A federal court has permanently enjoined the law in Florida which attempted to prevent doctors from asking about gun in the home, on First Amendment grounds. This was entirely predictable, and I hope we can stop pushing this misguided law and focus our energies on more important things.
23 thoughts on “NRA Loses “Docs” vs. “Glocks” Case”
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My doctor’s offices uses the form that asks about gun ownership and a bunch of other crap that is not relevant to my treatment. I just don’t answer those questions or I lie about them.
This was a non-issue to begin with. If you don’t like the questions your doctor asks either don’t answer them or find another doctor. Problem solved.
they can ask all they want to..won’t get an answer from me (not that I live in FL)..but still.
We won the “war” because these kind of questions have become a hot potato in the medical community. Our opposition, silly in the case of this law granted, caused many physicians to push back on the politicalization of their practices.
When we force the anti-gunners to fight on terms of our choosing, we win. When we remain entirely reactive and fight only to limit the effectiveness of their laws, the ratchet gets just a bit tighter.
If the NRA had taken a pass, then gun rights activists would have accused them of selling out. Key point is what Sean D Sorrentino says above. As long as you have the initiative, you can’t lose. You might not win all the time but then you can just walk away. If you are on defense, any loss is a disaster.
That would be true if there was a real problem, which there wasn’t. It was a phony non-issue Marion Hammer made up.
Politics is downstream of culture. Whole point of the docs (centered among pediatricians)effort was to scare people (mainly women) away from guns. And Marion Hammer was probably THE key person in taking CCW mainstream.
Yep, totally made up. Same as the entire SRBM/cruise missiles in Germany was during the Cold War.
See also, Fall of Soviet Empire.
Winning involves bankrupting them.
I challenge you to provide some evidence that the general gun owning public was concerned about this issue before Hammer started making noise.
I’m a Pa gun owner and I saw these very question on an intake form years ago.
Do you own guns
How many
How do you store them
Do you have children in the home or visiting the home
I didn’t answer then and I won’t answer now.
Some doctors have been doing this for years. I remember way back when Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership was formed. The issue itself has never gotten much attention anywhere (and neither has DRGO) because the solution is to either ignore the questions like you did or find another doctor. That is why I said it’s a non-issue. What I want Sean to do is provide some evidence that shows that it has become a high priority item for FL gun owners.
I don’t have to provide any such thing, though it appears that David has given you a for-instance.
The point is to force the anti-gunners onto the defense and force them to spend time, money, and volunteers to defeat OUR proposals.
I counter-challenge you to provide any evidence that basing short range ballistic missiles and cruise missiles in Germany during the 80’s had anything at all to do with our national defense.
I’ll give you a hint. Reagan pushed nukes for Germany, along with the 600 ship fleet, because he was trying to bankrupt the Soviets. It worked. And it will work again.
More like you can’t provide any evidence so you’re trying to change the subject. If you think what NRA did was worthwhile all you have to do is say so. There is no need to be grasping at straws trying to justify your position.
If you’re not sophisticated enough to grasp the point I’m making, that’s on you, not me.
I understand exactly what you’re saying as well as your debating tactics.
Agreed. You don’t like your doctor? See another doctor. It is a free speech issue. I am glad they lost.
Whether this was an example or not, there are examples in the gun rights community of organizations that create issues just for their fund-raising value, or to maintain an illusion of doing something. In the worst cases these can involve poorly crafted court cases that can potentially establish bad precedents, but are used for fund raising artifices — “For only $XXX you can be a plaintiff in this history-making case. . .” In better cases they can still be examples of going to the well for trivial reasons, so the well is drier when something important comes along. E.g., it is hard to get people to contact their legislators, ever, so getting them to do it month after month is nearly impossible.
The wife’s doctor pulled this crap on her last checkup. My lovely bride had her backpedaling pretty quickly.
With luck she either quit that crap, or went to double-check her Joyce funded “Facts”.
An acquaintance of mine was told either give up your guns or loss your benefits. Rather than fight the system & loss his VA bennies he signed and afraid they would have your precious “patriot” act warrantless searches, sold & got rid of his formally favorite hobby of shootin’ holes in paper at long distances. & THAT boys & girls is just where its going to lead to with your national health care.
You want to get well? You love your kid? Get in line. My government loves me & is only interested in MY best interest!
One might ask; is jeremiah wright right?
I was concerned about it before Marion Hammer started on it. Or at least before I heard about her being on the issue. Given her track record, I pay a lot of attention to what she says.
This didn’t “keep the anti’s on the defensive.” For that to be true the anti’s would have had to have been making a public push for these questions to be made -mandatory- by the government for doctors to ask -prior- to NRA bringing it up publically.
They weren’t doing that, it was strictly a low-key stupid inter-doctor thing that should have been addressed in a low-key way by NRA sending out information to members on the right way to respond and sending doctors information packets as to why asking isn’t kosher.
But Hammer made it a public media and political issue, one that put NRA on the side of the kind people who ask the government to protect us from other individuals (not government officials).
There’s no “win” here to spin, just a very public loss by the NRA that makes us look like whining hypocrits asking for government to suppress free speech, make us look paranoid to the otherwise undecided who ask, quite correctly, what the big deal is, and that undercuts our successful momentum and appearance of invincibility on pushing back on -real- issues where the anti’s were actively trying to use the government against us.
NRA picked a public fight it didn’t need to, expended political and financial capital and credibility, and lost. Now the anti’s have a “win” among a string of losses and can point to it as an example of the “gun lobby” not really being that powerful and being “out of touch” with rational people.
I always lie and say “what guns?” if anyby asks about my guns. I also claim to be black whenever I’m asked about my race by loan officers, employment applications, and even the census lady right to her face, etc. Nobody has ever called me on it yet. I do everything I can to screw up data collection when it involves a horseshit PC agenda.