Are you wondering what you can do to help promote a common sense, public health approach to the gun violence crisis in the United States? We need psychiatrists and other mental health professionals working at all levels on this critical issue. Whether you’re more comfortable addressing gun safety with your patients and clients, or writing about gun violence, or taking direct action to influence legislation and policies, we need all hands on deck! Here are some ideas (the RESOURCES section of this website has a lot of what you need to be successful with these activities):

INDIVIDUAL MENTAL HEALTHCARE

  • ASK your patients and clients about access to guns and educate them about ways to reduce the dangers of gun ownership

  • For patients at risk of gun-related suicide, practice evidence-based lethal means restriction

    • Here is a great training video from the What You Can Do Initiative at the University of California-Davis.

  • For patients at risk of inter-personal gun violence, learn about community violence interruption programs in your area

PUBLIC AND PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

  • Educate the public by writing letters to the editor, op-eds, and blogs about gun violence prevention topics in local media sources

  • Give interviews and soundbites about gun violence prevention to local media sources

  • Present about gun violence prevention in case conferences and grand rounds at local academic medical institutions

  • Develop and teach a class (or course!) about gun violence prevention for residents and medical students

  • Present about gun violence at professional meetings and conferences

ADVOCACY

  • Join with physician/healthcare organizations already working on gun violence prevention

  • Link up with gun violence prevention advocacy organizations, and offer to provide a mental health professional/physician perspective to their work

  • Push medical professional organization to be consistent in their support of gun violence prevention. Unfortunately, many organizations (including the American Psychiatric Association) still have conflicts between what they say they support around gun violence prevention and the politicians they choose to support financially. Here is a recent study in JAMA Network Open by Schuur et al. about this important problem. And an even more recent study in the American Journal of Public Health, by Neufeld et al., shows that the problem isn’t improving. Former APA President, Dr. Steve Sharfstein, co-authored a piece in the New England Journal of Medicine describing how the American Medical Association’s financial support for politicians often conflicts with its policy positions. Dr. Liza Gold, a champion for this issue and a P4GVP “Member of the Moment,” published a piece in Psychiatric Times describing how medical organizations including the APA have actually given more money to politicians supported by the gun lobby than the gun lobby itself has.

  • Lobby your local elected officials to support better gun violence prevention policies. Lobbying can occur through phone calls, letter/email writing, and/or in-person visits. If you are a constituent and/or see patients who are constituents, lawmakers will be very happy to meet you you!

  • Participate in direct actions to raise awareness about the gun violence crisis. Direct actions can include large marches, small protests, and/or social media campaigns!

P4GVP is proud to have supported Assembly Bill 521 in California signed into law by Governor Newsom on October 11, 2019 which tasks the University of California Firearm Violence Research Center with developing and implementing multifaceted education and training programs for health care providers on preventing firearm-related death and injury. Click here to see our letter.