Early in his career, Louis B. St. Petery Jr, MD, a pediatrician in Tallahassee, Florida, attended the funeral of a young patient from his practice who was shot and killed after the child’s sibling found a loaded gun in a bedside drawer.

“It should never happen,” said St. Petery, who is also executive vice president of the Florida chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). With that memory not far from mind, St. Petery, like many physicians across the country, routinely asks his patients’ parents whether they have guns in their home. If they do, he advises them to take safety measures like using gun locks, storing the gun separately from bullets, or keeping the gun in a locked cabinet.