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AMA strengthens gun control policies on waiting periods, background checks

The AMA voted in favor of bolstering firearm safety policies to include background checks and waiting periods for all gun purchasers, according to a press release issued by the organization.

Previously, the AMA had only supported background checks and waiting periods for handgun purchasers.

"The shooting in Orlando is a horrific reminder of the public health crisis of gun violence rippling across the United States," Steven J. Stack, MD, AMA past president, said in the release. "Mass killers have used AR-15s, rifles and handguns, and today we strengthened our policy on background checks and waiting periods to cover them all with the goal of keeping lethal weapons out of the hands of dangerous people."

The AMA has "numerous, long-standing policies that support increasing the safety of firearms and their use, and reducing and preventing firearm violence," according to the press release, including support for education programs, stricter enforcement of current gun control legislation, stricter application of present federal and state gun control legislation, and enforcement of mandated penalties for crimes involving firearms.

Earlier this week, the AMA, along with other medical organizations, resolved to lobby Congress to lift a 20-year ban on the CDC researching gun violence.

"With approximately 30,000 men, women and children dying each year at the barrel of a gun in elementary schools, movie theaters, workplaces, houses of worship and on live television, the United States faces a public health crisis of gun violence," Stack said in a release. "Even as America faces a crisis unrivaled in any other developed country, the Congress prohibits the CDC from conducting the very research that would help us understand the problems associated with gun violence and determine how to reduce the high rate of firearm-related deaths and injuries. An epidemiological analysis of gun violence is vital so physicians and other health providers, law enforcement, and society at large may be able to prevent injury, death and other harms to society resulting from firearms." – by Chelsea Frajerman Pardes