Doctors worried by Supreme Court gun ruling

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oystermick

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Last month's Supreme Court ruling striking down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital will lead to more deaths and accidental injuries, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine said on Wednesday.

The article demonstrates that the assault on the Second Amendment will indeed continue, using scare tactics, contorted facts and statistics.

http://www.reuters.com/article/dome...Type=RSS&feedName=domesticNews&rpc=22&sp=true
 
You can't argue with part of that...their concerns about accidental injury is valid. If 1/1000 gun owners has an accident it stands to reason that if their are twice as many gun owners, there will be twice as many accidental injuries. We all see people do some stupid things with firearms, so when more stupid people have them you will see more stupid things done with them.

I have never seen any evidence that higher gun ownership leads to more criminal shootings though. Maybe more criminals being shot is the concern. :)
 
Well, since Florida passed shall issue concealed carry in 1987, about 36 other states have followed suit and the crime rates have decreased. Certainly haven't noticed doctors complaining about more gun shot wounds in CCW states.

Remember that the anti's classify lawful SD shootings as homicides, and then try to use stats against CCW when they actually justify armed citizens.

They also consider any gang member under the age of 21 a child and at one time the age was 24. Remove gang on gang crime, and inner city violence, and the rest of America isn't that far off stats from other nations that allow firearms.

It's too bad that these anti-gun doctors don't stick a little closer to home and work on reducing the 250,000 annual deaths caused by mistakes, incompetence, and malpractice on the part of their own colleges and the medical profession in general. Think of the lives they could save.

The CDC, or a branch of it, has been trying to have guns declared a health care issue so they can regulate them for some time now. There was Dr. Kellerman, then Josh Sugarman, and don't know who's in charge now.

It was the CDC that said a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to be used against a member of your own family than an intruder. When asked by the new republican Congress in '95, or so, they refused to divulge the sources of their information gathered at tax payers' expense. The Congress pulled their funds. They changed that to 7 to 1 times more likely at one time, but don't know what it is now.

I have not the slightest doubt that they've done their studies by cherry picking inner city neighborhoods where there's a high incidence of alcholism, domestic violence, drug abuse, and other criminal activity. If their studies had been legitimate, they'd have waved them in our faces and named their sources.

If you want the truth and references you can check up on to varify or debunk, then read John Lott, Snyder, Kleck, etc.
 
The New England Journal of Medicine is notoriously anti-gun. Their credibility is nil due to their passionate, but illogical hatred of firearms.
The three editors of the prominent medical journal, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, Stephen Morrissey and Dr. Gregory Curfman, said handguns were far more likely to cause harm than do good.

"In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death," they wrote in a commentary released in Thursday's issue.
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Interesting that they use words like "logic", "certain" and "well documented" without actually presenting a well-reasoned opinion backed up by evidence.

Where is the documentation? (Hint: It's been discredited)
What is the logic? (Hint: A follows B, so A caused B) :rolleyes:
If it is so "certain," why have so many states successfully passed right-to-carry laws with so few problems? (Hint: The only thing certain is that these guys sit on their brains all day)
"A number of scientific studies, published in the world's most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals, show the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home outweigh the potential benefits," Dr. Arthur Kellerman, an emergency physician at Emory University in Atlanta, wrote in The Washington Post.
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There are 80+ Million law-abiding gun owners who didn't shoot anybody today that would like to respectfully disagree with you, Dr. Kellerman.

That article is the most slanted piece of yellow-journalism that I've read in a very long time. :barf:
 
It's too bad that these anti-gun doctors don't stick a little closer to home and work on reducing the 250,000 annual deaths caused by mistakes, incompetence, and malpractice on the part of their own colleges and the medical profession in general. Think of the lives they could save.
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Somewhere around 100,000 are due to hospital acquired infections (HA-MRSA) that are spread because attending physicians nowadays can't be bothered to do something as basic as wash their hands before examining a patient.
 
Give that old "doctors causing so many deaths" thing a rest. We always gripe about gun grabbers twisting facts and that is exactly what that story is doing. It is loosely based on a report from 2000 that listed 80,000 deaths from infections (which is common in penetrating injuries, see how many people would die from infection if they could not go to the hospital for treatment) and 106,000 deaths from "complications from medications (which is also a small percentage of people taking medication and many of those are unavoidable due to allergic reaction, misuse, and normal risk for people with serious illness).

If you take into account how many people die each year that did not seek medical treatment and how many people do go to the doctor each year that number at it's full account makes up .25% of the total number. That is as in one quarter of one percent (.0025)...hardly a big risk. If you take out those ridiculous numbers for infection and drug reactions/abuse the percentage/odds drop way, way lower.
 
