The Mississippi Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with Mississippi College of Surgeons Committee on Trauma, has released a letter outlining the dangers that guns can pose to children in the state. Physicians say children are at a growing risk for injury, including accidental, self-inflicted, and intentional assault. Dr. Anita Henderson is a pediatrician at the Hattiesburg Clinic and is President of MSAAP. She says guns need to be stored unloaded and locked in a secure place.
“Children know the combinations to some of these gun safes, they know where the keys are for the locks, they know where the guns are,” says Dr. Henderson. “And so parents really need to be vigilant about making sure those guns are stored safely.”
Dr. Henderson says the message isn’t to prevent kids from enjoying activities such as hunting, but it should be done with proper supervision and include lessons on gun safety. And parents should also have conversations about mental health with their children as rates of depression have risen in recent years.
Dr. Henderson and the group of physicians endorse several policy changes that could keep firearms from the reach of children or unstable actors.
“So we really are encouraging background checks to prevent people from obtaining firearms, people who really don’t need to have them,” says Dr. Henderson. “And so that is something that Mississippians could do, lawmakers could do to make sure that people who don’t need guns don’t have guns.”
Physicians report since 2017, annual firearm-related injuries in Mississippi have risen more than 40%.
