Session on Firearm Violence to Stress Nonpartisanship

In 2018, the National Rifle Association posted a tweet that began with “Someone should tell self-important anti-gun doctors to stay in their lane.” Many in the medical community considered that to be a gauntlet thrown, and since then health professionals have demonstrated the myriad ways they have seen firearm violence harm and kill their patients. At APA’s 2023 Annual Meeting, a session titled “I Am in My Lane: A Public Health Approach to the Role of Health Care Providers in Firearm Violence” will offer strategies on how health professionals can convey the message that preventing firearm violence is a matter of public health, not politics or partisanship.

“Firearm violence is a polarizing topic, where any discussion of it is often equated with gun control,” session chair Aradhana Bela Sood, M.D., M.S.H.A., told Psychiatric News. She is a senior professor for child and mental health policy at Children’s Hospital of Richmond at Virginia Commonwealth University. “As medical providers who deal with the aftermath of firearm-related morbidity and mortality, we would be well served to shift rhetoric that appears to infringe on individual rights to a focus on gun safety and preventive practices.”

The session will cover the epidemiology of firearm violence and provide a historical perspective of the polarization surrounding the causality of firearm violence that will better enable attendees to frame the issue in terms of public health.

Attendees will come away from the session with an understanding of regional firearm laws, including Extreme Risk Protection Orders (“red flag” laws) that allow family members or law enforcement to petition a judge to remove a firearm from the environment of a person considered to be at risk of harming themselves or others. The session will explore the challenges and barriers to implementing these laws and delve into how these laws have reduced morbidity and mortality from firearm violence, thus equipping attendees to be more effective as advocates for public health strategies to address the issue.

Finally, attendees will learn how to get involved at the hospital, city, and state levels to advocate for policies and legislation that support safe firearm practices. ■