With the government [sic] targeting our healthcare and ultimately targeting to take control over it, imagine a world in which all healthcare was controlled by the government. You want a gun? Fine that is your right, but you won’t get healthcare coverage.
Think about it.
Is a gun like a virus, tobacco or alcohol? According to “public health experts,“ who in the wake of recent mass shootings are calling for a fresh look at gun violence as a ”social disease,” it is.
What we need, they say, is a “public health approach” to the problem.
Dr. Garen Wintemute of University of California, Davis claims it is no longer enough to tackle gun violence by focusing solely on the people doing the shooting. Dr. Stephen Hargarten, who treated victims of the Sikh temple shootings at the emergency department he heads in Milwaukee, feels the same way.
“What I’m struggling with is, is this the new social norm?” he asked, before asserting: “This is what we’re going to have to live with if we have more personal access to firearms.”
He continued: “We have a public health issue to discuss. Do we wait for the next outbreak or is there something we can do to prevent it?”
About 260 million to 300 million firearms are owned by civilians in the United States; about one-third of American homes have one. Last year, 55 percent of Americans said gun laws should either remain the same or become more lenient.
These tragedy’s like Aurora, CO; the Sikh temple; VA Tech; Arizona, et al, while tragic yes, pale drastically in comparison to “normal” gun violence. Virginia Tech (2007) was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history with 32 deaths. Compare that with the 10,129 gun murders in 2007 alone (Source Guardian.co.uk).
Since 2007, murders by firearms has consistently dropped nearly 500 murders year over year, while gun ownership has sharply risen. So when taken as a whole and not looked at through a very, very, very narrow lens such as a single mass shooting incident or two, you can see that the health issue of firearms is complete nonsense.
I had friends just days after the Aurora, CO shooting touting that we need to license people to own firearms. I quickly explained to them that licenses do not stop people form speeding or texting while driving. Why would licenses stop people from committing murder? They quickly responded with “something has to be done.” They were simply emotional about the incident. It was very tragic.
People get caught up in the moment and the media does nothing but feeds the frenzy. My own father-in-law who does not buy new guns because he doesn’t want the government “knowing” what he has, has gone so far as to say they need to do something. When I pressed him as to his answer he said smaller magazines, etc. His claim was that nobody “needs” to have 20 rounds in a glock magazine, or 30 rounds in a rifle when 5 or 10 would do just fine for defense.
Of course he is a 1967-69 Camaro buff. He like muscle cars. When I suggested that everyone should be made to drive a Camry or similar because nobody “needs” a Camaro, Challenger, Charger, Ram pickup, etc, when smaller and less powerful cars/trucks will get you where you need to go just fine. Needless to say his attitude changes.
See when people who argue for these ridiculous so called “sensible gun laws” have those same principles applied to their own biases, their attitude shifts dramatically.
Certainly the concept is not new. What is new, is that in this case it is not the government, FDA, HHS, etc. In this case it is the health community itself, i.e. doctors, etc.
Absolutely. All the more reason to vote for those who would be less inclined to abuse that power. Power that should have never been given to them in the first place.
What’s new is the government-directed electronic health record and the government’s quality improvement directives. Certain tests have to be done, certain questions have to be asked, and they have to be recorded, aggregated, and submitted. If they aren’t, the government doesn’t pay. In 2014, they start assessing penalties. You should all be worried about what they’ll be able to do with that data as the process evolves.
As to individual doctors, they all have just individual opinions. They won’t be able to take your guns away and there’s no behind-the-scenes conspiracy to change that.
Unfortunately it’s not new. Doctors under the direction of the WHO and domestic organizations including the CDC have been involved for a very long time.
I’ve been a doctor for a very long time. Nobody, nobody, has ever come to me mandating or even requesting that I take a stand for or against guns. This is a highly overblown concept and great fodder for gun-control conspiracy theorists.
It won’t work like that. It’ll start with identifying gun owners, then it will go to expanding the definitions of prohibited persons, then it will go to YOU not getting paid if you don’t collect the information they want. And then it will go to criminalizing your non-compliance with that collection whether you get paid or not…then you’ll either go to the cartridge box or you’ll knuckle under like most people will. That’s how it will work.
I’m talking about the way things are and the way things have been “for a very long time”. As you note, we should all be worried about the future as Obama is trying to shape it. Gun control through back door methods like that is going to be pretty far down the scale of things you should be worried about.
I remember over two years ago when this issue came up in Florida when a parent supposedly refused to answer whether she had a gun in her home and her doctor basically dismissed her to find treatment elsewhere within 30 days.
I educated myself on how the various pediatric organizations really feel about guns. They aren’t hiding their feelings. This information is easy to find straight from their websites.
The American Association of Pediatrics urges pediatricians to ask questions of parents about gun ownership when they get children’s medical histories and to suggest that parents remove guns from the home.
The American Academy of Pediatrics’ position on firearm-related injuries states ‘the absence of guns from children’s homes and communities is the most reliable and effective measure to prevent firearm-related injuries’ to them.
Big Brother always knows what’s best. It’s only going to get worse folks.
Yep. The LONGTERM health, safety, & security of my family, and my NATION, are predicated upon a healthy, vigorous exercise of the 2nd Amendment, and my ‘Liberty teeth!’
