I recently went to the doctor, just a simple checkup. Nobody like going to the Doctor or the Dentist or anyone who wears a white coat. But you know that questionnaire about your lifestyle; Do you smoke? How often do you drink? Any family issues? blah blah… But then I was looking for one particular question after all the fake shootings which has been negatively effecting our constitutional gun rights in America:
Do you own a gun in your home? Wasn’t on the form as of yet but Doctors are increasingly asking this question, and ‘some’ lawmakers are trying to stop them.
Florida, Gov. Rick Scott signed a law in 2011 banning doctors from asking about firearms in their patients’ lives.
But doctors/govt still think this is a great idea … to protect you; from yourself. In some states they can now confiscate your weapons if they believe you even have a slight mental illness according to your ‘practicing doctor’.
Also in a new study, they said that no law should stop them from asking about guns:
“Firearm violence is an important health problem, and most physicians agree that they should help prevent that violence,” wrote Garen J. Wintemute, a public health expert at the University of California Davis and co-author of the paper, in an email to The Washington Post. In the literature review, which doubles as a call-to-arms, the authors conclude it is neither illegal nor unreasonable to ask patients about gun safety.
“No federal or state law prohibits doctors from asking about firearms, counseling about their use, and — when there is imminent risk of harm — disclosing information to others who can help,” Wintemute said. Several states have mulled statutes similar to Florida’s, but none of the proposed bills have passed.
“Physicians seek to prevent important health problems at the individual and population levels,” Wintemute and his colleagues write. “They inquire and counsel—routinely in some cases, selectively in others—about a wide range of health-related behaviors and conditions. In certain circumstances, they disclose otherwise confidential information to third parties to limit the risk an affected person poses to others. “
These doctors claim genuine concern about their patients – and that’s probably 60% true. Men who show signs of depression are are at a high risk to commit suicide with a gun, statistically speaking. And being forced to confess you keep guns in your house within reach of your young children might be enough to convince someone to not to let your Doctor know the truth. And that’s exactly what you should say: