Steven J. Goldstein, MD, FAAP
(Dr. Steven Goldstein, MD, FAAP is a general pediatrician with offices in Brooklyn and Queens. He is NYS AAP Chapter 2 President and Chair of the Pediatric Council.)
March For Our Lives Long Island
March 24, 2018
Huntington Town Hall
It is cold out here today, but I feel warm looking at all of you here to work on this problem! Thank you for the honor of speaking to you today. I applaud your courage and your commitment as young people to make this time different and help to end the epidemic of gun violence that includes 18 school shootings since January 1.
I represent the 1400 member Pediatricians of Chapter 2 of the New York State American Academy of Pediatrics. As pediatricians, we care for you when you are ill and work to keep you well. People generally bring children and teens to see the pediatrician when they’re already sick, but doctors are also charged with fostering safety, good health, and freedom from violence. We don’t only care for you, we also care about you. We care about your safety, your anxiety, your families, and your future.
The American Academy of Pediatrics has a long history of supporting measures to reduce gun violence and increase safety for young people. As long as children continue to be injured and killed by guns in this country, pediatricians will not rest in our pursuit to keep them safe.
We believe that everyone deserves to feel and be safe where they live, learn, and play. Our lives should not be shaped by fears of gun violence. No one should be afraid to attend school, or to go to a movie, or to a concert.
We applaud your gathering here today to urge our elected officials to act on this issue and pass comprehensive gun safety laws that ban semiautomatic assault weapons, address firearms trafficking, require stronger background checks, and encourage safe firearm storage. We strongly oppose arming teachers. Where guns are present, there are more, not fewer, deaths.
Some of you here today may have heard of the Dickey Amendment, an addition to a bill passed in the1990’s that, as interpreted, prevented the Centers for Disease Control from using data from its studies on gun violence to advocate for gun reform laws. This amendment had a chilling and widespread effect, reducing the role of science in informing the country about what can be done to protect against gun violence. Just as we learned from scientific studies about highway deaths and smoking and saved thousands of lives, we can bring science back into this conversation about guns, and learn what works to reduce gun violence, suffering, and death. I am pleased to tell you that on March 22 we heard that the new Omnibus budget bill clarifies in one sentence that research on factors that contribute to gun violence can be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control. You are all to be congratulated because advocacy by young people like you and pressure from parents and organizations like the Academy of Pediatrics helped make this happen. This is a first step.
We need multiple levels of government to fund gun-related public health research to help us learn not only how to prevent the next school shooting, but also the best ways to protect toddlers from accidentally firing a gun and the most effective methods to prevent firearm-related suicides. I am pleased to tell you that the American Academy of Pediatrics is launching a bold new research initiative to protect children from firearm injuries. Approaching these injuries as a public health epidemic, the AAP Gun Safety and Injury Prevention Research Initiative will bring together experts from around the country to study and implement evidence-based interventions. While this will be privately funded by the Academy with an initial investment of $500,000 from the Friends of Children and Tomorrow’s Children Endowment Fund, more government support at all levels is sorely needed to address this problem.
It is time to hold our elected leaders accountable for their inaction on gun violence issues. I urge you to stay connected with us and with other likeminded organizations, learn more about this issue, and most important, to register to VOTE. Go to vote.org to learn about how to do so. Find out which candidates support our shared agenda for preventing gun violence, and if they don’t, Vote Them Out.
Please remember that as long as children continue to be injured and killed by guns in this country, pediatricians like me will not rest in our pursuit to keep you safe. Thank you all again for all you do and will do to make life better for everyone. Perhaps your generation will accomplish what my generation could not.