Angeles chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, a nationwide anti-war and anti-violence organization, used the civil rights leader’s own words: “How much longer must we play at deadly games before we heed the plaintive cries of the unnumbered dead and maimed?”

Not much longer, George Modica hoped.

“We need to send a message to youth that violence is not the way to go,” said the community activist who was paralyzed from the chest down by a gunshot to the back in 1990 and uses a wheelchair.

Modica had wheeled in front of onlookers to watch as second-year medical student Scott Weissman fired a cap gun and, one by one, six of his colleagues collapsed onto life-size outlines of bodies splattered with blood-red paint. The mock shooting was part of an effort to dramatize the toll that about 37,000 gun-linked murders take on U.S. society each year.

The event--one of about 25 similar actions across the country Tuesday--was sponsored by the physicians group, the medical school and the Black Community Crusade for Children/Children’s Defense Fund.

Speakers urged audience members to become active in the political process and fight for more stringent gun control laws. Opponents of such measures say they do little to get illegal weapons off the streets.

Wesley said student chapters of Physicians for Social Responsibility will seek to raise awareness of the issue.