I'm sorry, but, I've had one guy come REAL close to killing me, through negligence, either with drugs or poor surgical procedure. You try getting your lungs filled up with blood clots, spend 5 days in ICU, and tell me not to be scared of going to the hospital. :mad:

Not to mention the forever damage to the veins in my right leg. Try putting on a pressure sock every night, and tell me about how great doctors are...:barf:
 
I'm sorry, but, I've had one guy come REAL close to killing me, through negligence, either with drugs or poor surgical procedure. You try getting your lungs filled up with blood clots, spend 5 days in ICU, and tell me not to be scared of going to the hospital
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I am not afraid to go to the hospital. I am more afraid to not go when I need treatment. On three occasions in my life, without a doubt, I would have died had I not gone to the hospital.
 
If people won't deal with facts, its no use arguing with them, because they're entrenched in irrational beliefs. Homicides in CCW-issuing states do go down.
Most crimminals are bottom feeding cowards, who don't want to risk getting killed.
 
The New England Journal of Medicine is notoriously anti-gun. Their credibility is nil due to their passionate, but illogical hatred of firearms.

Quote:
The three editors of the prominent medical journal, Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, Stephen Morrissey and Dr. Gregory Curfman, said handguns were far more likely to cause harm than do good.

"In our opinion, there is little reason to expect an optimistic result; research has shown and logic would dictate that fewer restrictions on handguns will result in a substantial increase in injury and death," they wrote in a commentary released in Thursday's issue.

Interesting that they use words like "logic", "certain" and "well documented" without actually presenting a well-reasoned opinion backed up by evidence.

Where is the documentation? (Hint: It's been discredited)
What is the logic? (Hint: A follows B, so A caused B)
If it is so "certain," why have so many states successfully passed right-to-carry laws with so few problems? (Hint: The only thing certain is that these guys sit on their brains all day)

Quote:
"A number of scientific studies, published in the world's most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals, show the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home outweigh the potential benefits," Dr. Arthur Kellerman, an emergency physician at Emory University in Atlanta, wrote in The Washington Post.

There are 80+ Million law-abiding gun owners who didn't shoot anybody today that would like to respectfully disagree with you, Dr. Kellerman.

That article is the most slanted piece of yellow-journalism that I've read in a very long time.
__________________
-Dave Miller
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ!
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Yep in spades - the NEJM and I parted company with plenty of hard feelings decades ago because of their anti-gun "articles" - really just editorials. It's interesting that Arthur Kellerman passes himself off as an "emergency physician" when, in fact, he is lying (as usual). He's the best example of how you know he's lying - his lips are moving.

Truth be known, he is a public health type employee of the CDC in Atlanta (our tax dollars at work) and has been so for decades and was best known for

1. His anti-gun campaign and

2. His fabrication of facts to support that stance.

He spoke here with financial support from one of our politician cardiologists and the nursing school I was once the physician for. :barf:

I wrote the following letter to the editors opinion page to answer his visit and it was very well received here by most all who called me - didn't get one negative response and a lot of positive responses. I was actively practicing surgery then.

Tell it to The Gazette
PO Box 1779
Colorado Springs, CO 80901

Editors:

Public Health doctors tell us we should regard guns as “viruses” to be eradicated because exposure of persons to this “virus” causes them to contract the disease of “gun violence” that they are powerless to resist. Thus, guns are a public health problem.

Viruses cause hepatitis and AIDS and having close relationships with those harboring these viruses gives one significant risk of catching those diseases. This is clearly a public health problem.

I have had close relationships with guns for more than sixty-five years but have never felt like committing “gun violence.” My wife and I have had a close relationship for twenty years and she is not afflicted either.

Astonishingly, public health doctors seem to have ignored the most effective tool ever devised to eradicate viruses-IMMUNIZATION. We inject a less powerful variant of viruses into persons and their bodies develop immunity to the more powerful virus. Using this principle, we could require every person to acquire a less powerful gun such as a .22 caliber single shot rifle. With time, their bodies would develop immunity so they could all safely handle and shoot more powerful guns such as handguns, semiautomatics, and even “assault rifles” without fear of developing the dreaded “gun violence” disease.

It seems to have worked for me.

Yours truly,
O J KING, MD
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Personally, I went to my dealer and bought a new lever rifle to celebrate the Supreme Court's decision.:D

:rolleyes:
 
Give that old "doctors causing so many deaths" thing a rest. We always gripe about gun grabbers twisting facts and that is exactly what that story is doing. It is loosely based on a report from 2000 that listed 80,000 deaths from infections (which is common in penetrating injuries, see how many people would die from infection if they could not go to the hospital for treatment) and 106,000 deaths from "complications from medications (which is also a small percentage of people taking medication and many of those are unavoidable due to allergic reaction, misuse, and normal risk for people with serious illness).

