Doctors worried by Supreme Court gun ruling

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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
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Careful, those who are too quick on the trigger miss their target.

I'm not forgetting anything, and am very specific about those members of the profession that I criticize.

My criticizim was/is aimed specifically at ANTI-GUN doctors. Not so much those who hold anti-gun personal opinions, but those who are organized or who are active in their anti-gun persuits. Like asking patients on a questionaire if they own guns and them giving them a lecture if they do. Or those Doctors at the CDC who are more interested in regulating guns than practicing medicine.

On the other hand, my dentist and I regularly discuss hunting and handguns. My MD is a fan of shooting pistols for recreation.

Your admonition should be saved for someone who actually does blame the medical profession in general, which would be me if I thought they deserved it.
 
Actually, it's the height of hypocrisy for doctors to complain.
As a group, they are going to be one of the unintended beneficiaries of an increase in gun shootings, if they indeed do increase, which remains to be scene...
 
As a group, they are going to be one of the unintended beneficiaries of an increase in gun shootings, if they indeed do increase, which remains to be scene
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I am not sure what you mean. How will doctors benefit from an increase in gun shootings?:confused:
 
More patients to treat (more gunshot victims) = more revenue.
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Hmmm... you must not realize that most gunshot wound patients have no money, and no insurance. They don't pay their bills, they get treated for free, and burden physicians and hospitals. Gunshot vicitims (because of the likelihood they engage in drug use and other high risk activities) are also more likely to have hepatitis and HIV which pose a threat to doctors and medical staff also.

Nothing good ever comes out of the 2 am phone call from the ER that a gunshot victim has arrived. I can count on getting nothing. Plus, the next day, when I am in the office seeing paying patients, I am often tired and have to cut the day short.

An increase in gunshot victims = less revenue.
 
Careful, those who are too quick on the trigger miss their target.

I'm not forgetting anything, and am very specific about those members of the profession that I criticize.

My criticizim was/is aimed specifically at ANTI-GUN doctors. Not so much those who hold anti-gun personal opinions, but those who are organized or who are active in their anti-gun persuits. Like asking patients on a questionaire if they own guns and them giving them a lecture if they do. Or those Doctors at the CDC who are more interested in regulating guns than practicing medicine.
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Yep - we are in total agreement and I feel the same way you do about anti-gun doctors. I just don't think something published in a liberal rag like the NEJM is excuse for any posts implying all doctors mainly do is kill people and commit malpractice.

Yes Doctors save lives; they also take plenty through negligence and outright incompetence
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I practiced surgery about 40 years and not only saved a lot of lives and cured a lot of cancers and other potentailly fatal problems but, was only sued once for "malpractice" - the jury found for me, declared it a frivolous suit and the palintiff had to pay my court costs.

Hmmm... you must not realize that most gunshot wound patients have no money, and no insurance. They don't pay their bills, they get treated for free, and burden physicians and hospitals. Gunshot vicitims (because of the likelihood they engage in drug use and other high risk activities) are also more likely to have hepatitis and HIV which pose a threat to doctors and medical staff also.

Nothing good ever comes out of the 2 am phone call from the ER that a gunshot victim has arrived. I can count on getting nothing. Plus, the next day, when I am in the office seeing paying patients, I am often tired and have to cut the day short.

An increase in gunshot victims = less revenue.
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That was my experience - I can count on the fingers of one hand the gun shot wound victims I operated on that paid their bills.

:rolleyes:
 
Hmmm... you must not realize that most gunshot wound patients have no money, and no insurance. They don't pay their bills, they get treated for free, and burden physicians and hospitals. Gunshot vicitims (because of the likelihood they engage in drug use and other high risk activities) are also more likely to have hepatitis and HIV which pose a threat to doctors and medical staff also.

Nothing good ever comes out of the 2 am phone call from the ER that a gunshot victim has arrived. I can count on getting nothing. Plus, the next day, when I am in the office seeing paying patients, I am often tired and have to cut the day short.

An increase in gunshot victims = less revenue.
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Please don't attempt to educate me on the health care system and reimbursement, especially in a snide tone. Being formally trained in public health and health care administration, I'm well aware that the above does happen.

I was simply offering one explanation for Socrates' statement above. My interpretation of what he may have been trying to convey.

I never said it was correct or that I believed it.
 
Double Naught Spy posted: 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.
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OK. You asked.

First of all, the reference you cited does not integrate population data with crime data, so there's a certain apples and oranges problem interpreting it. The Florida Bureau of Justice data (not the FL Dept of Law Enforcement interpretation) is here and shows a clear increased downward trend after 1987. Download the Excel worksheet and graph the rates (adjusted by population). Start with 1971 to avoid skewing from missing data and omit the two other missing data years.

Here are some other related data with links.

Link

In Florida, for example, a murder rate that was 36% above the national average when carry reform went into effect in 1987, fell by 1991 to 4% below the national average.
[snip]
Accordingly, we now look at the overall trends in Florida murder rates. Of all the states that enacted concealed carry reform, Florida shows the most dramatic change. As the graph details, Florida's murder rate throughout the period 1975-1986 was between 118% and 157% of the murder rate elsewhere in America. After passage of Florida's law, the murder rate began declining, rapidly, dramatically, and consistently, at a time when the rest of the U.S. was experiencing an increase in murder rates. By 1991, Floridians were less likely to be murdered than people elsewhere in America. Only in 1992 did the murder rate percentage stop falling. Even then, this is because the U.S. murder rate fell more than 10% from 1991 to 1992, while the Florida murder rate fell "only" 5%.
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Another link to download a PDF of The Impact of "Shall-Issue" Concealed Handgun Laws on Violent Crime Rates

Causality or its absence is not demonstrated either by your claim or by the reductions shown by the data. But there is a demonstrable correlation.
 
I seem to remember the FBI figures supporting the CCW laws, and a drop in crime occuring after the shall issue laws.

Can we all have a moment of silence for the poor doctors, who might loose a few dollars...That's enough.:rolleyes:

My experience with our local 'non-profit' might give a bit of a different view. If I go into the E.R. with a cyst, with no insurance, it will be billed at between 1-2 thousand dollars. If I go in with Blue Shield, they bill Blue Shield 200-400 dollars. It's kind of a Catch 22. They bill totally outrageous amounts for services worth 10-20 times less because they figure they aren't going to get paid anyway.
When you get the bill, since you aren't in a great financial position in the first place, or you would have insurance, you can't pay it, even if you wanted to.
The business writes it off as an unpaid debt, and, the system of corruption continues on it's merry way.

I've noted a few other things like my insurance company paying 80 dollars for an Ace bandage, and not been real thrilled about it, since, having the insurance at the time, it was my premiums that paid it.

BAck to the topic: Has anyone pulled the CCW years from the FBI data base on violent crime? I did awhile back, checking places to live, and found Miami was WAY better then places I had thought safe...
 
Letting doctors dictate public policy for the socio-economic issue of firearms ... is like letting lawyers do brain surgery.


With regards to CCW & Crime... CCW may not be the cause of lower crime... but neither does it add any significant increase. The net effect, however, may be in increased prosecutions as an armed citizen is more likely to be an active witness and aid police that way.


Kellerman's "study" that resulted in the "43 times..." sound bite for the Brady Bunch (then HCI) was so flawed as to be absurd. He excluded any positive, non-firing, non-fatal uses, such as deterring a crime or wounding an intruder.

This is like studying airplane crashes and omitting all of the safely completed flights. Since airline crashes are almost 100% fatal, you'd presume flying was the most dangerous method of travel.

He also included as "family members" ex-boy/girlfriends, ex-roomies, anyone who had a key to the house and anyone who spent more than one night a week at the house, including drug-users.

Remember too, he carefully worded his statement that a gun was 43 times more likely to be used against a "family member" than to kill a stranger. Given the exclusion of non-fatal uses of a gun, the makeup of his "family" definition and the fact he specifies killing a stranger he's artifically rigging the results.
 
Adverse Effects of Medical Care vs Accidental Firearms Deaths
Rates per 100,000 population

Year Med vs Gun
1999 0.93 vs 0.30
2000 1.00 vs 0.28
2001 0.96 vs 0.28
2002 0.90 vs 0.26
2003 0.87 vs 0.25
2004 0.86 vs 0.22
2005 0.78 vs 0.27
TOTL 0.90 vs 0.26


Deaths due to adverse effects of medical care are about 3-1/2 times more frequent than accidental firearms deaths.

Source: Centers for Disease Control
 
Please don't attempt to educate me on the health care system and reimbursement, especially in a snide tone.
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Didn't mean to be snide. But you were passing along incorrect information and thus propgating the idea that someone penetrating trauma patients are good revenue sources for physicians and hopsitals. They are not. They are uniformly the worst paying patients you can have. They increase health care costs to everyone else, and overburden an already overburdened system.

Why did you not point that out if you knew it?
 
Deaths due to adverse effects of medical care are about 3-1/2 times more frequent than accidental firearms deaths.
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What is the implication of that statement?

Do you think adverse effects are preventable or intentional?
 
I'm surprised that some of the posters here don't just throw in a few gratuitious "N words" while they're showing their solidarity. Cross burning anyone? :rolleyes:

The opinions expressed by the "doctors" in the article cited at the beginning of this thread are not those of the entire US medical community. Here is a link to the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, an organization whose members appear to mostly hold better opinion of the RKBA. http://www.aapsonline.org/results.p...FORID:11&ie=UTF-8&q=gun+control&sa=Search#961
 
Deaths due to adverse effects of medical care are about 3-1/2 times more frequent than accidental firearms deaths
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Like a lot of statistics, that one is weak because of incomplete data. That is the rate per 100,000. Now take into account how many people out of the 100,000 were exposed to firearms and how many were exposed to medical care.
 
Doctors worried by Supreme Court gun ruling

Sure they are. Medical malpractice kills many more than guns and they are just trying to protect the title.
 
Playboypenguin posted: Like a lot of statistics, that one is weak because of incomplete data. That is the rate per 100,000. Now take into account how many people out of the 100,000 were exposed to firearms and how many were exposed to medical care.
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Well, PBP, neither of us knows the answer to that question, do we? Not that the answer has anything to do with the "missing data" argument you pulled out of your hat. Absence of evidence proves nothing. If the CDC statistics are weak, your contrary assertions are vaporous and, so far, unsupported.

I'll take a stab at the answer, though, to mix a metaphor.

JustFacts.com cites 49% of all households have firearms. The Census Bureau tabulates 114,825,428 households in the U.S. with 2.53 people per household. That's 290,508,333 people. So, right away 142,349,083 people are directly "exposed" to firearms in their own homes every day.

So, how many people visit medical providers? You tell me and prove your point.

As for deaths attributed to "Adverse Effects of Healthcare," of course some of these deaths are preventable. The health care folks are constantly working on reducing those numbers. The fact is, medical "accidents" take more lives than firearms accidents.
 
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