Doctors worried by Supreme Court gun ruling
- Thread starter oystermick
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Thanks - I'm glad to see someone read it and appreciated it for what it was intended - satire intended to embarrass the "public health" types doctors such as Arthur Kellerman.
The AMA is frequently quoted for their anti-gun stance. The latest figures I've seen show about 1/3 of the doctors in the country are members and, like many medical organizations - exists primarily to support their full time staff and benefit to members is a by-product (though the same can be said about the NRA).
I'm a "Charter Life Member" of the AMA (paid dues at least 25 years) but that organization has nothing to do with medicine - it's American Motorcyclist Association. I parted company with the medical one in 1970 when we finally got it made that membership was not mandatory to practice - which it had been - for all parctical purposes.
I've been retired for some 15 years now and am not happy with many things in the medical world here today. However, as was mentioned, we, as responsible gun enthusiasts, don't like to be painted with the broad black brush and depicted in the same class as those who misuse guns or are negligent with them. It ill behooves us gunners to paint any group such as doctors with any broad black brush. Many of us dedicated our lives to our patients and their health working long hours, nights, week-ends, and holidays and taking calls 24/7.
But, that was our choice and we weren't forced into it.
Preach that! Three of my five sons would not have survived early childhood, and one of the others would probably be retarded, if it were not for modern medicine and dedicated medical professionals. I unquestionably would have died, too. We're all basically healthy folks, but the kids were accident prone and there's no doubt at all that my youngest son and I would both have died without the emergency c-section that saved his life and mine. As it was, it was a near thing.
That's not even getting into the question of whether any of us would be crippled from polio without having had the vaccine, or dead from smallpox or whooping cough (horrible ways to die), or dead from any of the other dozen serious diseases that reguarly killed children in my grandmother's era.
So yeah, mark me down as someone else who thinks it is a shame to distort statistics to tell lies about medical professionals. Doctors save lives. Modern medicine saves lives.
pax
The American Medical Association, like many other once fine institutions in our country, has been politicized in the last 15 years. It began liberalizing some time ago and began making statements on political issues more often. The fact that the AMA is governed by a group of liberal leaning professionals cannot be denied. The AMA has become just another political stick that liberals use to beat their ideology into us with.
Sad. The AMA was once a well respected organization among people of all ideologies. Now, it is simply a liberal bastion of nutty ideologues.
Sad. The AMA was once a well respected organization among people of all ideologies. Now, it is simply a liberal bastion of nutty ideologues.
Unregistered
Moderator
I am a former member of the AMA, and I concur with your opinion. The AMA is dominated by liberal publich health physicians who have become very detatched from the actual practice of medicine and are more involved political agendas.
I resigned from the AMA about 6 years ago when their new president declared handguns to be a public health crisis.
Playboypenguin
Moderator
Doctors do not cure disease. Medical researchers cure disease.
Ask Bush and others that have given the pharmacuetical industry free reign to charge what they want and answer to no one. There are many examples of research being abandoned that came too close to curing diseases that they did not wish to cure but instead were researching maintenance possibilities. It is more profitable to not cure a disease but to instead develop an expensive long term treatment plan. Why sell someone one pill or a vaccination when you can sell them five pills daily for the rest of their lives.
As for the fact of being more likely to be injured by a firearm in an accident if you have one in the home...that is true. It is also a blatantly misleading and disingenuous use of statistics.
Most accident happen in the home. If you have a handgun in your home you are more likely to have an accident involving one than people who do not own a handgun. That is just simple logic. It is like saying you are more likely to fall down the stairs in a home that actually has stairs than in a one level home that has none. It is an unavoidable fact that has nothing to do with the inherent dangers of stairs or guns. It does not mean a large number of people that have guns will have an accident or a large number of people will fall down the stairs. It just means that the small percentage that do have access to stairs and gun and actually have an accident will be slightly higher than the small percentage of people who do not have access to stairs or guns.
The statistics regarding accidents in the home also does not take into account successful home defenses that did not require a shot being fired not does it take into count successful defensive use of the gun while it is outside the home.
They also do not point out that the addition of a firearm to a home does not noticeable increase your overall chance of having a serious injury in your home. It just increases the chance a firearm will be involved. You still have an almost equal chance of being injured by other means. Firearms injuries make up a tiny, almost negligible, part of serious home injuries.
Some people are agenda driven and do not let facts or logic interfere with their opinions. Give them one piece of misleading information and they will run with it their entire lives.
Unregistered
Moderator
I agree with much of what you say PBP, but I am not so sure about this. Do you have examples? I have been in medicine now for about 20 years, and can't name an example.
Playboypenguin
Moderator
The example that most clearly comes to mind was a report I read several years ago regarding hair loss. A memo from a major pharmecuatical company was leaked where they abandoned a particular test group because the treatment was too "permanent and not requiring continued treatment" and therefore "did not financially support the cost of development."
