Virginia gun bill -

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Without venturing into your rhetorical labyrinth, I'll simply note that the
bill was specific to history-taking.  A doctor who asks about firearms in
the home would be cited for unprofessional conduct and declared in violation
of medical licensing regulations.  How freaking hyperbolically stupid is
THAT?

The Virginia House of Delegates should be ashamed of themselves for ever
bringing this to the floor.  The bill had NRA fingerprints all over it.

Pret

-----Original Message-----
From: J.A. Terranson [mailto:measl at mfn.org] 
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 8:51 AM
To: Trauma & Critical Care mailing list
Subject: Re: Virginia gun bill - 



On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 docrickfry at aol.com wrote:

> Sorry JA, but you are off base here.

Perhaps you missed the core argument if this is your belief.  We appear to
be making the same argument here.

> It is perfectly appropriate for
> physicians to be actively involved in injury prevention--you would not
> bat an eye if a pediatrician talked to the parents about being sure the
> medicine cabinets in a home were secure from their children getting hold
> of dangerous pills, or if the cupboards in the kitchen with poisonous
> household cleaners were secured from children, or that their swimming
> pool in the backyard was secure to prevent neighborhood or their kids
> from drowning.

Absolutely.  And parents are routinely reminded to keep glass above the
reach of children, to move detergents to a place where ingestion isn't
possible, etc.  At no point are these items reccommended for "removal from
the home".

At the point the profession crosses over from recommending injury
prevention methodologies and begins recommending political positions, the
medical practitioner has left his or her scope of practice.

>  Put all those other potential causes of death and
> morbidity together and you would not come near the mortality and
> morbidity rate of firearms in the pediatric age group. which is rising
> at the fastest rate of any other age group.

That's an interesting statistic which I've not seen nor heard of.  Can you
cite it?

> Thus how can you be
> consistent or logical at all in also decrying the cautioning against the
> easy access of firearms to children which are so much deadlier?

I clearly cannot.  I would wholeheartedly recommend enhanced saftey
measures to gun owners in light of a childs presence.  But removal is not
a safety measure, it's a political position.  I would recommend trigger
guards, high placement, separation of ammunition from the firearm, etc.


As with milions of children, I grew up with firearms in the house,
including handguns small enough for me to have successfully fired.  That I
failed to do so was due to meticulous parental care - and recommending
this is certainly a standard of care.  Recommending political actions are
better saved for the election cycle.


--
Yours,

J.A. Terranson
sysadmin at mfn.org
0xBD4A95BF


'The right of self defence is the first law of nature: in most governments
it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest
limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of
the people to keep and bear arms is, under any colour or pretext
whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the
brink of destruction.'

St. George Tucker
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