We know that there are several predisposing factors to gun violence: poverty, lack of education, lack of good parenting, lack of jobs, living in an environment where violence is seen every day, all the time. And children being born to children are likely to have all of these predisposing factors.

I've pretty much always used my positions as a bully pulpit. What that means is strongly advocating for the things I feel are really important. Gun violence, to me, is the highest-priority public-health issue, and I have to make sure Congress is aware of it, the American people are aware of it, the president is aware of it, and that we all begin together to develop policies to exterminate the disease - the epidemic, really - of gun violence.

Certainly we have to find some kind of warning to put on guns for sale. And that's not too far-fetched. But what I really want to do is take the guns out of the hands of irresponsible people.

Doctor, I have more education than most white people.

We can begin to address the issue of guns by teaching our young people how to deal with situations in nonviolent ways. Someone said to me the other day, "What our adolescents need is not so much health care, but healthy caring," and I agree. Parents and churches need to provide that. Curricula in our schools [need to] provide that.

It is often easier for our children to obtain a gun than it is to find a good school.

Guns kill more teenagers than the other big killers - heart disease, cancer, and AIDS - combined.