Meaning they could probably cure baldness but the treatment did not require monthly purchase of the product so it was not beneficial to them to continue research on that drug.
Double Naught Spy
New member
Well, since Florida passed shall issue concealed carry in 1987, about 36 other states have followed suit and the crime rates have decreased.
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/FSAC/UCR/1996/trends.asp
If you are talking about violent crime, the claim is bogus. While the violent crime rate did drop by 1.6% (adjusted for population change) from 1986 to 1987, it has a huge 9.1% increase from 1987 to 1988. Florida had much more significant drops in violent crime in years preceding concealed carry that are often neglected such as 1976 (6.2%), 1982 (7.3%), and 1983 (7.4%). Violent crime not only went up in 1988, but 1989, and 1990. Then it fluctuated back and forth 1996. So claiming the crime there was a drop in the crime rate as caused or correlated with concealed carry isn't valid.
Of course, if you have stats to the contrary that can show that concealed carry lowered the crime rate (causation), I would like to see them.
http://www.fdle.state.fl.us/FSAC/UCR/1996/trends.asp
If you are talking about violent crime, the claim is bogus. While the violent crime rate did drop by 1.6% (adjusted for population change) from 1986 to 1987, it has a huge 9.1% increase from 1987 to 1988. Florida had much more significant drops in violent crime in years preceding concealed carry that are often neglected such as 1976 (6.2%), 1982 (7.3%), and 1983 (7.4%). Violent crime not only went up in 1988, but 1989, and 1990. Then it fluctuated back and forth 1996. So claiming the crime there was a drop in the crime rate as caused or correlated with concealed carry isn't valid.
Of course, if you have stats to the contrary that can show that concealed carry lowered the crime rate (causation), I would like to see them.
parrothead2581
New member
I have to agree. Looking at the relationship between violent crime rates and CCW states is nothing more than a correlation. It does not prove cause and effect.
I can claim that as the amount of ice cream sold increases, the number of drownings increases. Does that mean ice cream causes drownings? No, it simply means it's summer.
I do believe that CCW can deter crime, but I'm not so sure that the majority of criminals are even aware that CCW exists, which would effect the deterrent side of CCW.
Some of you guys are too tough on physicians and PH workers.
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OJ,I agree, essentially, but anti-gun doctors should be painted for what they are--- with a brush far less broad that accurately depicts them as people who use their profession to further they're anti-gun political aims---while not being all that interested in saving lives by cleaning up their own back yards.
For them to suggest that the SCOTUS ruling will cost more lives because responsible citizens living in anti-gun cities will now be able to defend their own homes is crap.
The same as Sarah Brady proclaiming they were going to have to rename Florida the GUNShine State when they passed the nations first shall issue carry law.
Unregistered
Moderator
The key word is responsible. I don't think they are claiming that responsible citizens will cause problems. They are saying that as gun ownership increases, the chances for injury increases. I believe this to be true also. In a gun-free home, the chances of a child getting a gun and accidentally shooting himself is zero.
I have no doubt that the more guns that are available, the more gun injuries will occur. The same is true for bicycles, automobiles, and swimming pools. Most of the injuries are derived from doing something stupid.
In my mind, the risks of gun ownership are outweighed by the benefits. Its a shame but a certain number of kids are going to accidentally shoot themselves with guns because someone irresponsible leaves the gun where they can get to it. Thats an unavoidable side effect of freedom.
Florida's law wasn't the first. There were eight states with shall-issue concealed carry laws that predated Florida's law, and one (Vermont) has never required a permit at all. Washington state, for example, enacted a may-issue law in 1935 and moved to shall-issue in 1961. Florida's shall-issue law was not enacted until 1987.
See http://www.gun-nuttery.com/maps/1986.gif for a still image of what the country's shall-issue status looked like in 1986, or http://www.gun-nuttery.com/rtc.php for an animated .gif which shows the changes since that time.
pax
cool hand luke 22:36
New member
Crap, Crap, Crap and more Crap.
Who's lying here? Denying that Doctors ("modern medicine") via malpractice are responsible for more accidental deaths deaths than are gun owners, legal and illegal, through accidents and deliberate shootings is, frankly, a lie of omission at the very least.
Yes Doctors save lives; they also take plenty through negligence and outright incompetence.
I thought it was crap.
armedandsafe
New member
I LOVE that 2006 map!
Still not perfect, but we're getting there.
Pops
Still not perfect, but we're getting there.
Pops
Yep - but, I think what is being forgotten here is the anti-gun stuff came from the NEJM - which does not represent doctors in general. Direct your vitriol where it belongs - toward the "MEDIA" - which is what the NEJM is - and does not represent doctors - by any means. Keep in mind it is not "doctors" saying those anti-gun things and bad-mouthing doctors in general doesn't do much for those of us who love our guns or promote our feelings and beliefs. I'm not anti-gun and none of my fellow doctors weren't either - most of whom I hunted with regularly.
The NEJM does not, in any way, represent doctors.
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