Dr. Diane Strollo, a professor of radiology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, is all too familiar with the trauma caused by violent wounds.

In many cases, the victims of beatings and knife and gunshot wounds suffer the traumatic experience privately, Dr. Strollo said.

"We as society fail to see that trauma, and we often have no idea how rough the journey to physical and emotional recovery can be," she said.

She and her family experienced it firsthand last year when her daughter was shot three times during the April shootings that claimed the lives of 33 people at Virginia Tech University.

"I still remember that night," recalled Dr. Strollo, whose daughter is still recovering from her wounds. "When they wheeled my daughter in for her third surgery, there were three other gunshot patients in that night. I remember feeling such sorrow for them and their families because they were in a lot of pain, much like I was going through."

Dr. Strollo will join former White House press secretary Jim Brady, who was shot during an assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan in 1981, to talk about guns, gun violence and the right to bear arms at the National Symposium on Handgun Violence at Duquesne University today.

Other speakers include Tom Mauser, whose son, Daniel, was killed during the 1999 Columbine High School shooting; Marisa Randazzo, a former Secret Service agent; and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.

"I am a physician who sees the effects of gun violence often, but I am also a victim, and a mother of a victim," Dr. Strollo said. "I hope to talk about that experience, how a gun tore into my family."

Because of such stories, the role of guns in American society is an increasingly controversial topic, said Dr. Helen Sobehart, associate provost and academic vice president of Duquesne.

"This is an important time to have this discussion because gun violence is an issue that affects us all," Dr. Sobehart said.

"On one hand, we're sadly reminded of the danger of guns through tragedies like Columbine and Virginia Tech, and yet, gun ownership is a constitutional right in this country," she said.

Dr. David Hemenway, director of the Injury Control Research and Youth Violence Prevention centers at Harvard University's School of Public Health, believes gun accessibility leads to gun violence, and that makes gun accessibility a public health issue.

"It is simply a fact that where there are guns, there is more homicide, more completed suicides and accidental shootings," said Dr. Hemenway, author of "Private Guns, Public Health."

With more than 250 people shot every day in the United States through either suicide or homicide, Dr. Hemenway said, his presentation at the symposium "will be centered around the idea that guns are here to stay, but how can we approach gun violence from a preventative standpoint?"

But Alan Korwin, author of "Gun Laws of America: Every Federal Gun Law on the Books," contends that anti-gun activists often conflate the constitutional right to bear arms with the effects of gun violence.

"People just don't want to distinguish between crime control and gun control," said Mr. Korwin, who also operates the Web site gunlaws.com and will speak at the symposium.

The good uses of guns are often never talked about, he said, "because the media is always focused on the stories where people misuse guns. Guns serve a valuable purpose in society as well, and that story is often suppressed."

The symposium will give Pittsburgh Detective Jill Smallwood-Rustin a chance to highlight gun and crime statistics "that we as a society often don't want to acknowledge."

Detective Smallwood-Rustin, of the Firearms Tracking Unit, said that in Pittsburgh and cities across the country, more and more guns are being confiscated from teenagers. And much of the illegal possession of firearms arises from straw purchases, she said.

"Every year we recover about 1,000 guns," she said. "Many times, the guns we recover have never been reported missing because the owners didn't even notice the guns missing. Right now, that is one of our biggest problems."

The symposium, which is free and open to the public, will be from 3 to 5 p.m. in Duquesne's Power Center Ballroom.