Guns a 'public health crisis,' AMA says, asks Congress to end ban on research
For 20 years, legislation has prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence.
An AR-15 assault rifle, like the one above, was used in several mass murders including the shooting at Orlando's Pulse night club. (Wikipedia image)
In the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history, and with more than 6,000 deaths already in 2016 from gun violence, the American Medical Association has adopted policy calling gun violence in the United States "a public health crisis," requiring a comprehensive public health response and solution.
Additionally, at the annual meeting of its house of delegates, the AMA resolved to actively lobby Congress to overturn legislation that for 20 years has prohibited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from researching gun violence.
The AMA has longstanding policies that support increasing the safety of firearms and their use, and reducing and preventing firearm violence, with the group claiming "that uncontrolled ownership and use of firearms, especially handguns, is a serious threat to the public's health inasmuch as the weapons are one of the main causes of intentional and unintentional injuries and deaths."
[Also: Obama gun control action changes rule, mental health orgs to share data for background checks]
AMA policy supports legislation calling for a waiting period before purchasing any form of firearm in the United States and supports requiring background checks for all handgun purchasers.
The physician group's policy also supports stricter enforcement of present federal and state gun safety legislation, and the imposition of mandated penalties for crimes committed with the use of a firearm, including the illegal possession of a firearm. All of these policies were originally adopted in the late 1980s, when there was a national focus on handguns in part because access to relatively inexpensive handguns had led to an increase in rates of homicide, especially among young people. These policies have been repeatedly reaffirmed since then by the AMA House of Delegates.
What's more, the AMA voted at its annual meeting to expand its existing policy on gun safety to include support for waiting periods and background checks for all firearm purchasers. The previous policy supported them, but only for purchasers of handguns; the update parallels policies endorsed by other health organizations.
"With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence," said AMA President Steven Stack, MD, in a statement. "Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries. An epidemiological analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other health providers, law enforcement, and society at large may be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society resulting from firearms."
He added that the shooting in Orlando "is a horrific reminder of the public health crisis of gun violence rippling across the United States,"
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