Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Biden To Push For Action To Curb Gun Violence
President Joe Biden plans on Wednesday to call on Republicans in Congress to act to end the "epidemic" of gun violence in the United States, the White House said. The remarks are expected during an afternoon speech marking a year since the deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas. (Haslett, Travers and Shalvey, 5/24)
Days after the May 6 mass shooting in Allen, Texas, Republican Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado introduced legislation to repeal all 鈥済un control provisions and every Second Amendment Infringement鈥 passed from early 2021 to early 2023 and signed into law by President Joe Biden. 鈥淚 unapologetically support the Second Amendment," Boebert said in a statement, calling gun control measures "nonsense" and saying she will "stand for law-abiding Americans and the Constitution.鈥 The bill 鈥 the Shall Not be Infringed Act 鈥 would target provisions in several pieces of legislation, including the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which earned the support of 15 Republican senators. (Elbeshbishi, 5/24)
The highest percentage of Americans in a decade say they think it's more important to curb gun violence than protect gun rights, according to a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. The finding comes a year after the mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the second-deadliest in American history. Multiple other mass shootings that have taken place in the time since that one. (Montanaro, 5/24)
Hollywood should portray safer use of guns in television and film at a time of rampant gun violence in the United States, USC Annenberg鈥檚 Norman Lear Center for Hollywood, Health and Society said in a report released on Tuesday. (Washington, 5/23)
More on the gun violence epidemic 鈥
Nora Senske and her classmates sat in a locked basement classroom at Lamar High School for several hours on a recent Monday as police investigated a shooting threat posted on social media. The 17-year-old was mostly confused and hungry during the聽lunchtime lockdown, she said, but eventually started texting her mother: 鈥淢om, Mom, Mom.鈥 (Bauman, 5/23)
The anniversary of the Uvalde mass shooting was not far from the minds of many of the people on a Zoom call several weeks ago that drew health care providers and others interested in lifting Latino voices in discussions about gun violence prevention. It was the Wednesday before Mother鈥檚 Day, and Brian Eichner, a pediatrician in Durham, was presenting sobering data and charts. Only four days earlier, a heavily armed gunman had killed eight people at a shopping mall in Allen, Texas, before a police officer shot him to death. (Blythe, 5/24)聽
Irvin Walker II, 46, doesn鈥檛 recall seeing the shooter approach his car as he looked for a space in the crowded outlet mall in the Dallas suburb of Allen. The next thing he remembers, though, were blasts from a gun. Shards of glass and a hail of bullets rained through his car window. The bullets hit him in the shoulder and chest, sending so many fragments into his body, face, neck, arm and one dangerously close to his heart that doctors say they can鈥檛 safely remove all of them. Still, he is alive. (Nevins, 5/23)