As fathers ourselves, and pediatricians, we join the rest of the country in mourning the tragic and preventable deaths of the children in Connecticut last week, and our love and sympathy goes out to all the families of the children, the school, and the communities they lived in. Although Boston is one of the safest cities in the country, The Boston Globe’s series on the Bowdoin-Geneva neighborhood in Boston reminds us of the quiet toll of gun violence.

According to the Washington Post, these tragic events may lead to a serious political discussion of legislative and regulatory approaches to protecting our children from firearms death. If history is any guide, we can expect the rhetoric to heat up considerably on both sides of the issue. A recent policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics lays out some of the things that we know about guns and children in the United States. Here is the statement: