
Physicians urged to join discussion on gun policies
With the nation grasping for ways to cope with the December massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, physicians are taking note and urging their colleagues to make their voices heard in the debates on gun control-even in the face on new legislation that aims to silence them.
With the nation grasping for ways to cope with the December massacre at a Connecticut elementary school, physicians are taking note and urging their colleagues to make their voices heard in the debates on gun control-even in the face on new legislation that aims to silence them.
Doctors have a powerful voice in shaping policies around public health issues and should use that voice to influence discussions on domestic gun policies in the wake of the last school shooting, says Christine Laine, MD, MPH, writing in the
“We are long overdue in directing our expertise, commitment, and passion to mitigating gun violence,” says the practicing physician and editor-in-chief of the Annals journal. “Just as physicians worked to safeguard public health by promoting smoking bans in public places, we should draw on like motivations and similar strategies to promote sensible, evidence-based laws to decrease the harms associated with gun violence.”
The U.S. had the highest rate of homicides and suicides involving firearms out of any other high-income country in the world, according to Laine. With the difficulty surrounding the diagnosis and identification of individuals who can carry out violent acts such as school shootings, she urges doctors to make their mark on this issue by working to end gun violence.
Leading medical organizations have long identified gun violence as an important public health issue worthy of physician intervention. The
“We have had experts decline opportunities to write about guns even after mass shootings because they fear funding for their research programs unrelated to guns might dry up if they advocated for stricter gun control,” Laine says. “In the wake of the horrific deaths of 20 children, physicians should resolve as we begin 2013 to raise our voices on the matter of guns.”
Some states already are working to stifle doctor voices when it comes to the debate on gun control, however.
More than 128,000 children in Florida alone live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm, according to a
Despite the Florida statistics, in early 2011, that state's legislature introduced a bill that would result in disciplinary action for any physician who, in a patient's view, "harasses" a patient by posing questions to him or her about gun ownership.
“If the bill became law, it would restrict physician practice in an unprecedented fashion and put pediatricians in conflict with evidence-based, national recommended prevention standards set to save children’s lives,” the Archives report states.
The bill did become law, and appeals have been filed, but for now, enforcement of the Physician Gag Law is blocked. Its passage signals new threats to practicing doctors, however, and the Archivesreport notes that similar legislation already has been proposed in Alabama, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Tennessee.
Not all physicians are planning to let such legislation, if enacted, quiet their efforts, however. Two new commentaries in leading medical journals chastise the increase in gun violence and urge a return to research on firearm-related injuries and deaths.
In a
“Given the large and increasing number of deadly mass shootings and the enormous number of military-style assault weapons available, it stands to reason that we must find ways of reversing the trend, and as physicians, this task should be part of our professional responsibility,” he writes. “We can advocate for restoring the ability of the
Kassirer, a former ACP governor and regent, past chairman of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, also advocates for greater action at top levels of government to regulate private gun ownership, as well as for adding more safeguards to weapons such as trigger locks that require a code to operate the weapon.
Another
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