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On Friday, a 6-year-old boy in Virginia brought a legally purchased gun from his home and intentionally shot a teacher, sending her to the hospital. Since relatively little information has been released to the public, there are quite a few unknowns. Hearing the news about yet another school shooting, one's first reaction might be to question, "What kind of a household is this child being raised in? How did he get the gun?"
As a psychologist who researches traumatic stress and works clinically with survivors, I've found that one of our best bets to prevent shootings from happening in the future is safe storage practices. It may not come as a surprise, but it's important to note that these tragedies simply can't happen without access to a weapon.
But how can we ensure that people will take the necessary care with their firearms without making them feel as if their right to bear arms is being infringed?
There's an intervention, called Safety Check, that can easily be delivered in a pediatrician or family physician's office. It essentially involves asking parents about the presence of firearms in their homes, and importantly, provides parents gunlocks to promote more secure storage. And it works. In a study conducted in 137 pediatric primary care practices, families who participated in this firearm safety discussion were more likely to engage in safe storage practices than families who did not receive the counseling.
Despite recommendations from major health care organizations, like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Institute of Medicine,doctors rarely ask about the presence of guns or storage practices during visits. One reason appalling reason they don't is that there are state laws that intrude upon the patient-doctor relationship by stating that physicians should not ask about firearms or enter this information into medical records. For example, in 2011, Florida banned health care providers from routinely asking their patients about firearms, unless they believed in good faith the information was relevant to the patient's medical care or safety. This law was overturned in 2017 by a federal appeals court. But since 2011, 12 other states have introduced similar laws. That leaves many doctors uncertain of how to proceed. They don't need to be. Right now doctors can ask about guns.
There are other issues, of course, that prevent doctors from asking about sensitive topics, such as firearm ownership. Doctors often have a lot of things to check on with their patients and a limited time amount of time to do so. But more often, doctors have reported feeling uncomfortable in talking about such matters. They fear offending parents.
Indeed, some parents experience physicians asking about gun storage practices as interrogation or lecturing. Others are concerned that documentation of firearm ownership in their medical records has the potential to become a registry. For sure, it's important to listen to the firearm owners' perspectives. But if parents knew this easy safety check could save a child's life, they'd likely be more receptive, and even have suggestions for how to partner on this issue. It's time for Americans to come together around firearm safety promotion in a non-partisan and non-divisive way.
Even if some state legislators introduce barriers to doctors asking about presence of firearms in the home and giving out gunlocks, and even if some physicians perceive too many barriers to ask, we can spread the word about firearm safety promotion. If parents want to attempt to reduce death by intentional or accidental shootings, suicide, and other injuries in youth, curbing their access to firearms in the home is critical. It would be in our nation's best interests if parents embrace this promising, underutilized, violence prevention strategy and spread the word. Using a gun safe, a gun lock and separating bullets from the gun may save lives.
Joan M. Cook, Ph.D., is a psychologist and professor at Yale University who researches traumatic stress and clinically treats combat veterans, interpersonal violence survivors and people who escaped the former World Trade Center towers on 9/11.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own.
