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Saturday, December 12, 2015

Doctors and Guns

I get the daily Ammoland Shooting Sports News, and an article on whether we're seeing a fundamental turning point in the war against guns led me to an unexpected and interesting group: Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership.  The Ammoland article was talking about how flat the president's last speech went, and contained the quote:
At the same time, notice how flat the response to his speech has been from all sides. No one outside his administration is strongly defending his approach to ISIS. His partisans seem happier to jump on the ‘blame guns’ bandwagon again than to critique the absence of leadership that is so glaring to non-partisans.
Which led to the quote that really caught my eye:
Normally one just stays calm and holds on—to one’s gun, to one’s honor, to one’s temper. But this is beyond comprehension, even for a psychiatrist.
Yes, the article was by Robert B. Young, MD, a psychiatrist practicing in Pittsford, NY.  Dr. Young is an associate clinical professor at the University of Rochester School of Medicine, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.

Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership?  I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.  While I currently don't hang around socially with any medical doctors,  they are pretty rational people, inclined to strict empirical science.  We hear about the bad ones, the ones who have issued politicized studies, like the infamous "a gun in the family is 43 times more likely to kill a family member than a criminal" that has been debunked many times.  (The doctors who committed this fraud were Arthur L. Kellerman, and D.T. Reay, in the New England Journal of Medicine, June 12, 1986.) and we hear about our anti-gun surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy who is always trying to get guns declared a health issue (so he can get rid of them).  It's about time we hear about the rational doctors.

Their website contains a paper on "What to Do When Your Doctor Asks About Guns" that might be helpful.

  • Doctors receive absolutely no training about firearm safety, mechanics, or tactics in medical school or residency. They are completely unqualified by their training to advise anyone about guns.
  • Gun ownership is a civil right. A doctor’s abuse of his position of trust to pressure you to give up that civil right is professionally and morally wrong. In some states it is illegal. You DO NOT have to tolerate it.
  • You as a consumer have great power in the doctor-patient relationship. Do not be afraid to use it.
  • It's worth looking around over there. 


    7 comments:

    1. Those same doctors who will mess you over about your gun ownership rights have zero problem with people who drugshop for opioid painkillers. I believe that their mantra is "ask, and you shall receive" a scrip for same........I also believe that the whole medical marijuana push may be to provide grounds for refusal of second amendment rights to those "patients".......

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    2. "While I currently don't hang around socially with any medical doctors, they are pretty rational people, inclined to strict empirical science."

      Newsflash.....doctors are just as closeminded, egocentric and driven by personal beliefs and agendas as any other 'educated' group such as teachers and college professors. They 'know what they know' and even
      when shown they are wrong by empirical evidence will often dismiss that evidence out of hand. I've spent near 40 years working side by side with physicians. Some are brilliant, most are smarter than average but no more superior in terms of rationality than any other person....and a frighteningly large portion of them are dangerous. Professional test takers who managed to game the system, get an MD and shirk their way through a residencey.

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    3. I did some clinicals with a pediatrician during nursing school. At one point, after he questioned me about what I did before becoming an RN (law enforcement), he started talking about how many children were killed by guns. I informed him that the statistics were manipulated by including "kids" up to 21 years old, and that most of these "kids" were gang-bangers killing each other over territory, etc. He countered by saying, "They're still kids." I asked him if he would still feel that way after they hooked his grandchildren on drugs. He changed the subject. He was a good pediatrician and a nice guy, but couldn't get past the liberal lies about guns.

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      Replies
      1. Crime stats call people "children" up to the age of 25.

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    4. When I was in medical school, we were being taught that health providers were there to ensure the health and well being of the patient, and that included teaching them to be safe in the home. Things like keeping medicines away from children, fall prevention, stuff like that. Then they showed us a bunch of stats and studies demonstrating how dangerous it was to own a gun. They said that it was our moral obligation as health care providers to educate and demonstrate to our patients that they should not have guns in the home.

      I raised my hand, and pointed out that more people die from AIDS than are murdered by firearms. Then I said that men who have sex with men are the largest risk group, accounting for 78% of HIV infections, even though they were only 4% of the population. It logically follows then, that we as health providers should encourage our patients not to be homosexual.


      The professor became enraged, and told me that I was not cut out to be a health care provider. They eventually ran me out of there. This wasn't the first time we had had a disagreement.
      http://street-pharmacy.blogspot.com/2012/03/more-education.html

      This is the state of college education. They are more political indoctrination than they are education.

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      Replies
      1. Yeah, two of my instructors tried to run me out, one even lying about my course work not having been completed. (I had copies of all of my work for her - initialed by her when completed - so she was unsuccessful). She was a psych instructor, on some serious psych meds herself. "Those that can, do. Those that can't teach."

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    5. Has it ever happened that when the doc asks "Do you have guns in the house?" the response is "No. I keep it with me."

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