New recommendations urge doctors to talk to patients about guns

Doctors should help address gun violence by speaking to their patients about guns in the home and counseling them about gun safety, according to new recommendations from the American College of Physicians.

The recommendations, released in an October 29, 2018 position paper, expand the organization’s policy positions on gun violence prevention by calling for laws regulating firearm purchases and laws promoting safe firearm storage in the home to protect children. The organization also favors banning semiautomatic weapons and high capacity magazines for civilian use.

David Hemenway, professor of health policy and director of the Harvard Injury Control Research Center at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, who was not involved in the position paper, told CNN, “The evidence is overwhelming that firearm violence in the United States—firearms killing people, scaring people, injuring people—is an enormous public health problem,” he said.

Read the CNN article: Doctors release new recommendations to reduce gun violence

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