From the American Academy of Pediatrics: Federal Advocacy to Prevent Gun Violence

Federal Policies to Keep Children Safe

 

AAP's Recommendations to the White House Since the tragic shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. that took the lives of twenty students and six educators, the Academy has been engaged in a thoughtful, organization-wide response and call to action to assure the future safety and protection of our nation’s children.

Academy leadership and staff are working closely with partner organizations to raise the voice of the nation's pediatricians on Capitol Hill and among state legislatures to ensure that appropriate legislation is developed to promote children's safety.

Specifically, the Academy is advocating to Congress and the Adminisration the following priorities (for a comprehensive overview, read this summary ):

• Firearm safety: Enact stronger gun laws, including an effective assault weapons ban; mandatory background checks on all firearm purchases; and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines.
  
• Prevention and public health: Allow federal agencies to conduct research on the causes and prevention of gun violence, and stand by the President's clarification that the Affordable Care Act does not prohibit doctors from asking their patients about guns in the home. 
• Access to mental health services: Improve the identification of mental illnesses through increased screening, addressing inadequate insurance coverage and high out-of-pocket costs that create barriers to access, strengthening the overall quality of mental health access, and expanding the Medicaid reimbursement policy to include mental health and developmental services.
• Reducing gun violence in the media and educating children: Develop quality, violence-free programming and constructive dialogue among child health and education advocates, the Federal Communications Commission, and the television and motion picture industries, as well as toy, video game, and other software manufactures and designers, to reduce the romanticization of guns in the popular media as a means of resolving conflict.

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