If you take into account how many people die each year that did not seek medical treatment and how many people do go to the doctor each year that number at it's full account makes up .25% of the total number. That is as in one quarter of one percent (.0025)...hardly a big risk. If you take out those ridiculous numbers for infection and drug reactions/abuse the percentage/odds drop way, way lower.
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So many facts and figures and not a single citation to back them up. :rolleyes:

Reminds me of the old adage of how 78.5% of statistics are made up on the spot. :D

Here's a redacted version of Starfield's article. I don't have a paid subscription so that'll have to suffice. The 80,000 figure is from 2000 and is likely higher today with the increasing prevelance of MRSA.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2000/07/30/doctors-death-part-one.aspx

98,000 deaths per year due to to medical malpractice, you're right, that's a mere pittance not worth mentioning. :rolleyes:
 
98,000 deaths per year due to to medical malpractice, you're right, that's a mere pittance not worth mentioning.
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The actual report does not state the deaths occur from "malpractice," They say they are "iatrogenic" in nature. That is not the same thing as malpractice. Malpractice denotes negligence but iatrogenic does not necessarily mean wrong doing. It does include malpractice but it also includes simple complications in treatment. Meaning a person can not respond to proper treatment, have a negative reaction to proper treatment, or develop secondary illness/infection while receiving treatment.

Take into account how many of these same people that passed away while receiving treatment would have passed away if they sought no treatment what-so-ever. Did you ever think of that? Then think of how many of the hundreds of millions of people that receive medical care every year would have died without treatment. That number would make the tens of thousand you mention pale in comparison.

But maybe you are right. That must be why people lives so much longer and where so much healthier in pioneer days than they do now. Back when so few people had access to proper healthcare. :rolleyes:
 
They also consider any gang member under the age of 21 a child and at one time the age was 24. Remove gang on gang crime, and inner city violence, and the rest of America isn't that far off stats from other nations that allow firearms.
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There was a comparison done a few decades back between Seattle, WA and Vancouver, BC. Those two cities are very close in population, location, weather conditions, etc. The study was related to gun violence, and was categorized by ethnic boundaries. Seattle had, and maybe still has, a much higher per capita population of blacks than Vancouver. This demograpic group, due to gangs and drug dealing by blacks, skewed the gun violence events so that Seattle had a much higher gun violence problem than did Vancouver, which is to be expected. However, when they looked at other demographic groups, such as whites and Asians, Vancouver actually had higher rates or almost identical rates of gun violence when compared to Seattle. This was not a study to denigrate African Americans by any means. However, it certainly helps to point out that gun violence does not necessarily have a causal relationship to the availability of guns. Handguns, which account for the big majority of all gun violence, are much more heavily restricted in Canada, than they are in the State of Washington. This was one debating point when anti gun folks looked to Canada and said, "See, Canada has much stricter regulations on guns and they have a lower violent crime rate than the US does".
 
PBP wrote, "But maybe you are right. That must be why people lives so much longer and where so much healthier in pioneer days than they do now. Back when so few people had access to proper healthcare."

Uh, you don't, by chance, work in the medical field, do you? Let's not jump to give doctors credit for things they may not deserve. Many people are living longer without ever visiting a doctor.

But, back to subject at hand...Let's just keep an eye on the D.C. statistics that play out in the wake of the SC decision. The silence may be deafening...
 
PBP is correct. Most MRSA infections in hospitals are not due to medical malpractice. As the use of antibiotics increases, bacteria mutate, and thus the number of infections from antibiotic resistant bacteria will also increase.

Also, as PBP points out, there are many things that are iatrogenic (ie, caused by medical personell) that are not malpractice. An example would be an allergic reaction to penicillin in a patient not known to have allergies.

As kmoffit points out, we are living longer for many reasons. But for many diseases, the increase in life span is clearly due to improvements in medical care. I am not sure how you could suggest otherwise. If you look at pneumonia, for example, you can easily conclude that survival is directly related to the use of antibiotics starting about 1945.
 
As a general point, let us keep in mind all of the doom and gloom predictions of how many deaths would result in states were CCW permit laws became "shall issue". The same arguments were used. The more guns on the street, the more violence and death there will be. There will be wild west shootouts like at the OK Corral. Road rage will turn into road kill. Dads will be shooting each other over their son's and daughters sporting events. Yes, we've heard it all before. It didn't come true then, and it won't now.
 
"A number of scientific studies, published in the world's most rigorous, peer-reviewed journals, show the risks of keeping a loaded gun in the home outweigh the potential benefits,"
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I have looked at at least one of these studies and found it to be sound in its research methods, but not to draw the conclusion I would. It was very obvious that what they should have concluded was 'If you have a single handgun in your house that you have never fired, store loaded and unlocked the risks out weight the benefits.' There are far too many nightstand, glovebox, and purse guns that have never been fired by their owners.
 
I have to point out that the doctors themselves will tell you that, if you stay in the hospital a week or more, you're more likely to die of something you contracted there, than what you came in for. That's why they're in such a hurry to get people back out again, it's not just cost savings.

Sure, it may be because a lot of people in hospitals are immune compromised and otherwise weakened, but it's also because the invention of anti-biotics caused the medical profession to slack off on simple sanitation.

I mean, they use carpeting in a lot of hospitals! You ever try to sterilize a carpet? It's madness!

So, yeah, they really DO need to attend to the beam in their own eye, before addressing our splinter.
 
Given that I have been hearing about 3 times a week from the news here about kids dying in pools shouldn't the doctors be a little more concerned about those?
 
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