Health Care and Guns

The medical profession seems to be butting their noses once again where it does not belong. Ed Friedman of Guns and Hunting takes them to task for it. I don’t really have a problem with doctors offering some general advise to parents about dangerous objects in the house, and including guns, but I do have a problem with prying, and speaking on subjects for which they have no real expertise. I applaud JAAPA for suggesting doctors become familiar with the issue, but I think no more advise is needed short of “If  you have guns in the house, make sure you keep them stored in a manner the children don’t have access to it.” along with things like “Make sure Drano and other household chemicals are stored away from kids.” (poisons kill approximately 3x as many children under 5 as gun accidents) and “Make sure you don’t leave buckets of water laying around.” Buckets of water kill more kids under the age of 5 than gun accidents do. Not as lethal as bathtubs and pools, but buckets of water are far more dangerous to young kids than guns. If a physician wouldn’t give the advice to parents not to remove buckets from the house, they shouldn’t give that advice for guns either. Even for older children, drowning has approximately four times as high an occurrence. Would they advise patients to fill in their pools?

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4 thoughts on “Health Care and Guns”

  1. They move dangerously close to committing “boundary violations” when they pull this stuff. Use that term with them… “I’m sorry doctor, but isn’t your questioning a boundary violation” and they will pull back faster than a ….. (insert your own example here).

    Thanks for the news. Interesting that it never stops. But then none of us are surprised. Right?

  2. “Commenting is closed” with no comments on the editorial.

    Wouldn’t want to get into those annoying statistics and such…

  3. Considering the legal minefield involving gun ownership, any prying advice provided by a “health care professional” should be prosecuted, for the crime of practicing law without a license. Can you imagine such a conversation taking place in a city like Chicago?

    I can’t imagine any unsolicited question which might arouse anger more quickly in a patient, except for unprovoked prying into a patients sex life.

Comments are closed.